[T4Texas]

Today is Father's day and it brings me back a lot of memories of my dad. My dad was a different kind of guy. He grew up poor, left home to join the Navy in WWII and served on a jeep carrier through much of the war. He got into trouble a few times and once beat up two Army MPs and stole their jeep so that he could go home to see his mother. They tossed him out of the Navy with a general discharge near the end of the war, but he was always proud of his service despite that. My parents were married 11 years before I was born and I became their only child. As a child growing up I spent a lot of time with my dad who always called me his "partner" because I guess he secretly had wanted a boy. He owned an 18 wheeler for some years and when he would come back from the weeks long trips, I would come home and see his little hat on the back of the couch and be all excited because he was back. He would bring me boy toys like baseball gloves, bows and arrows and one fourth of July boxes of fireworks which he set off in the road for our own private display. He would take me places like the museum which fueled my love of history, the go kart track, as he raced karts on the weekends, hill climibing on his motorcycle with me on the back or to the driving range to hit golf balls by the bucket. He drove heavy equipment later on and we moved from pillar to post but it was always an adventure and one I would never change. My life has paralelled his in many ways other than I have stayed in one place most of my adult life. But I have the same sense of running through life at your own speed without thinking much of the future. Some might say thats not a good lesson and perhaps it isnt, but its been my life. He taught me to take care of myself and be independent and I attribute my confidence and personal strength to him. My dad died in 1983 and I had him cremated, then spread his ashes all up and down interstate 10 from ARizona to Texas because I felt he would have liked that gesture. Before he died, he wrote me a letter telling me how sorry he was that he wasnt a better dad or didnt send me to college, etc. What he didnt know was that he taught me life lessons and in my mind was the greatest man in the world. I miss him.