Do you remember the things that your Dad taught you? I am talking about the important things, like, how to shoot a gun? Do you remember him teaching you how to cast that line into the right spot in the pool? Maybe you remember him teaching you how to throw that curve ball so that it would break just right and catch the batter off balance. How about teaching you how to tuck the football in after you had caught that over the middle pass, insuring that you didn’t fumble? Was it a behind the back dribble that your Dad taught you? How to sink a twenty foot putt, or even a one foot putt?
We all have things that we have learned from Dad. Things that make us remember those days that are past, “yester-years” with a fondness, maybe even a wistful smile. They remind of us of pleasant afternoons spent with Dad. They might even remind us of getting up early, before dawn, to go on hunting or fishing trips. Somehow those events are forever planted in our minds.
My father wasn’t much of a “sportsman.” When he was growing up during the “Depression” he worked more than he played. He couldn’t throw a baseball, he always said he threw like a girl and he really did. I don’t think he ever played a game of football in his life. I never saw him shoot a gun. I know he probably played some basketball, only because I have a picture of him, in Korea, poised to shoot a basket, but even then he is holding the ball awkwardly. He loved to fish, but we never caught anything when we went, truthfully. We only went camping about four times while I was growing up. He was an awesome sport, but not a sportsman. He loved for us to play ball but couldn’t teach us much about doing it.
My “special” memories of the things my Dad taught me have nothing to do with sports. They do, however, have a lot to do with the time he spent with us. During those times he was teaching us those things that were really important to life. He was planting perpetual seeds of value in our lives. I live today based on what my father taught me in those times spent with him.
I remember as a young child most of our Saturdays were spent visiting people. Most of these were people I didn’t know. Yet on a Saturday we would all pile into the car with a list of people to visit. Mom had a list of people she needed to see and Dad had a list of people he needed to see. We would stop at each house and they would get out of the car, go to the door and visit for a few moments. David, my brother, and I would stay in the car (I know you can’t do that today but in the ‘60’s it was alright.) Even today, when I hear gravel crunching under someone’s feet as they walk on the sidewalk, my mind goes back to those afternoons and recognizing from that sound that Dad was coming back to the car. Dad and Mom taught me to care about people.
I am a carpenter by trade. My first carpenter job was at the age of ten. Dad was a town carpenter for the lumber mill town that we lived in. For many months, when he came home from work he would eat supper and then he would drive to Eureka, about twenty-five miles away, to work all evening. Now this was a deferred payment job, which means he wasn’t getting paid immediately. In fact he was just “laying up treasures” because he was helping build a Sunday School wing on a Church so payment comes in eternity. However, just before he would leave I would ask him if I could go too. So I learned from my Dad at the age of ten how to lay our studs for a wall. I also learned it always pays to give to God, even if it is your time and energy.
There were a lot of evenings when we got in the car and would take a drive. No, we weren’t going to see scenery, we were going to Church. All the way there and all of the way home Dad and Mom would talk. They weren’t talking about people and they weren’t talking about how rough life was. They were talking about their lives, events that happened as they were growing up. Dad would talk about his work. We felt we knew as much about the people he worked with as he did. He always had a funny story from the day to share. We sang songs together. Dad had a hard time carrying a tune, but I don’t know of him ever forgetting the words to a song. In our family it was like the old song, except it changed just a bit: “Momma sang bass, Daddy sang tenor, and me and David would join right in there…” I still sing many of those old songs today. I have shared many of Dad’s funny songs with my kids and grandkids. They taught us to be a family and to love the things of God.
I was blessed to be able to learn a lot of things from Dad that have been so valuable through the years. I read a passage this morning from the Psalms that made me realize that once again. The Psalmist said walk around Zion, check out her bulwarks, examine her palaces so you can tell the next generation. Zion of course is the Church. The bulwarks are the strengths of the Church. The palaces are the beauty of the Church. We need to know it for ourselves, but we also need to show it to the next generation. Teach them something that is everlasting.
Thanks Dad! You taught me some things that are more important than shooting a gun or casting a line. They will last longer than knowing how to throw a curve or dribble behind my back. You taught me to love people, to love my family and to love my God! Those things are everlasting!
God Bless!
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