Sometimes there’s an article or a topic that I just want to talk about, and other times, I feel like telling a story. This is that rare instance where the article is both. I hope you enjoy it. It wasn’t easy to write, as the more I wrote, the more I thought about, and the more I wanted to say. – Enjoy –

Back in the 70s, money was tough. Things didn’t come easy. My mom worked for a while, until she had to take care of my sister and I. Then when I was old enough to enter school, she began baby-sitting out of the house, for extra money. My dad worked hard. He never had an easy day in his life. He worked in Civil Service within a commissary, in the warehouse, and drove a truck transferring goods from a storage facility to the commissary storeroom. It was hot, physically demanding, and without many rewards, but on the days I went to work with my dad, he always did his best, and he always tried to enjoy himself. For a while, after working all day, he worked as a janitor in the evening at a high school, cleaning rooms, sweeping floors, etc. for extra money. But my mom and dad never complained, and we were always thankful for what we had.

When I was little, “Big Wheels” and “Green Machine” toys were the “in-thing”, but my family couldn’t afford them. It just wasn’t one of the luxuries allowed within a 4 member blue-collar family budget. I remember my dad, working out behind the house, with wood, and some wheels, and miscellaneous nuts and bolts. He had built a sort of make-shift “vehicle” for us to play with. It really wasn’t much more than a small plank of plywood, with wheels on the back, and a little 2×4 on the front with wheels attached beneath. Basically, you sat on the board, with your feet on the 2×4 and someone pushed you as you steered with your feet. I think we played with that, until it eventually just wore out. It wasn’t some smooth plastic big wheel, or some dual lever control Green machine, but it was ours. My dad had taken the time to make it for us. And even though you could flip it over if you turned to sharply, and go hurling across the cement slab behind the house – usually elbows first – it didn’t matter, it was our toy, made by our dad. Later on, I got that big wheel, and then a green machine to play with, but I’ll never forget that plank of wood, with some junked up wheels, and a 2×4 for a steering wheel. And more importantly, the loving hands that made it, and the thought behind it.

When I was in 4th grade, I started playing baseball. I don’t remember if I was any good or not to begin with. Who would I be at age 9 to judge myself anyway? But a couple of times a week during baseball season (which was 1 or 2 games a week and Saturday (or Sunday) practice), and quite often in the off season as well, my dad would come in, after working all day, in that hot warehouse, and would go play catch with me. It was that classic picturesque scene of the father and son playing catch. My dad taught me to pitch, how to throw, to hit, to bunt, how to turn double plays off the bag at second base. He threw curve balls, knuckle balls, and some really fast pitches for a nine/ten year old to try and handle. But he explained them to me. He took time to make sure I understood and never yelled if I got it wrong, but explained what I needed to do and why it was important. He turned me into quite a decent baseball player, probably a ball player who should have continued playing through Jr. High, High School, and maybe even beyond. But when I didn’t, he wasn’t upset or disappointed, or never let me know it. He was proud of me, and everything I ever did.

Back in December of 1991, dad and I went floundering. For those of you who aren’t familiar with this concept, let me explain. You take a boat and usually affix submersible lights to it via a pipe of some sort, and a floating light socket. You put the lights face down in the water, and use gigs (barbed spears with multiple points) to “gig” flounder right behind the eyes, and then put them into an ice chest on the boat. Flounder lie in the sand along Choctawhatchee Bay in the panhandle of Florida. Usually when I went, three people would be going, and I’d sit along the center of the boat, or gig off the back end. You move yourself, by using the gig like a gondola, to quietly propel yourself through the shallow water, whilst searching for flounder, blue crab, and on occasion mullet, or mackerel. Sometimes Id screw off and gig the alligator gar, just because they were annoying, but not this night. On this night, it was just my dad and I, out in a boat, on the bay. We stood on the bow of the boat, lights in the water, and used the gigs, to slowly propel ourselves through the water, searching for fish. The faint sound of cars crossing a bridge in the distance, the gentle waves softly rolling onto the shore, or ripple around the dock posts, and it was very serene. And there we stood, shoulder to shoulder. I don’t even believe we caught any fish that night, but it didn’t matter. I think in all honesty, it wasn’t even the point. It was “guy time”, father and son, but not so much father and son, as it was more like two fishermen, two friends, two guys, just talking softly about work, and sports, and was mom going crazy, and why the hell there weren’t any fish.

As far back as I can remember, my dad has always been the kind of dad that I wanted to be. I always thought that when I had a family of my own, if I could be just half the man he was, half as caring, loving, and thoughtful to my kids, I’d be a good dad. If I could instill the work ethic in my kids that he instilled in me and always remember to make time for them, then I would have been a success. He may not have realized it, and he may not have really known, but I always looked up to my dad. Even though I’m fully-grown now, and probably gone far beyond the expectations that anyone probably had ever set for me, he’s still my dad.

I’ve always just wanted him to be as proud of me, as I am of him.