A day set aside for dad's. Not so sure that's popular anymore, but I'm only sorry there aren't more. It's interesting the piles of memories from my growing up with my father. At the time you figure, "This is just the way it is," and nothing is remarkable. Looking back, it really was.
I wasn't a fisherman in my youth (and less so today), but my dad sure loved to fish. So we'd fish. If that sounds like a complaint, you missed it just like I did. We went camping and we went to "opening day" in the Sierras and we went to Ensenada, Mexico, and we went to Alaska ... we went all over the place to fish. Dad would load my brother and I in the car on a Friday, drive us down to Ensenada to go out on an early-morning deep-sea fishing trip, and have us home by Sunday. He had a friend fly us down to a sleepy town in Baja California to fish in a dinghy in the Bay of California. Fishing? Okay. But all this was special time with my brother and my dad doing stuff together.
Fishing wasn't all there was. He took us on trips -- trips around the U.S., trips to Canada, trips to Mexico -- even untraveled portions of Mexico where we hiked to a village to visit missionaries there. He took us on a backpacking trip in the mountains for a week. He set us up horseback riding on the beach in Ensenada. (I still have that indelible memory etched in my mind when the saddle he was in slipped, he fell onto the sand, and a wave washed over him. Good times.) He had a friend from work take us out on his sailboat for a whale-watching excursion. Family vacations, sightseeing and travels, mission trips, Dad did it all with us.
One of my memories is a bit ... odd. Dad was a civil engineer for the County of Los Angeles, specializing in storm water runoff -- preventing floods. I remember one stormy night he said, "Hey, Stan, I have to go look at this flooding going on. Want to come along?" Really? Why not? He took his son for no reason other than he wanted to. He took my brother and I with him when he went to skid row to give the men there the gospel. He took us breakfast with the Christian Businessmens' Committee (CBMC). He took us to Billy Graham crusades. Oh, and we never, ever missed church. We went every week unless there was an exception like we were traveling. Then we'd go where we were. Or if someone was sick. Then he'd hold a service in the home. Never miss church.
My dad has always been what the '50's crowd thought a dad should be. Involved, connected, modeling the role of a loving husband, firm but fair, caring, a kind of "storybook" dad. Simple stuff, maybe. Not extravagant but generous, not selfish but sharing. I've been recalling a lot of this stuff lately and am reminded once again of how fortunate I have been to have my father even when I took him for granted and how blessed I have been that God would give me such a dad.
Happy Father's Day, Dad.
3 comments:
I have been to Hawaii twice, but never to Alaska. I'm watching a series of YouTube videos by Hobo Shoestring where he is currently tramping around Alaska in the woods outside various towns. He complains about mosquitos, and I have heard they are really bad in the "warm" months there. He hopped off a wooden deck into a lake and groaned at how cold the water is in June.
Alaska is a beautiful and, it seems, always cold state. Obviously sometimes colder than others. The mosquitoes, as I recall, were many and massive. The thing that made Alaska spectacular, however, was being there with my father.
Other than fishing, I have many of the same types of memories with my dad. I'm so glad that my kids were able to have some of those with him as well. I miss him a lot.
Happy Fathers Day!
To all the dads.
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