Father's Day 2012

So this is Father's Day weekend.

And once again, this year finds me without a card to send to my dad. Not because I don't love him or appreciate all he did for me through the years. June is one of our busiest months at work, and I'm just not good at thinking of those kinds of things. Thank you to my wife who normally remembers things like that for me. But with our daughter getting married in July, things have been hectic in her mind as well.

Sorry, Dad. I'll call you on Sunday...if I remember. :-)

So I've been thinking about my dad a lot more in the recent years than I used to. He's had the short end of the stick most of my life. His birthday is December 16th (or maybe the 17th). And before you roll your eyes at me, (if I remember the facts correctly), he was born on the 17th, but chooses the 16th...or vice-versa. But as it was always two weeks before Christmas, his birthday has never really been celebrated. Since he now lives in Sanderson (9 hours away), we only see him two, maybe three times a year. So his birthday gets "celebrated" at Christmas.

I remember a lot of things from growing up with Dad. Being 46 now, I know he always had a lot of things going on. But I remember asking him to throw the ball with me in the backyard. There were probably times when he told me no, but I don't remember any.

I remember when the first Star Wars came out, he took my brother and I to the movies to see it. I was 11 at the time. The theater was sold out, so he let me sit in his lap. I've never been a big person, but I can't imagine it was comfortable for him.

I remember playing with matches in the laundry room with a girl named Sloan. Dad caught us, and picked me up with one hand, while swatting my bottom with the other. I was (maybe) five at the time? It was a valuable lesson. Never play with matches in the laundry room.

I remember countless air shows he took me too. Granted, that was as much for him as it was for us, but it was always fun.

I remember the old Southwest Airport that used to sit on the land at 360 and 183 in Arlington. It's now American Airlines headquarters, and warehouses. He used to take us there occasionally. There was a B-36 sitting out there that we got to climb in. It was a blast. It has since been moved to the Southwest Aerospace Museum, which isn't there anymore, and who knows where from there.

I remember several trips to Pate Museum of Transportation. You can read about that in another of my blogs. It's closed now, which is really sad. Again, that was as much for him as it was for us, but there's no way he had as much fun as my brother and I. Several tanks you could climb in, a hangar full of old cars and planes, and several sitting out on the grounds outside. It was great.

I remember collecting aluminum cans for money. Dad would take us out to the country (what is now South Arlington), and we would sit on the fenders as Dad drove us down country roads. We hopped off to grab cans and hopped back on. GASP!! I heard you..."How incredibly dangerous!" I know...and we didn't wear seatbelts back then. And we rode our bikes without helmets. Dad has always loved to drive, so I'm sure it was a peaceful afternoon for him. That in itself was something of a rarity, so he probably enjoyed it. Again, no way he enjoyed it as much as we did. After a few times of collecting cans, he would take us to turn in our trash bags full to get maybe $17 dollars for our several hours of "hard work". Kids, make a note of that.

I remember him taking us to Chuck-E-Cheese for lunch or dinner. I seriously doubt he enjoyed any of that. It wasn't as noisy as it is now, but still not much of a place I think he would enjoy. But he never complained.

I remember a lesson he taught me without really even trying. He went to Safeway (a grocery store for those of you who weren't around back then...), and bought a few things. He got back home, and discovered he had a potato in his coat pocket. WAY back in those days, the potato probably wasn't more than $.25 or so. And it's not like they were ever going to miss it. But he drove all the way back up there to pay for it. I couldn't have been that old, and I vaguely remember asking why he was going to go back up there. "Because I didn't pay for it, and it would be wrong." I still remember that vividly.

I remember vacations during the summer. Stuart, Dad and I would take two weeks to drive all over the west. We spent some time visiting relatives, but most of the time, it was just the three of us. National Parks, monuments, and Lake Powell a few times. Some of the best memories I ever had were from those trips. I know he enjoyed them. But I also think about the hassles of motel reservations, restaurants, gas stations, blah, blah, blah.

There were times Dad got mad at me (lighting matches in the laundry room...). There were times he spanked me so hard, I thought I'd never sit again. But in all the years, of all my shenanigans, and all the lessons he had to teach me, I NEVER worried that he didn't love me.

Stuart came up with the grand idea of making a clubhouse in the backyard when we were teenagers. It was going to be awesome. We would dig a hole, ten feet by ten feet, and four feet deep. We would make bricks from the mud and grass we dug up, and make walls around the top with that. It was a great plan, except that I grew tired of digging when I realized we weren't going to be able to finish it in a weekend. Stu eventually gave up trying to get me to do my part, and we were left with a ten foot by ten foot, two to three foot deep natural swimming pool (a.k.a. mud puddle) in the middle of the back yard. I'm sure Dad didn't appreciate it much, but I don't remember him complaining about that, either.

That's another lesson he taught me that I never really felt I was learning. Not a lot really bothers me. I get aggravated and frustrated by things. But overall, I tend to just accept that it's all going to work out somehow.

As I grow older, I realize I'm a lot more like my dad than I ever thought I would be. And the older I get, the more I realize, I could have turned out a lot worse.

So thank you, Dad. Thank you for the time you spent, letting me hurl my out of control fastball at you when you probably would rather have stayed in the air conditioning, watching television.

Thank you for the lessons you taught me.

Thank you for the countless hours spent driving us around so we could earn a little money to blow on baseball cards and candy bars.

Thank you for the wonderful vacations when you probably had counted the cost, and wondered how you were going to do it.

Thank you for teaching me that there really aren't a lot of things worth getting bent out of shape for.

Thank you for always being there; for loving us; for helping us through some pretty tough times.

Thank you for being Dad.

I love you.