A Father's Day Flower Story

"Any man can be a father, but it takes someone special to be a dad." 

Happy Father's Day to all of you out there who are fathers or had a father. The picture is of my husband and our first child. My husband and I were both so young, but we were a family. I've always loved this picture. You can almost see the love bonding between father and son. 

But as our preacher pointed out this morning, not every child had or has that loving dad. He didn't, so he knows. Still, we want to celebrate those who are good dads. I've been blessed to know many wonderful, loving dads. My father. My father-in-law. My husband and his brothers. My sons. Many of the men in our little country church. Dads to celebrate! 

It's fun that one of the flower stories I received for my Small Town Girl Celebration Contest ties in so well with Father's Day. Thank you, Carol, for sharing your happy flower story. 

She says, "My favorite gift of flowers was a wrist corsage from my father, which he gave me when I played a piano concert when I was about 10. It was my first adult gift of flowers, and a total surprise, given to me by the man I idolized. No flowers will ever mean as much to me. Dad passed away in April 2012, and I miss him every minute."

When I e-mailed Carol for permission to share her story she sent me a photo of her handsome dad to go with her flower memory and added this information about him. "My Dad was a very special guy. He fought in WWII, then served the U.S. in the Air Force for 23 years, retiring as a colonel, then went to work for the Army as a weapons development engineer. And through it all he did special things to make us feel loved - gifts from all over the world for my Mom and all five of us kids, trips to museums, figure skating with his girls, etc. He even brought home a large glass lens that would later be used in a military camera lens, and let us each have a chance to help grind the lens! Wonderful memories!"

Precious memories. It's been great seeing all the pictures of dads on Facebook today as we do have those precious memories. I hope you have wonderful memories of your dad or if you are the dad that you are making great memories with your children.

If you haven't left a comment or sent me an e-mail, annhgabhart(at)yahoo(dot)com, to throw your name in the hat for my contest, you still have time. Deadline for entering is July 13 at midnight EST. And I'd love to hear your flower stories too. Not a requirement for entering, but fun. If you do send a flower story, let me know if I can share it forward. No last names or places, so your privacy is protected. And again, Carol, thanks for sharing about your flower corsage and your dad.

Thanks for reading! 

A Daddy's Shoulder

Is there any safer place to be than with your head on your daddy's shoulder? This is my oldest son with one of his twin boys. With five kids he gets plenty of practice being dad. My other son has four kids so he's a busy dad too. Both are hands on dads who can do whatever needs doing for their kids. It is without a doubt a blessing to be surrounded by good dads in my family.

~~~

My dad was a farmer, the son of a farmer and the grandson of two farmers. I don't know back before that, but I'm guessing the great grandfathers worked the land too. Dad didn't much like going to school. Only went to high school one day, but loved solving problems and sometimes worked algebra problems for fun. He liked competitive card games and horseshoe pitching and clay court croquet. He wasn't all that excited when I named my son after him because he'd never liked his name all that much and always went by his initials or his second name. But he loved his grandkids. He taught them to say what six times seven was when they were four. He liked to do math in his head and didn't care if he had a calculator once they came out on the market. He fought the onslaught of thistles and cedars in his fields with a hoe and an axe. Won some battles, but lost the war. He started driving when he was about ten years old. Nobody had to get a license back then. He rode a motorcycle across the country to Oregon to spend the summer with some cousins there when he was twenty-one. He was the only son of his father and he mourned that his branch of our family name wasn't going to die out since he had three daughters. I was the last daughter and supposed to be the son, but he loved me anyway.

~~~

I wish now I had asked him more about his trip out west, more about everything that he did in the years before he was my dad, but we don't realize when we're young how we're going to miss knowing those stories someday. How about your dads? Did they ever tell you about how things were when they were kids? I hope they're still here to tell you stories.

A Tribute to My Dad

Hope all of you had a wonderful Father's Day! And that you were able to give your dad a hug and maybe some little gift that he pretended to like. Well, maybe he really liked whatever you got him. My dad never was into gifts that much. He liked for us to come over and make homemade banana ice cream in the crank freezer. That was always fun. And yummy!

My dad passed on in 1987 from pancreatic cancer. It wasn't an easy passing. He didn't like being sick. Worse, he knew he wasn't going to get well. It was a hard time for all of us. I'm sure many of you have lost your dads too. If so, I hope you spent a few minutes remembering him today and thinking about some special times you had together. My dad was a farmer and we spent a lot of time helping him in the fields. He liked to play bridge and rook and solitare. He was a whiz at math even though he never went to high school. He started driving when he was ten. Back then you didn't have to have a license or be a certain age to drive. He loved to travel and always wanted to go to Alaska, but he wouldn't fly. So he never made the long drive there. He got a motorcycle when he was twenty-one much to his mother's nervous distress and took a summer trip to Oregon on it to visit some cousins who had traveled west to settle. He went out there several more times after that in a car.

When I was five, we drove out there in a green Studebaker. There were five of us. I was the youngest kid. My sisters were eleven and seven. A great aunt rode back with us. I wonder now how she survived being cooped up in that little back seat with three little girls, I don't remember her being cranky. Just old. Now I also wonder how old she really was. Probably not nearly as old as I thought she was. Perspective on age changes as you get older and turn into a great aunt or granny yourself.

Dad loved to play horseshoes. He was very competitive and would pitch horseshoes every night when he came in from the fields until he had thrown whatever number of ringers he set as a goal for himself. After he got older, he started going to horseshoe competitions which he enjoyed, but he was already past his prime in throwing ringers. If he had competed when he was younger, he would have been a champion, I'm sure. He also liked to play pool and clay court croquet.

I named my first son after him, but he didn't really want me to. His name was Johnson and he didn't want me to shorten my son's name to Johnny which I did anyway. Dad wanted me to call him by his initials. J.W. A lot of people called my dad by his middle name, Hanks, and some called him J.H. That's how he signed his name. But I stuck with Johnny for my son. Now my son's a lawyer and a lot of people call him John, but Johnson looks good on his letterhead.

Best of all, my dad was a good father and he loved us. And I wish we could have put some ice in an old gunny sack and mashed it up with a sledge hammer to use with lots of stock salt to make that delicious banana ice cream. The kids always had fun spooning in the salt and taking their turn cranking the handle. When Dad determined the ice cream was hard enough we'd take out the dasher and put the cork in the top before we drained out the salt water on some patch of poison ivy perhaps. Then we'd pack new ice on it, salt it down, and wrap it in a quilt so that after supper we could all enjoy some yummy ice cream. Talk about brain freeze.

So give a dad a hug today and celebrate all the dads you know. I wish I'd hugged my dad's neck more often while I had the chance.

That's it for this week. I'll whine and cry about my computer dying on me yesterday next week. Have a good one.