Thinking of my father
08/12/15 05:26
It has been a little more than 35 years since my father died. I think of him a lot, however. For the most part the memories are pleasant and I am grateful for the things that he taught me in the time that we had together. I was fortunate to have been born into a family with a good marriage at its core and a wonderful love for children. Although my folks didn’t have the highest levels of education, they had a deep love for and respect of education and made education a priority for their family.
Sometimes I imagine being able to talk to my Dad about the world in which we live today. He would have been impressed with the computers that we use. He died just before the advent of personal computers. He was impressed with the capabilities that were being designed into hand-held calculators and the computing technology that made the first moon landing possible. He could see the possibilities of computers for every-day life. He would definitely be impressed with the computers we use and the tasks that they perform in our everyday life. None of us could imagine the Internet in those days. It was several years after his death before I began using e-mail and it was a slow and sometimes frustrating experience in the early years before we had high speed Internet connections. Our first attempts at computer communications, using the standard telephone lines and very slow modems, meant planning carefully and keeping messages short. Still, he would have loved the concept.
He would be completely impressed with our smart phones and mobile devices. I didn’t have a cell phone until more than 15 years after he died, and that was a rather primitive device compared to the phones we take for granted today.
My father would be pretty impressed with my car. During his lifetime getting a car to last for 100,000 miles was a real feat, and rarely occurred with the rough use to which our vehicles were subjected. The car I use as a daily driver has nearly 250,000 miles and I will not be surprised to drive it another 100,000 miles before deciding to replace it. It is dependable and reliable and I’ve worried less about whether or not that car will start than was common with the cars we drove back during my father’s lifetime. I remember thinking we had accomplished something when we could get 15,000 miles on a set of tires. Now I think there is something very wrong if my tires don’t last me 50,000 miles and on our car, I expect 75,000 miles out of a set of tires. Not long ago we traded pickups. The old truck had 165,000 miles on it and we had never run the spare tire on the truck. That would have amazed him.
Thinking about my dad and how he might react to the life I live is mostly an exercise of my imagination. I don’t know what he might think. I don’t know how he would react. I am just speculating based on what I know of him and the relationship we forged in the 27 1/2 years that we shared. Still, there is much of him that lives on in me. There is the simple genetics of a father and son. Children aren’t clones or copies, but we carry much of our parents in our lives. That is, of course, not a prescription. We don’t become our parents. First of all we have two parents and each child is a unique combination of the qualities and attributes of those parents.
My father had a delight in new inventions and gadgets and I know that some of the things we use would fascinate him. I carry a pressurized ball point pen that will write at any angle, has ink that writes clearly on a wet surface, and lasts much longer than a conventional pen. He would have liked that. I would have enjoyed showing it to him along with the pad of waterproof paper that I keep in my rear pocket. He’d like the tiny flashlight that I keep with me and the rechargeable batteries that power it.
It seems to me that thinking of the modern things that would delight my father is a way of measuring progress. Things aren’t the same as they used to be. And it is easy for us to complain about some of the changes. I don’t like the over-scheduling of children and youth that is a part of our world. I don’t like the rise in violence in our communities. I don’t like the fear that arises with each new attack of terrorists. I am frustrated with the increasing polarization in American politics and the ability of politicians to gain such huge amounts of money with such outlandish ideas and concepts. I can make a list of complaints about the world that seems to have no end.
All changes, however, are not bad. There are ways in which our world is getting better and there are things that help us to move forward as a community. The fantasy of giving my father a tour of life in the world as 2015 draws to a close is one way to remind myself of changes that are for good and improvements in some aspects of life today.
Change is inevitable. We can’t hold it back. And it is clear that we humans are pretty good at adapting to change. We are capable of more than just surviving in this changing world. We can discover happiness and meaning and wholeness. Part of that process is understanding our connection with those who have come before us. Ours isn’t the first generation to experience loss and grief. We aren’t the first to know love and faith, either. These things didn’t start with us and will not end when our time in this life is over. That thought brings me to one more thing that I’m sure my father would have loved.
