Did you or do you have an awesome father?
Gracie - Proud Conservative
2012/06/17 02:50:07
My father was an amazing man. He was a Merchant Marine before he was 18, he lied about his age. He was a hobo, a coal miner, a gold miner, a rancher, and later in life he owned a factory. He sailed around the Cape, broke his ankle in Mozambique when he fell off a rail car running from the police, got locked in a refrigerated car, and found God from an old man in California. His mother died when he was 13 and his siblings were spread all over. He took an old pickup truck in the 30's, drove it from New York to California and back to get his baby sister. She was forever grateful.
I was born when he was 53 and we traveled all over the country during my childhood. He bought a big Victorian house that I grew up in because he thought it was cool. He took us in abandoned mines, visited every Presidential birthplace in America, taught us hobo songs and never passed up a diner for coffee.
In the 60's he retired and we moved to Florida. He immediately revolted against the Jim Crow laws of the south and set out to correct them. He brought black people to our church and started a black church. He had coffee with the town leaders in the morning and they burned a cross in our yard at night. He laughed at them and they never stopped him.
He's the one that gave me love of history, Patriotism and God. He taught me to stand up for what was right even if I was standing alone. He never met a debate he didn't love and he read the entire Book of Mormon to be better informed to argue with his brother since he was a devout Seventh Day Adventist.
He died in 1995 at the age of 93 and he never complained a day in his life. I wish my spirit was as free as his. Happy Father's Day, daddy! I love and miss you!!
I was born when he was 53 and we traveled all over the country during my childhood. He bought a big Victorian house that I grew up in because he thought it was cool. He took us in abandoned mines, visited every Presidential birthplace in America, taught us hobo songs and never passed up a diner for coffee.
In the 60's he retired and we moved to Florida. He immediately revolted against the Jim Crow laws of the south and set out to correct them. He brought black people to our church and started a black church. He had coffee with the town leaders in the morning and they burned a cross in our yard at night. He laughed at them and they never stopped him.
He's the one that gave me love of history, Patriotism and God. He taught me to stand up for what was right even if I was standing alone. He never met a debate he didn't love and he read the entire Book of Mormon to be better informed to argue with his brother since he was a devout Seventh Day Adventist.
He died in 1995 at the age of 93 and he never complained a day in his life. I wish my spirit was as free as his. Happy Father's Day, daddy! I love and miss you!!
Top Opinion
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Gunner 2012/06/17 03:08:20
I miss you dad.
Being a dad is often a job that you don't understand until after the kids have grown up and you have time to reflect.
For the younger dads, show 'em you love 'em often.
I had a great Dad. He taught me quiet resolve and a hard-line work ethic. I miss him greatly.
When he pulled into Pearl on 12/9, he found that, as a merchant seaman, he had a job skill critical to the war effort and a draft deferment for the entire war. Since that job was raking the troops TO the invasion beache and dropping them off, He saw action taking supplies to Dutch Harbor for the Attu & Kiska invasions, then took part in the invasions of North Africa, Sicily, Salerno and Anzio in Italy. Then he hopped a ship, the SS John Drake Sloat in New York and took the scenic route to San Francisco via Iwo Jima in the Bonin islands duirng that invasion there. Along the way, he was shot at by representatives of FOUR Axis Powers, the Japanese, Germans, Italians and Vichy French. The onl...
When he pulled into Pearl on 12/9, he found that, as a merchant seaman, he had a job skill critical to the war effort and a draft deferment for the entire war. Since that job was raking the troops TO the invasion beache and dropping them off, He saw action taking supplies to Dutch Harbor for the Attu & Kiska invasions, then took part in the invasions of North Africa, Sicily, Salerno and Anzio in Italy. Then he hopped a ship, the SS John Drake Sloat in New York and took the scenic route to San Francisco via Iwo Jima in the Bonin islands duirng that invasion there. Along the way, he was shot at by representatives of FOUR Axis Powers, the Japanese, Germans, Italians and Vichy French. The only time HE ever used a firearm in the entire war was in the commission of two armed liquor store robberies in SF that got him nine months in San Quentin.
I actually was able to confirm much of his stories through Ancestry.com. They have Ships' Crews lists for New York and the whole West coast of every merchant ship that sailed out or arrived at those ports. If you're interested, I've written a series of short stories about his exploits under the working title, "Tales of The Inadvertent Pacifist" here:
http://www.myspace.com/loners...
I, like so many others, didn't ask the right questions until it was too late.
It is hard to watch them go and it's hard to know that you'll never speak with them on this earth again! You'd have made a wonderful father, Rodney.
Have a wonderful Fathers day Dear!
One of my dads friends told him that if he didn't have so many kids he could afford the finer things in life. He looked him dead in the eye and replied :"Bob, I'm rich in ways you could never understand"
It was at my fathers funeral that "Bob" told me that story and that he did finally come to understand.