Father’s Days are hard for me. It has been 28 years since my dad passed away, and I still miss him every day. We were not close when I was growing up. He was busy working. I was busy playing. I never doubted that he loved my mom, my brother, and me. That was obvious. But I was oblivious to anything outside of a six foot circle that was my life bubble. I was in 7th or 8th grade before I even knew what my dad did for a living. I knew where he worked, but not what he did.
My dad was one of the lucky few of his generation. He made it without college. He went from factory worker to chemist to plant manager to small business owner before his untimely death when I was just 22.
My dad taught me how to play ping pong and to shoot pool. We had both in the basement of our small, non-air conditioned home in Richmond, IN. Our family would sit out on the back porch in the summer time and make home-made ice cream. It was my job to sit on the ice-filled tub while my dad and my brother took turns cranking that handle until it just wouldn’t turn anymore.
My dad gave me a love for cars. He traded cars often. He liked playing around with them. He even sold them for a while as a part-time job. I would often go and hang out at the Marcum car lot in Richmond. Tommy Marcum and I would sit in one of the sportier cars and play like we were racing. Fun times.
I gained the most respect for my dad when we moved back to Arkansas so he could begin his own business. He talked to me about that for a couple of years. He explained what it was he was going to do. It morphed from getting a press to make plastic signs to making cone-shaped seals for a continous vulcanization (CV) machine at his work.
When we got to Arkansas, dad and mom took their life savings to build a house for us. They lived with no income for quite a while. They used the house as collatoral to get money to begin the business. Dad and I would work at night making these CV seals. They were hard rubber with a piece of cloth sealed inside. We made all kinds of sizes. We worked hard in a borrowed space with borrowed machines. There was only one problem. No one wanted to buy them. That didn’t stop my dad.
Instead of making the seals, he decided to make the materials that went into the seals. That was the messy job. That was the job no one really wanted. And it was the key to my parents’ success.
That was the life lesson that stuck with me from my dad. Volunteer to do the messy jobs no one else wants. There isn’t any glamor there, but there is always work. And from work comes success.
When I got a little older, my dad didn’t have a problem still telling me I was a kid. He nearly always beat me in ping pong. He pinned me to the ground in a wrestling match when I was around 17. He had both arms behind his back. I could go on and on.
So, today I honor my dad. Happy Father’s Day dad. Tell Papaw I said hello.