Father's Day

[TexasRedNeck]

In honor of our earthly fathers, I'd like to start a thread.  Lets hear about some great role models we had and seek to emulate.

My father. Modestly educated, 40 year union iron worker. Climbed steel and connected beam on some 40 and 50 story buildings back in the day when OSHA didn't pay a lot of attention.  Left the house every morning at 5:30 and got home at 4.  Worked in the blazing Houston heat and still, without fail, coached my baseball team and practiced with me every day.  We had 6 in the family so money was always tight, but I remember that he always saved his change and we rolled coins to get the best baseball equipment money could buy.

He was a tough man with little tolerance and a hard disciplinarian.  Before the Lord saved him in 1975 he was a full on hell raiser.  Had run ins with the law before I was born.  I saw what the Lord did in his life and never appreciated it until 2003 when I had my own conversion experience.  He was a golden gloves boxer, served in the 1st Cav in Korea, and he has lived a life of great example of a servant of the Lord since his conversion.

The one thing that stands out above all is that I know with all my heart he has never lied to me in my life.  When he said "don't cross that line or else" he absolutely meant it.  When I got bigger and stronger than him, he said " if you get to the point where I can't whip you, I'll shoot you"...and he meant it.  When I strayed into trouble as a teen he prayed that the Lord would take me out of the world rather than his wife (my mother) be burdened with the emotional baggage of a son gone off the rails.  His love is unconditional and true.

He is my biggest fan and supporter and continues to amaze me in his older years.  He loves my wife and kids as much as I do and never lets grass grow under his feet.  Every whooping I ever received was needed, deserved and delivered with love. And it has helped make me the man I am today.  He also a fervent student of scriptures and one of the best biblical scholars I know, routinely parsing the Greek manuscripts to ascertain the truth of the word.

I am grateful to the Lord for such a role model.

[cudakidd53]

That's a world class tribute- thanks for sharing it!  Print it off and give it to him on Fathers Day. :)

[Flyin6]

I wrote this the morning after my dad passed

[TexasRedNeck]

Thanks for sharing Don. May it not take until our father's death to pen the important things.

[Flyin6]

Thanks for sharing Don. May it not take until our father's death to pen the important things.

Amen to that!

[Higher Caliber]

Well that hits you right in the feels! Sniffle

[JR]

Wish I could do justice to Dons, but here is a little.

My Father, Fred Sr was born in 1936 and raised in a foster home by a man I called uncle Harold. I spent many a Christmas at his house and others as my father had joined the Marines a age 17.

He served 3 terms in Korea, 2 in Viet Nam. I remember the picture of him from there as we moved from base to base with small stints of him being home with us until I was in high school. One night I remember in a small apartment in Minn getting woken up and seeing him there and hugged him long, asking if was staying home?

He was big on scouts, camping, fishing and hunting. I guess trying to make a man of me. He retired from the Marines in 1977 as a gunny.

He got me into security and finally I became a corrections officer, then a Deputy Sheriff. At the graduation he was allowed to pin my badge on as he was a Commander in the Mare Federal Police. It was a great day for us both. My younger brother was killed about this time in 89 earthquake, this brought us closer as we had wait days for to find him, much less ID the body.

After this he and I went on a few hunting trips and I remember him getting Buck Fever. I would arrange for trips without his knowledge from his job and he hated it but loved it all the same. I would come into his office and rub his head, driving him crazy.

His favorite movie was "Purple Hearts' and he told how he lived "Bat 21"

The last thing I remember is I asked him to go fishing and he said he was to busy at work. He passed a week later at work, just 63. He never got to see any of his 3 grandchildren, but somehow we think he is here watching over them.

[TexasRedNeck]

Thanks for sharing JR

[Flyin6]

Wish I could do justice to Dons, but here is a little.

My Father, Fred Sr was born in 1936 and raised in a foster home by a man I called uncle Harold. I spent many a Christmas at his house and others as my father had joined the Marines a age 17.

He served 3 terms in Korea, 2 in Viet Nam. I remember the picture of him from there as we moved from base to base with small stints of him being home with us until I was in high school. One night I remember in a small apartment in Minn getting woken up and seeing him there and hugged him long, asking if was staying home?

He was big on scouts, camping, fishing and hunting. I guess trying to make a man of me. He retired from the Marines in 1977 as a gunny.

He got me into security and finally I became a corrections officer, then a Deputy Sheriff. At the graduation he was allowed to pin my badge on as he was a Commander in the Mare Federal Police. It was a great day for us both. My younger brother was killed about this time in 89 earthquake, this brought us closer as we had wait days for to find him, much less ID the body.

After this he and I went on a few hunting trips and I remember him getting Buck Fever. I would arrange for trips without his knowledge from his job and he hated it but loved it all the same. I would come into his office and rub his head, driving him crazy.

