Tribute

My dad would have been 90 years old tomorrow.

He died in April of 1995 -- 3 months after his 80th birthday and a month before my first child was born, before my younger brother's first child was born, and also right before the first child was born to two of my nephews (we had four births in May/June 1995).

Dad was 48 when I was born (and almost 50 when my younger brother was born). He and mom had each already been married once before and each had four children from their prior marriages. All of those children were already grown, or at least in their late teens. This is how I have a host of nieces and nephews that are approximately my age (and one niece who is older than me). This also explains how I am already a great-uncle to lots of great-nieces and nephews. I will be a great-great uncle this coming May!

Despite his advanced age, Dad did all the "dad" things with us -- he taught me how to ride a bike, how to throw a football, how to shoot a BB gun, etc. He instilled a work ethic in me -- I had to start mowing the yard when I was around 7 or 8. I had to help him with what seemed to be a never ending list of carpentry jobs -- it seemed we were forever building a storage shed or an addition to the house or remodeling this or that. None of this carpentry work "took" with me and I remain as inept as ever at even the simplest home repair. He arranged a job for me when I was 14 to scout cotton for the summer. I worked every summer scouting cotton thereafter until I passed the bar exam (with the exception of the summer that I went to Governor's School).

My younger brother was closer to my dad than I simply because they had similar interests, but this never bothered me. In his own way, Dad made sure that I never doubted that he had confidence in me and that he was proud of me. Somehow, he and mom made sure that I got anything that I needed and also anything that I wanted, if I wanted it badly enough. I was very fortunate.

In conveying Dad's strengths, I have to disclose his weaknesses. In my earliest years, he drank to excess on occasion. When this problem culminated in a fairly violent and dramatic episode when I was around six, he realized he had to stop drinking....and he did. No 12 step programs, no AA meetings, simply, "I quit." Similarly, after smoking cigarettes his entire life, he decided, in his mid-70's, that he should quit. And he did. No nicotine patches or gum. No relapses. Simply, " I quit."

He liked to watch the news, read the newspaper, and read TIME magazine from front to back. I inherited his love of the music of Hank Williams, Sr. and other old school honky tonk country artists. When I played him a tape of a song that I wrote and that my band recorded, he said it sounded like an old Marty Robbins record. No one could have paid me a higher compliment than that.

I wish my children had known him.

Happy birthday, Dad.