My Pappy!

My Dad and his Dad mid 1970s

I have a great father. So much so, that as I got older and out into the World, I was in for a bit a shock. Not everyone had it so good apparently. To this day I have trouble wrapping my head around that. It's okay, it's a deficiency, but one I think I can live with.

My Dad taught me lots of things. He never said, "c'mere I want to teach you something". He told me stories, gave me mysteries to solve and was just his wonderful self. There are countless examples. These are just a few that stick out the most profoundly in my memory.

My Dad taught me to be kind hearted. We used to have a 22 gauge rifle stuffed away somewhere. My dad told me when the rifle was given to him he went out to hunt some small game in the woods behind our house. He aimed at a chipmunk in a tree and pulled the trigger. The chipmunk fell to the ground twitching. Instead of feeling the pride of marksmanship, he just looked at the life he had taken with a tear in his eye. He went home and put away the rifle and never took it out again. When he told me this story, it cured me of ever wanting to learn it for myself.

He taught me to be humble, how to admit when I'm wrong and how not to be an asshole with one short sentence. We were in the car going somewhere and I was being, as my Mom and now my Wife sometimes put it 'being a pill'. I was being a whole lotta pill on that occasion because my Dad did something he never did before or since to my recollection. I was being such an ass that in his frustration he called me a "little bastard". Even back then I knew I deserved it, but I was a child so I retorted indignantly: "You shouldn't call me that!" In my opinion, if he had reached back and smacked me one he would have been justified, but not my dad. He simply said in a sincere even tone: "You're right, I'm sorry."

Even though I was geared for war, In that instant with my jaw hanging open, I saw myself for the little jerk I was. I had driven my Dad to call me a name and then feel badly about it. He didn't get defensive, he apologized, to me... the little jerk. He could have yelled at me, punished me, kicked me out of the car and made me walk home, but it wouldn't have had nearly the impact as his telling me he was wrong and he was sorry. no reverse psychology, no deliberate manipulation, just the simple consequences of my actions made plain to me because he was honest and humble.

My Dad taught my ingenuity. My Dad was the sort of guy who knocked out walls and built additions to our house nearly doubling it in size. He was not a contractor, he just taught himself somehow. That's not all he did: He kept bees, kept a large vegetable garden, tapped maple trees, learned how to hand hew round logs into square beams, made bookcases and furniture, designed and made stained glass windows, built a barn, got his general license as a ham radio operator, designed and built two bridges, and taught himself photography. When I want to do something, I get excited, figure it out and do it myself. Thanks Dad!

He taught me how not to take myself or life too seriously. If you've seen the Pixar Animation "Inside Out" (and you need to) you know about "Goofball Island". From when my brother and I were toddlers and we would have 'cougar fights' to later when getting lost in the car was 'an adventure'. Good jokes, bad puns and lots of laughter is how I grew up.

Sadly, much of childhood's magic goes away. Sadly, that's life, but I'm happy to report that my "Goofball Island" is still up and hoppin'. I even put in a new wing when I got married--another success I attribute to my folks, but that's a different post.

My Dad taught me critical thinking and the scientific process was fun (self esteem as a bonus). We lived in the country, so nature was all around us. Often my Dad would encounter something interesting. Instead of a lecture on, say, the robin's egg shell and nest we had encountered on a trail, he would say: "Look, we have a mystery here!" We would rush over to see what he was talking about.

He would point out his observation and then ask us questions about it. Then he would do something remarkable. He would listen to us. Our observations and theories mattered! You can tell a kid a hundred times a day they are special and talented, but being listened to and taken seriously back then is self esteem I carry to this day. When we had gone through the process of observations and theories to our 'mystery' with his subtle guidance we would then look to him for "the answer". After all he was the smartest man in the World as far as we were concerned. Then he blew our minds again by saying: "I don't know."

What? The smartest guy in the World 'doesn't know'? He would then give his own theories on what had happened, but stress that our theories, if they were viable, were possible also. I learned then that true intelligence is not an easy airtight answer, but distinguishing observable facts from theory and conjecture and weighing them based on their merit. It was okay not to have the absolute answer. Later in school I would learn how to test and document theories, but the bigger lesson was there in the woods, or at a sprung mousetrap in the basement or a set of skid marks on the road.

Again, my Dad didn't do these things as some sort of lesson plan. He did them because it was fun for him and he wanted to share with us.

We actually still do this stuff, Mom too.

My Dad taught me self reinvention and continual self improvement. This is a lesson I can attribute to both my parents as one or the other was in school for a most of my adolescence and indeed my adult life. My dad taught high school science, biology and freshman physics. There was always that week in the fall when he came home smelling of formaldehyde when his class was dissecting fetal pigs.

He was not very happy teaching and began to explore other career options about the time I was mid-way through high school. He got his masters in Imaging Science at night school over several years and began working for Kodak as an optical engineer, where he was much happier tinkering with optics benches than wrangling unruly kids.

Even in retirement both my parents regard learning as a lifestyle. Whereas my style of learning is not so compatible with the formal classroom and the cost/benefit of higher learning simply doesn't add up at this point in my career(s), I still benefit from their example. I continually reinvent myself by hands-on, Internet learning and simply by not allowing myself to gather moss in any particular station of life.

Most of all my Dad loves me. He tells me, he shows me and he asks for nothing in return. He loves me when I screw up, he loves me though prefer going to movies to going camping, he loves me when I decide to move across the country and don't come home as much as either of us would like, and he loves me for being happy at what I do, even though maybe, secretly, once upon a time he had hopes of my going into a field of science.

And that is why, in addition to a billion other things I'll never fully appreciate, that my father is great!


The greatest!

I love you Pappy