His favorite movie was "Purple Hearts' and he told how he lived "Bat 21"

The last thing I remember is I asked him to go fishing and he said he was to busy at work. He passed a week later at work, just 63. He never got to see any of his 3 grandchildren, but somehow we think he is here watching over them.

You will see him again someday

[Higher Caliber]

Well my story is a little different! One thing I can say so far a re-curring theme here is going to be all of us "real-men" having had great patriarchs for mentors-

My real father- or my sperm donor, I guess you could say- Was a rodeo cowboy turned career military man, circa Desert Storm. I can probably count the number of days he spent raising me- There weren't many. When he left my mom, he left me in the custody of my drug addicted mother. I was eventually saved and given to my grandmother for raising.

Growing up in Austin Texas, it was my grandma, "Nana", my aunt Kelli (mom's sister) and me. The only real male figure I had in my life up until I was 11 was my great grandfather "Bapaw". He was well in his 80's and although, I could always see he wanted to do more for me, his health just didn't allow it. He was circa WWII Major in the US Army. He was a dentist by trade, seeing the inevitable draft, He instead enlisted. He was a portly fellow, and in his older thirties wouldn't have served well jumping out of planes so instead he yanked our young paratroopers teeth. He was a great man.

When I was 11, my Grandmother re-married, a beau from her younger years swept her off her feet and he was the gentleman who became the only man, I have ever referred to as my dad-

My dad grew up a dirt poor share-cropper out of Northeastern and central Arkansas. His daddy and uncles ran moonshine through the ozark mountains during the prohibition. You wanna hear some great stories, his daddy could tell them! I digress- My dad grew to be a Church of Christ preacher and moved to Texas. After a divorce the church ex-communicated him and he became a truck driver. He was always a cowboy no matter what his profession. He raised or helped raise cattle all over central Texas. He also maintained a business where he up-fitted and customized trucks and suburbans into sort of "cowboy limousine's". When north cental Texas began to boom, he saw money in real-estate. He put himself through correspondence school to become a real-estate broker. He was pretty much the best at anything he did. He won several awards for selling real-estate and brokering huge deals. He never shied away from learning anything. When the real estate market crashed and property taxes sored, he came up with a hair brained idea to  have commercial business let him petition the county commissions to de-value their properties, thus saving them hundreds of thousands of dollars on taxes of which they would pay my dad on a percentage.

He did that for 15 or 20 years and got tired of it and decided to live out his dream of being a saddle builder and leatherman. That is what he does to this day, now in his 70's.

So he took hold of me when I was 11 and I moved out on my own at 17. Not much time to teach a little boy everything he needs to know about being a man, but in just those short 6 years he instilled into me a set of values and ethos which have always kept me on track. I am not going to say, I have never screwed up, but anytime I have screwed up it was in direct contradiction to the things he taught me. This could go on all night but, I will list some bullet points which were instilled in me.

-There are a thousand honest ways to make a dollar, if you do all of them, you just made a thousand bucks.
-Dont become bitter, Dont operate in a manner contradictory to your value system just because someone isn't holding up their end.
-Hard work beats a hand out ten-fold
-Never pass up an opportunity to make a connection
-Always pay it forward
-Never stop learning/Teaching
-Consequences are chaos
-It's only a mistake if you dont learn from it, otherwise it's a lesson
-humility is gentlemanly
-never pass up an opportunity to flirt with a pretty girl (not sure he meant to teach me that- but it rubbed off)
-"Toughen up buttercup, it's a long way from your heart"
-When you have enough, provide for others

There are dozens of things I learned from that man that I dont even remember until someone asks me, "Where'd you learn to do that?". I pause and think about it for a second and it's always, "My dad showed me".

[TexasRedNeck]

Thanks for sharing, Blaine.  Also goes to show that the Lord is in control and puts people in our lives in order to accomplish His mission for us.

[Flyin6]

I think our tough infantryman is softening up some.

Good lessons B...good stuff

[JR]

Thanks for sharing, sounds like a great man finishing his dream. (does make you all fuzzy huh, like your story)

[Atkinsmatt]

Great idea for a thread.

