My Dad

If I start this out saying my Dad was the nicest person I will ever know, you might not believe me.  If I took a poll of everyone who knew him and asked them I would bet dollars to donuts they would all agree with me.

It's January so I always start out the year thinking of him more than usual.  Today would have been his and my step-mother's wedding anniversary.  Friday will be his birthday and 3 weeks later will be the anniversary of his death.  My Dad died young, he had just past his 57th birthday.  How sad is that?  To die that young and in the prime of your life.

I am not here to get all sad, maudlin, and depressing.  It is more my intention to celebrate his life and share some random memories.  So here goes!

~ Animals adored my Dad.  It didn't matter dog, cat, bird, hamster, whatever.  They all loved him.  It didn't matter whose pet it was supposed to be, they all ended up attached to him anyway.  Animals have good instincts about people.

~ My Dad was a kind person.  Anyone who came to him in need was given a job.  He felt it helped their spirit to work as much as the money helped their physical needs.

~ From him I learned to work for what I wanted.  I learned to give an honest day's work for a day's pay. Don't cheat the boss.  I learned to be proud of what I had.  If your clothes were clean and ironed, that meant more than if they were new.  It showed you had pride in your belongings and your appearance.

~ His philosophy was to save up, pay cash and ask for a discount.  Always ask for a discount.  Or ask to barter if you don't have the cash.

~ He would always try to fix or repair anything with what he had on hand with advice from people he trusted before he would spend money on repairs.  When we were young we would laugh about how Papa tried to fix things.  But as I grew up and had my own home, he is the one I called to ask how to fix the hot water heater or the disposal.  If he didn't know, he always knew someone who did.

~ Every payday he was there with his hand out insisting that half went into a savings account (which was really a pocket calendar)  Then when that rainy day came and the car needed repairs, the money was  already available.  He was saying "Pay yourself first" long before it was popular.

~My Dad sang all the time.  Not real songs.  Just singing along with whatever he was doing.  I do this all the time.

~My Dad was adventurous.  He liked to hunt, go fishing, travel, camp, he learned to scuba dive.  When we moved to Guadalajara, he came to visit.  But he wanted to drive down and follow the route we took so he would see all the sites along the way.  He didn't ask us for directions, he would stop and just ask people where he needed to go next.

~Papa was a talker.  Oh. My. God.  He was a talker.  He could talk to anyone and I mean ANYONE.  He always found commonalities.  A trip to a convenience store to buy one item would take most people 10 minutes top.  When we would sit in the car and wait when he went in to get one item it could easily be half an hour.  And we would tease him when he got back "What was the cashier's name?  Social security number?  Which of her relatives or neighbors do you know?"  This was one of his gifts and why he was such a successful businessman; he could relate to anyone.  And this was not a cheesy learned thing to try and win people over, this was his nature.

~ Slow and patient are two words that describe him well.  He drove slow and that is putting it mildly. One day he was taking me and my cousin some place and I swear we were going 10 or 15 miles per hour.  So I said to her "why don't you hop out and run ahead and tell them we will be there soon?" Ha!  Oh, we laughed and teased him about how slow he drove!  He really had to be patient to put up with us, that's for sure!

~  My Dad was a hard worker.  I don't remember him ever NOT working.  He worked full time and sometimes had a weekend job to help make ends meet.  He would take on extra work at night (moonlighting they called it) when he could.  He never complained about this in front of us kids.  We never did without.   When my Grandpa developed heart problems and needed to retire, my Dad quit his job, moved 600 miles, took all their money and bought Grandpa's business and kept it running.  Because it was important to his father.  When he became sick years later my husband and I tried to do the same for him and he wouldn't hear of it.  One of his friends bought the business in my Dad's last months and 15 years later it is still doing well.

This coming Friday would have been his 72nd birthday, and it is almost 15 years since he died.  And I still think of him almost every day.  It doesn't seem right to me that he is really gone.  I will raise a glass and raise a prayer to my Papa and hope that I am somehow doing him proud.  He was a good man.  And what better thing can people say about you at the end of your life?