My Dad

I didn’t think it was possible to love someone more than I loved my dad until I had children.
Dad was short and round. He was soft spoken and for the most part very even tempered.
Dad left the discipline problems for his children to my mother to solve. After we were grown Mother made mention of that several times. Her direct quote was, “he always made me the heavy.” Dad never spanked me and only yelled at me once, when the “Cowboy” came to sing to me outside my bedroom window.
Dad had only one sibling, a brother, my uncle Roy. Dad’s parents died at a very young age; strokes and heart attacks come to mind. The problem that ran in dad’s family, had a strong gene factory. My brother, Keith, and I have the same problems. Thank goodness for research and statins.
My dad thought education was the answer to all the problems of life. He told me years and years ago that if you didn’t learn at least one new thing every day, that you had wasted a day. You have no idea how that has haunted me. I to this day, go to bed at night and “rerun” my day to see if I learned something new. I almost always do, but once in a great while I have to average out the days, or look up a word in the dictionary that my dad had by his side whenever he read. I cannot remember my dad sitting on the couch without his dictionary. One of the covers is now part of a cardboard box. Dad did that cover just before he died.
My dad was raised without religion for the most part. When my sister, Juanita, was killed he joined the church. He said that he needed to see his daughter again and joining the church and believing in God was the only waythat was going to happen.
My dad had a latent sense of humor. You seldom saw him belly laugh, but I made it my duty to make my dad laugh. One day I told a joke when I came home for lunch and made him choke something fierce. I never did that again. I wanted him to laugh, but not choke on his food.
My dad died thirty one years ago this June. I will always remember him in my mind, the way he looked in this picture. This picture was taken in June of 1977. He would think it was pretty cool to be on the internet. He could start his genealogy search he loved! I’ll tell you a secret about my daddy, he loved this picture and had several copies made of it for all of us.