My father grew up 1 of 7 brothers and 1 sister share cropping in North Alabama along the south side of the Tennessee River.  Cotton was the crop and the stories that my grandpa would tell were something to hear.  My dad talked about “carrying your own row no matter what others were doing,” then going to see about others.  He was number 4 of the 8 kids and the first to graduate.  He joined the Air Force during Vietnam and retired from there 20 years later.  I was born to a cheating mother and my adoptive parents brought me home from the hospital when I was 11 days old.  I have never known anyone else. 
He set a great example for my brothers and I and, while we never had much, it was always enough.  He told me that when I was born he brought home 40 dollars every 2 weeks and my mom received more than he did because in those days the military sent the housing allowance and separate rations to the spouse directly. 
He and my mother were Christians and the prayers they sent up for me were needed and I am glad to say that I am a Christian also due to that example and influence in my life. 
I remember a day when I was about 6 that I walked with him to check the mail.  He saw a letter and wouldn’t talk for a minute then opened it and after reading started crying and wouldn’t say anything until we got to the house.  He shared it with my mother and of course she was crying too.  He told me that was the final letter from the adoption and they could never take me away from them.
We were always involved in Scouts with him taking a lead role and he was gardener and fisherman.  Until the day that he was no longer able he used to take me to some of his childhood fishing holes along the Tennessee and we would wear out the crappie just like the old days.  His time in the garden was his quiet time.  I learned both.
He coached little league and came to every football game that I played just like he did for my brothers if he wasn’t deployed.  When in middle school, I wanted to be in the band and he scraped up a little and bought my trumpet, which my son plays now, and told me that I had to play for at least 3 years or he would straighten it and bend it back around my neck for the remaining time.
 I am thankful that I got the chance before he passed to tell him Thanks for choosing me.  I could have been in some kind of home somewhere, but God put me there to get me where I am now.

[Dawg25385]

One thing I can say so far a re-curring theme here is going to be all of us "real-men" having had great patriarchs for mentors-

I was thinking the same thing! I'm trying to track down a letter I wrote to my dad for his 60th birthday. I'll share if i can find it.

Found it:

Dad,

First, Happy Birthday! On your special day, that is special for so many reasons, there were a few things I wanted to share with you. By now, you know that there are quite a few folks that wanted to say a little something… well, it’s my turn.

First I wanted to say ‘Thank you’… from the bottom of my heart. Thank you for what you do, who you are, and what you stand for. It’s truly a blessing to have you as my dad… which is great, because I had no say in the matter! In all seriousness, I’m so lucky. Thinking back, the friendship, mentorship, and leadership you’ve always embodied have been instrumental in my life. My successes have been a testament to that, and truly I couldn’t have done any of it without you. I’ve learned so much, and still do. I hope that never ends.

You’ve taught me so much, things that unfortunately a lot of young men don’t get. From the ‘value of things’, not necessarily in the tangible aspect, but in the sense that I don’t take things for granted. The value of hard work, giving your all, and doing your best, because if it’s worth doing it’s worth doing right. The ability to be resourceful and make things happen, overcome obstacles, and capitalize on opportunities. That being honest and having integrity means everything, and truly understanding the difference between right and wrong. And most of all, the importance of family and unconditional love.

Someday, I too God willing will be a daddy. You’ve prepared me more than you can possibly know for that. You’ve shown me what it means to provide and support. You’ve shown me how to push and encourage others. You’ve shown me the importance of grace and patience and the necessity for discipline and self-control. You’ve shown me what it means to serve, to give, and most importantly, to love.

You know, so many times I feel like I fail. No matter how hard I try, or how good my intentions are, I come up short, fall on my face, or embarrass myself or others. But I reflect back on the guidance you’ve instilled in me, the encouragement, the love and support, the ability to self-reflect and improve and learn, and I pick my ass up and get after it again. You’ve told us stories about how you were down, but never out. You inspire me, Dad. I am so thankful for that toughness, because someday as a father I know I’ll need it.

You mean so much to so many people pop, but nobody more than me.

Love you,
Kyle

[TexasRedNeck]

Thanks Matt and Kyle.  Good stuff and great memories.

[Nate]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etundhQa724

[rasimmo]

Thanks everyone for sharing these stories. I need to take some notes to help me later. I did not have such a role model in my life. My folks divorced when I was 5 or 6 and my dad was around some but not much. I had a lot of lessons growing up but not all positive. I think the most important ones I learned were what not to do as a man/husband/father. I have a good relationship with him now, but that did not come about until I was almost 30 years old. I surely can't say I turned out to be who I am because of my great decision making skills. My heavenly father put people in my life, mainly my wife, to get me straight and give me something to work toward. When we met 17 years ago I was a hoodlum 20 year old that knew it all and had gotten everything he had by his own 2 hands. Boy was I wrong! God working through her has taught me a lot. Mainly that life was not what I knew as normal. I have several great men in my life now that I learn from constantly. It took us 12 years of trying to finally have a child. It was something I wanted very badly. With the education in reproduction I got through that process there is no doubt that every child is truly a miracle. It was all in God's time though and his timing is perfect. Being daddy is a very close third behind God and my wife in my life. I pray that one day my little girl will be able to share a story like these about me.

[TexasRedNeck]

Ras, you are correct in order.  God, Wife, Children.  I have often said I learn something from everyone I meet.  What to do, or what not to do.  If you are open minded the lessons will come.

Thanks for sharing.  Great perspective.