AN EARLY FATHER'S DAY TRIBUTE

I am getting this posting off at the last moment, the 31^st day of March, because I have had a nagging feeling that I needed to put down what someone, who reads these things, needs to hear. I also put them down because I need to say them.  And I do it because I’ve been thinking about my father who died eight years ago. Dad was a mechanic—a man who fixed things.

My dad and I were never particularly close; he was pragmatic and I had, he said, my ‘head in the clouds’.  I was in awe of his tenacious ability to figure out mechanical things.  I resented his disrespect of education, or better, of 'educated' people and 'book knowledge', but I respected him and I knew that he always had my welfare in mind, and most importantly I knew that he loved my mother.  That may be the most important thing a father can do for his children-- love their mother.

That which follows are positive things that others have learned from their fathers that I connect with and remind me of my dad because he said similar things:

·        If you can’t find time to do it right the first time, how are you going to find time to do it over again? (Dad said this often.)

·        Do what you have to do first, and what you want to do second.

·        Get to know and show respect for clerks and secretaries; they are the gatekeepers. 

·        Don’t let other people’s actions govern yours.

·        If you ever get taken to jail, don’t waste your one phone call calling home.

·        Don’t brag; it’s not the whistle that pulls the train. 

·        Never replace just one spark plug.

·        Drive with care.  Life has no spare. 

·        If you work with your hands you will never go hungry. 

·        Practice hard.  You’ll play the way you practiced.

·        A clear conscience is a soft pillow.

·        If you got something you didn’t work for, then someone else worked for something they didn’t get. 

·        You’d be amazed what you can do when you have to.  

Thanks, Dad(s)