My father was a man of conviction about whatever became his topic of discussion or interest. He loved his family, electronics and making people laugh. Daddy was a master story teller and champion dreamer.  My father was full of sayings and “reverse psychology” during parenting moments which was any moment that we were together. He was not a man who believed he was my friend so he didn’t worry about how I felt about the truth hurting my feelings.

He was generally delicate with the truth like when he didn’t like my outfit or he thought it was inappropriate for the occasion. He would say, “Where you going?…”Oh, ok.”… “Well, maybe your mother can help you find something more appropriate to wear.” I can remember thinking and saying with my inside voice, “Like what? A church dress?” I think I learned from him to give my kids some latitude about their wardrobe choices and reserve the strong suggestions about appropriate attire for select occasions.

I also learned from him to always encourage my kids to dream and believe in their abilities to be great at something.  My daddy used to tell us that we could be anything we wanted to be when we grew up. I laugh now because there are really some things I just couldn’t have been either because I think those things are plain boring or because I suck at quantum physics and molecular science. He used to say that if we wanted to be professional gamblers he would buy us “the best pair of dice” he could find. I am certain that was simply to make a point and a true statement of intention. He didn’t want me to be an interior decorator so I can’t imagine he would have ever made good on the pink dice in a camel colored leather case to ensure that I looked like a pro.

My father grew up poor in rural Alabama. As a result, he made it his goal to own most of the things he couldn’t enjoy or afford as a kid. Before the small motor home there was the old van he bought as a fixer upper. The van was such an eye sore when he bought it that my mother made him hide it in the back yard until she deemed it acceptable for viewing in her yard.  With my help, he designed and built benches and cabinetry for the interior. He added new seat covers and had cushions made with matching fabric for the benches in the rear. He got my cousins in Gadsden to paint the exterior in exchange for him making a number of television repairs for them. Then, we took the van home and added stripes. We spent hours in the backyard pimping out his ride while we listened to BB King. My mom used to say she couldn’t believe he had her baby singing the blues. I loved every minute of it.

Before the van, there was the boat. We went to Connecticut once to visit one of his brothers and came home pulling a boat behind the station wagon. His brother gave him an old boat that he considered junk. My dad saw hope and asked if he could take it home. Daddy put the boat in the garage and then went to a boat store to learn about how to prepare his vessel for many successful voyages. We dedicated many hours to sanding, shalacking and painting before we were able to spend weekends riding the Alabama River together.

Daddy often told the story about being so poor that he never had a bike. He said he would fix bikes for kids he knew in exchange for the opportunity to ride the bikes. He said that if they didn’t let him ride, he would return the bikes to their original broken conditions. He loved tinkering with anything mechanical from the HAM radio to the televisions to the small electronic devices. The joke in the house was never to tell daddy if the tv was doing any sort of funny business because you might spend the entirety of your favorite show watching him try “one more thing.” And Heavan forbid if you became the runner to his shop to search for the part that would be located behind the door, on the third shelf in the orange box marked with some long serial number like XQGB125798FLMTP. “Got it?” “Oh sure, Dad” is what I would say in my inside voice as I rolled my eyes and headed to the shop to search endlessly for the part.

Daddy was forever teaching. He believed in making a fisherman of any person he encountered. He parented us and he parented the kids he taught (and their parents). He came home one day laughing about how he convinced some boys at the elementary school where he was the principal that it was not a good idea to pee in the mop bucket. As the story goes, three young boys made it a practice to aggravate the janitor by peeing in the clean mop bucket water before the janitor could mop the bathroom floors. After a couple of successful missions at soiling the mop water, the janitor reported the boys to my dad. Daddy promptly called them to the principal’s office to get to the bottom of the matter. The boys were nervous, of course, and denied any involvement, of course. So, my daddy picked up the phone and called the health department. As you might imagine, he taught the person who answered the phone at some point in his career so when he started telling this story about investigating the mystery of discovering who peed in the mop bucket the woman on the phone played along. He made it sound so official and he laughed as he remembered the fear that overcame the suspects who sat in his office. He summoned the janitor and briefed him on the discussion with the health department representative.  Daddy said they needed a sample from the bucket. When the janitor returned with the murky sample from the mop bucket, daddy told the boys it might be better to fess up and tell on the person who peed in the bucket because they would be in a lot more trouble if they made him drive that sample a town over and put the folks in the lab through all the trouble of testing the mop bucket water sample. The boys nervously confessed and were sentenced to apologize to the janitor, help clean the bathroom floor and agree not to ever pee in the mop bucket again.  It also gave daddy an opportunity to teach the boys about the value of the work performed by the janitor and the respect the janitor was due.

The boys heard a lesson that I heard a lot from my dad: Treat everyone with respect.  My father was a son who loved and respected his parents.  He was a Marine, a baseball player, a teacher, a principal and a mentor.  He was a coach of high school football, baseball, track and basketball.  He was proud of his HAM handle, WA4ZYS, and proud of all of the young folks who respected him like their dad.  I was blessed to have him as my father and blessed that he loved me.  I was blessed when he said that I would forever be his girl. With love, to my daddy.