Father's Day - things I learned from dad

This was what my dad looked like when he was about 30 years old. He still had some hair, which was blond, and he had what they called "cornflower" blue eyes (a very vivid blue). He was 6 foot tall and slender. He lost his hair, and put on a few pounds later in life, but he always had the most beautiful blue eyes. He lost his hair early and finally told mom to just shave his head, "why bother with that little fringe", he would say. He was 83 when he passed away and his "fringe" had grown out and amazingly was still blond, not gray as you would expect.

No one would ever call my dad "wishy-washy" in anything. He had very definite ideas about how things should be and he was not shy about telling you how he felt. In his high school yearbook they had a little quote at the side of each picture telling something about that classmate. My dad's read:

You can tell the English

You can tell the Dutch

You can tell Byron

But you can't tell him much!

In my experience, and sometimes to my chagrin, dad was usually right. I might not have liked his decisions about what I should do, but I seemed to always come to realize that dad really did know best. Sometimes I found this out quickly, but sometimes it took a long time before I came to that conclusion.

Some examples:

When I was 11 years old and just going into 6th grade, they built a new elementary school on the North side of town. The school board, for whatever reason, decided to use the irrigation canal as the dividing line for attendance at this new school. Because that canal ran at a diagonal from West to East, my house was South of the canal and all of my friends in our ward lived North of the canal, even though their houses were farther South on their streets than mine was. "Totally unfair", was my cry. And cry is what I did. Cried and cried and begged and begged my dad to go to the school board and make an appeal for an exception in my case. No way would he do that. That was the rule, and like it or not, that was the way it was and we would abide by the rule. So I went to the "old" Harding school, made some other friends, had a really excellent teacher that year, and lived through the experience. I also kept my other friends because I saw them at church and at other activities. It was many years before it came to me that dad was teaching me a very important life lesson. Sometimes life just isn't fair and sometimes we just have to bite the bullet and live with it and learn that we can make the necessary adjustments without someone else "fixing" it for us. There have been other experiences in my life that learning this lesson helped me endure.

I also learned the value of work and taking care of money. As previously talked about, dad had a very strong work ethic. He taught his children this by example and by having us work for what we received.

He did not believe in going into debt for anything. He liked to buy a new car every four years and always had saved enough money to pay cash for his purchase, which also means that he bought cars that were within his budget. He didn't care that someone else had a fancy model or all the "bells and whistles" at the time, just the best for the money he had. This usually meant that it didn't include a radio or air conditioning (mostly that was not available) or fancy wheels or power anything. "I can certainly roll up my own windows", he would say and "what do I need a radio for, we can all sing". In 1959 he bought a new Chev and passed on the 1955 Chev to my brother to take to California to go to dental school. I then inherited the 1951 Chev that my brother had been driving and had "fixed up", which meant it had fancy hubcaps, and had been "lowered" to look "cool". I was 16 and just passed the driving test to get my license and I thought it would be sooo neat to have that "sharp car" of my brother's to drive around town with my friends. Dad had said I could have it most any time, I just had to ask. He kept it licensed, insured and full of gas, however, I came to realize there was a purpose in all this - if I had the "51 to drive, I wouldn't be asking to drive the new car he had just bought. Pretty smart, huh? Well, that is not the end of the story. I went out to see my "sharp" car and what do you think! Dad had taken off the fancy hub caps and had it raised back to the normal height - so there went my "sharp" car. No fancy stuff for him. It was still available most anytime I needed transportation and I don't recall being very upset because that was Dad and I was just glad to have wheels.

At that time, the junior high was 7 th to 10th grade and the 11th and 12th grade were housed with the two-year college where my dad taught. When I finished 10th grade in 1959 they opened a new high school in Price. My dad opted to go to the high school to teach rather than stay at Carbon College. He taught bookkeeping and other business classes. He suggested that I take some business classes in high school because that would always get me better jobs while attending college. He felt working in an office was a better option than being a waitress or clerking in a store. I thought that sounded like a good idea and I had already taken typing classes in junior high. So I chose business classes for my elective classes. One of those classes was bookkeeping. All my friends gave me the, "Oh boy, that's an easy A taking a class from your dad". I straightened them out on that score and told them that they certainly didn't know my dad if they thought he would give me an A just because I was his daughter. I worked as hard or harder for my grades in his class than in any other of my classes. Never would I go unprepared to his class and never would I do anything but my very best work. I wanted him to think of me as his brightest, smartest, best student. I always wanted him to be proud of me.

I have talked to my brothers and all three of us have said that we are not at all sure how dad did it, but we all wanted to make him proud of us and we didn't want him to be disappointed in us. It certainly wasn't because we were afraid of him as I cannot ever remember him laying a hand on me. I suppose we just loved him so much that we didn't want to see that look of disappointment on his face. I have to confess that I was the cause of it a few times. As I look back I can only attribute the feeling to the unconditional love that he had for me and I just didn't want to hurt someone who loved me so much.

In all these things that I have written about my dad, I don't mean to make him out to have been perfect. He had his flaws, shortcomings, and even some bad habits, just like us all. However, I believe he loved his family with all his heart and soul and that made all the difference! Thank you, Father in Heaven, for letting me have him for my dad.