Happy Father's Day

      Happy Father's Day to everyone who has fathered a child. Not just the act of intercourse, but the raising of that child into a grown, functioning adult. It is not an easy job! I know since I have been on both ends of the situation.
    My Dad became a single parent when my Mother died in 1955. I was in the fourth grade at the time, and even then knew that rocky roads lay ahead for the two of us. I was the third child, but my brother and sister had already moved away with families of their own. The ten years between my brother and I became a major point of conflict between my Dad and me. My brother grew up in the 1940's and I was part of the Rock 'n Roll generation of the late 1950's and early 60's. The word 'rebel' was a constant part of any argument between Dad and I.

     Dad was a hard-nosed disciplinarian and believed that you had to work hard for everything that came your way. He was a second generation American,...his father came to America in 1908 from Germany and Dad was born two years later in Mobile, Alabama. In 1930 he left Bama and headed for Texas in search of a better life. Immediately upon arriving in Kaufman, Texas he met a girl and started dating her. That would be my mother.

      This photo was taken in 1945 when he returned from World War II and was still looking a bit gaunt. He was six foot four inches tall and used to joke about how bad the Japanese were if they could not hit a target that big. Having children delayed his entrance to the Army but he was drafted just in time to be a part of the invasion of Okinawa.

      This is my Dad and my Uncle Guy in 1946 when both were back from the war... Turned out both had been on the Okinawa invasion. 
    Another bit of differences...My brother looks just like my Dad and both are tall. I take after my Mother's side of the family and peaked out at five foot eight. Here is a photo of the family my Dad
had to leave behind while gone to the war.

     As you can see, my brother is already over six feet tall and here only in the ninth grade. Looking more like Mom, I am four years old here and already a Dallas Cowboy fan...even though they would not come into existence until 1960.
    The squabbles and differences would remain between my Dad and I right up until I dropped out of college and joined the Army in 1964. I had gone to basic training, schooled in codes and radio signals, and then underwent jungle warfare training at Fort Bragg before being sent to Vietnam. On the way to the airport for the flight over he came apart and started crying. For the first time in our relationship he told me he loved me and to be careful. I was twenty-one years old when I heard those words for the first time.

     I knew he loved me from the very beginning. It was just a different time and era, and men didn't go around tossing out words like that. He was always more fond of his first-born son that looked so much like him, but that is not to say he did not make time for my sister and me. He worked extremely hard to make sure we had all the essentials and I can't remember too many things I ever wanted that I didn't get.
    I was still in the Army in December of 1967 when my Dad suffered a heart attack on his way home from church. He died before they could get him to a hospital.

     He is buried next to my Mom and they are together again. I have been without a guiding force in my life until my wife came along, but even she is not the one to talk with about some experiences.
   I guess the lesson learned here is:  Never take your parents for granted. I am the father of three girls and a son...and I have tried to instill in each that every time we part..it could be for the last time. Bad feelings are not to be carried over into a new day. Get it out in the open and get over it (especially tough with 3 girls). I like to think I have a special relationship with each, despite all of them grown with their own families now. We come into this world in a gradual entrance, but we never know when it will be time to depart.
   HAPPY FATHER'S DAY DAD.... I love you !!