For the Fathers
For the last six weeks like many of you I’ve been riveted as we watch our nation go through this season of growing pains. I don’t know about you but for me everything is off, I’m behind in my gardening, I missed my Mothers Day post, Memorial Day celebrations have come and gone, and now Father’s Day is upon us. In a way, in this season of change is much like the spring weather here in the midwest. I’ve witness lightening while snowing, snow at easter, extreme heat, tornados, and gentle rains. But here in the MO and particularly in the land of the “big canoe” or the “show me state” after the storm we are witnessing change and hopefully peace that comes after the storm.
This Memorial Day season I find myself reflecting back on the images I experienced as a little girl riding in the back of my dad’s old cadillac, undulating along those 2 lane highways of southern MO, Memphis, ending in Clarksdale Miss. That was in the early 60’s. I can remember as a small girl listening with my grandma on her radio and hearing the voices of King and Kennedy, but I digress…
I’ve been very fortunate, no blessed by having strong and powerful male influences as a kid. I’m not saying that I’ve arrived, heck no, but I’d just like to take a second and honor my dad. He was the son of a sharecropper, with barely an “8th grade education.” I can remember him going back to night school, working six days a week doing back breaking labor in demolition and in steel sometimes working two jobs to feed his family. He often told us that he could teach us to work hard with our hands but he wanted us go to school and work hard with our minds. My dad had dirty jobs back in the day, when there was no OSHA. He is a man’s MAN.
I know some of you are doing double duty, this is not a slight against you. I’d just like to give props to the dads, the men and the fellas that are holding it down for their love one’s and making the little ones like me “daddy’s girl” or boy, or niece, or nephew, or cousin or friend…..