He would have delighted in our grandchildren. He loved kids and these are amazing kids that fill me with hope continually.
I am grateful to belong to many generations of this family.
Sometimes I imagine being able to talk to my Dad about the world in which we live today. He would have been impressed with the computers that we use. He died just before the advent of personal computers. He was impressed with the capabilities that were being designed into hand-held calculators and the computing technology that made the first moon landing possible. He could see the possibilities of computers for every-day life. He would definitely be impressed with the computers we use and the tasks that they perform in our everyday life. None of us could imagine the Internet in those days. It was several years after his death before I began using e-mail and it was a slow and sometimes frustrating experience in the early years before we had high speed Internet connections. Our first attempts at computer communications, using the standard telephone lines and very slow modems, meant planning carefully and keeping messages short. Still, he would have loved the concept.
He would be completely impressed with our smart phones and mobile devices. I didn’t have a cell phone until more than 15 years after he died, and that was a rather primitive device compared to the phones we take for granted today.
My father would be pretty impressed with my car. During his lifetime getting a car to last for 100,000 miles was a real feat, and rarely occurred with the rough use to which our vehicles were subjected. The car I use as a daily driver has nearly 250,000 miles and I will not be surprised to drive it another 100,000 miles before deciding to replace it. It is dependable and reliable and I’ve worried less about whether or not that car will start than was common with the cars we drove back during my father’s lifetime. I remember thinking we had accomplished something when we could get 15,000 miles on a set of tires. Now I think there is something very wrong if my tires don’t last me 50,000 miles and on our car, I expect 75,000 miles out of a set of tires. Not long ago we traded pickups. The old truck had 165,000 miles on it and we had never run the spare tire on the truck. That would have amazed him.
Thinking about my dad and how he might react to the life I live is mostly an exercise of my imagination. I don’t know what he might think. I don’t know how he would react. I am just speculating based on what I know of him and the relationship we forged in the 27 1/2 years that we shared. Still, there is much of him that lives on in me. There is the simple genetics of a father and son. Children aren’t clones or copies, but we carry much of our parents in our lives. That is, of course, not a prescription. We don’t become our parents. First of all we have two parents and each child is a unique combination of the qualities and attributes of those parents.
My father had a delight in new inventions and gadgets and I know that some of the things we use would fascinate him. I carry a pressurized ball point pen that will write at any angle, has ink that writes clearly on a wet surface, and lasts much longer than a conventional pen. He would have liked that. I would have enjoyed showing it to him along with the pad of waterproof paper that I keep in my rear pocket. He’d like the tiny flashlight that I keep with me and the rechargeable batteries that power it.
It seems to me that thinking of the modern things that would delight my father is a way of measuring progress. Things aren’t the same as they used to be. And it is easy for us to complain about some of the changes. I don’t like the over-scheduling of children and youth that is a part of our world. I don’t like the rise in violence in our communities. I don’t like the fear that arises with each new attack of terrorists. I am frustrated with the increasing polarization in American politics and the ability of politicians to gain such huge amounts of money with such outlandish ideas and concepts. I can make a list of complaints about the world that seems to have no end.
All changes, however, are not bad. There are ways in which our world is getting better and there are things that help us to move forward as a community. The fantasy of giving my father a tour of life in the world as 2015 draws to a close is one way to remind myself of changes that are for good and improvements in some aspects of life today.
Change is inevitable. We can’t hold it back. And it is clear that we humans are pretty good at adapting to change. We are capable of more than just surviving in this changing world. We can discover happiness and meaning and wholeness. Part of that process is understanding our connection with those who have come before us. Ours isn’t the first generation to experience loss and grief. We aren’t the first to know love and faith, either. These things didn’t start with us and will not end when our time in this life is over. That thought brings me to one more thing that I’m sure my father would have loved.
He would have delighted in our grandchildren. He loved kids and these are amazing kids that fill me with hope continually.
I am grateful to belong to many generations of this family.