Father's Day

“I believe that what we become depends on what our fathers teach us at odd moments, when they aren’t trying to teach us. We are formed by little scraps of wisdom.” —Umberto Eco

Not a day goes by when I don't recall a lesson learned from those odd moments. 

Thanks, Dad!

Father's Day Lessons in Life

My dad loved Kipling and Stevenson, and other books from his own childhood.

He would read to us at night - Kim, Treasure Island, some simplified versions of Robinson Crusoe and Swiss Family Robinson. Along with the Winnie the Pooh books and the other Milne books of light verse, we enjoyed his fatherly attention, as he was often gone for weeks at time on Air Force TDY. Only later did we learn the "why" of those tours to Thule and other places - he was out there helping to keep the country safe. At the time, though, when he was home he made the most of it.

We'd go family camping or drive up to Denver or Seattle or Salt Lake to visit family, with visits to San Francisco to visit one of his cousins thrown in. It was good to be one of his kids.

 Dad holding me shortly after my birth

Without television,we would listen to radio shows - Dragnet being a favorite, along with Jack Benny.

At some point, my mother told us that her father loved the poems and stories of Robert W. Service - "The Cremation of Sam Mcgee" being one that he could recite quite dramatically. And that he loved to sing "Abdul Abulbul Amir." Her memories of her father were thus incorporated into our lives. Of course, both my dad's father and hers were men very much influenced by the Victorian era.

One piece of poetry that both my dad and her dad agreed on was Kipling's "If"

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

From these choices of literature, from his quiet manner of going "out to do the job," and those casual remarks that were the real lessons in life - he shaped his kids.

Happy Father's Day! And thanks, Dad.

Father's Day

“I believe that what we become depends on what our fathers teach us at odd moments, when they aren’t trying to teach us. We are formed by little scraps of wisdom.” —Umberto Eco

I treasure those odd moments . . .

Father's Day

Thanks, Dad!

I've never met a better man.

Father's Day

Carl Sandburg:

A Father To His Son

A father sees his son nearing manhood.
What shall he tell that son?
"Life is hard; be steel; be a rock."
And this might stand him for the storms
and serve him for humdrum monotony
and guide him among sudden betrayals
and tighten him for slack moments.
"Life is a soft loam; be gentle; go easy."
And this too might serve him.
Brutes have been gentled where lashes failed.
The growth of a frail flower in a path up
has sometimes shattered and split a rock.
A tough will counts. So does desire.
So does a rich soft wanting.
Without rich wanting nothing arrives.
Tell him too much money has killed men
and left them dead years before burial:
the quest of lucre beyond a few easy needs
has twisted good enough men
sometimes into dry thwarted worms.
Tell him time as a stuff can be wasted.
Tell him to be a fool every so often
and to have no shame over having been a fool
yet learning something out of every folly
hoping to repeat none of the cheap follies
thus arriving at intimate understanding
of a world numbering many fools.
Tell him to be alone often and get at himself
and above all tell himself no lies about himself
whatever the white lies and protective fronts
he may use against other people.
Tell him solitude is creative if he is strong
and the final decisions are made in silent rooms.
Tell him to be different from other people
if it comes natural and easy being different.
Let him have lazy days seeking his deeper motives.
Let him seek deep for where he is born natural.
Then he may understand Shakespeare
and the Wright brothers, Pasteur, Pavlov,
Michael Faraday and free imaginations
Bringing changes into a world resenting change.
He will be lonely enough
to have time for the work
he knows as his own.

Thanks, Dad. You were the best. I hope a little of what you taught me has been passed along to your grandchildren.

Father's Day

Korea 1952, Dad on the flight line at Kunsan, the B-26s he flew in the background:

Some wag wrote on the back of the photo, "Some guy who stands in front of things to have his picture taken." I guess the rules on flight line smoking were different then.

At the time of the photo he was a 35 year old AF Reservist, recalled for Korea. In WWII he flew in B-17s with 35 combat missions after first serving in the horse cavalry near San Diego. During the Korean War he flew over 150 combat missions.

After Korea, he remained on active duty, finally retiring from the USAF in 1972 after a great deal of time in SAC.

He was once described a "big man built low to the ground."

A gentleman and great father.