The power of a dad in a child’s life is unmatched. ~Justin Ricklefs
It’s Father’s Day on the longest daylight day of the year, the summer solstice. That just gives us extra time to celebrate our dads. I hope you had a good dad the way I did. My dad was a farmer. His father was a farmer and his grandfathers were farmers. He grew up in a rural area when most everybody who lived around his family were people who made their living by farming. Some of the men had other jobs but they still farmed. Most all their wives were stay-at-home moms who raised gardens to put up food for their families and worked alongside their husbands in the fields. And the kids did too. From my perspective as one of those kids, it was a great way to grow up.
My dad raised tobacco and corn. He mowed and baled hay for his cows, mostly beef cows. He raised hogs for a hog killing in the fall for us to have food. He had sheep too that he sheared for the wool and sold the lambs, but we never ate mutton. He raised wheat. His dad had a bin in what once was their buggy house where they kept the wheat after it was threshed. When I was a kid I played in that wheat the way other kids might have played in a huge sandbox. Dad also had a cattle truck and at once time hauled cattle for other farmers or whatever else they had to sell or needed hauled back from the big city. His father farmed with horses, but Dad had tractors. His first tractor was an iron wheeled one that was retired to the middle of a pasture field when better models came along. I played on that too. Wish I had a picture of it now, but that was way before you had digital cameras that let you take pictures of whatever you saw without worrying about the cost of film and developing that film.
I did take the picture above when I was sixteen. My dad wasn’t one who liked to dress up. He had one suit that he kept for funerals. So this is the picture I took before we headed to my grandfather’s funeral. My grandfather was in his 90s when he died and had been sick and bedridden for several months after a stroke. So although I know Dad was sad, he was also glad his father wasn’t suffering anymore and had no problem smiling for the camera.
Dad was also very competitive. He loved playing cards. His favorite was Bridge but never had many who could play that with him. So mostly he played Rook. And he did like to win. He also pitched horseshoes and at one time said he made a high percentage of ringers. He would practice every day at the end of his work day. When he was retirement age he finally started competing in horseshoe events but was disappointed that he had lost some of his strength by then. He still won plenty of trophies. He also played competitive croquet on a clay court. I loved that because he played on Sunday afternoons in the same park as the swimming pool and I got to go swimming while he played.
So many memories of Dad. Helping him in the fields. Pulling the hay bales back away from the loft window so he could pitch more up in the loft from the wagon. Helping him herd the cows. Spending many hours in the dusty tobacco stripping room and hearing him talk about how he had to work when he was my age. He was a man who figured out how to do whatever he wanted to do. He built his own barns and other outbuildings. He repaired his machinery. He hauled rocks and cut firewood. He loved his family.
And he knew how to live a dream. When he was 21, he bought a motorcycle and rode across country to Oregon to visit relatives there. Maybe it’s from him that I inherited the courage to follow my own dream of writing stories.
I talk and talk and talk, and I haven’t taught people in 50 years what my father taught by example in one week. ~Mario Cuomo
What you teach your children, you also teach their children. ~Unknown
A father is neither an anchor to hold us back nor a sail to take us there, but a guiding light whose love shows us the way. ~Unknown
What did your father teach you or share with you or what did he do to make you smile?
Comments 10
Pop shared with me his love of music and nature. We enjoyed going for drives together, listening to music and looking at beautiful scenery. How I miss him.
Author
What a blessing to have good memories of times with your father, Lauren. Not everybody can say that, but I’m glad that many of us can. It’s good when we can enjoy the same things with those we love.
I loved reading about your Dad and your farm life. Your growing up on the farm was almost identical to mine, even to playing in the bin of wheat. The only thing different was we didn’t have sheep and Daddy milked cows. He traded a 50 acre field of corn on Green River ( where the control tower for Green River Dam is located) for a brand new Allis Chalmer tractor. He had the only truck in the community and hauled coal from Eastern Ky, fertilizer for North American Fertilize Co, tobacco for Big Burley in Springfield, cherry furniture from Cassidy’s in Bowling Green and his truck is parked in the woods by the tobacco barn.
Author
I love that his hauling truck is parked in the woods still, Janice. Such great memories. Thank you so much for sharing them. It does sound as though we had some of the same experiences growing up. Glad to have someone else who knows how much fun it was playing in that wheat even if you did come out dusty and dirty. 🙂
I loved reading this. My dad was a hard worker and was a wood finisher by trade. He made beautiful furniture and taught me my love of making things from others discards. He loved to go junk picking as he called it. He taught me to love gardening of flowers and food. Sometimes he worked extra jobs to provide for us. A loving and kind man who helped everyone. I was blessed to call him papa.
Author
Thanks for sharing about your dad, Lucy. He sounds like he was a wonderful papa. I need to make a note of his junk picking. That sounds like something that would be good in a story.
It is so good to have wonderful memories of our growing up years.
Your love for your father shines through. He taught you well and raised you to be resourceful and capable. What a wonderful legacy he left!
My dad was a farmer as well, raising tobacco and gardens for food. Mama did lots of canning and preserving. I worked in tobacco and the gardens growing up. As I got older, daddy had a second job in a furniture factory. Later in life my dad got a job as a mail carrier. He also was a Barber on the side. I can remember him carrying the mail, having a garden and cutting hair on Friday and Saturday nights. He was a hard worker and provided well for his family. When I was a child, we all worked hard together to get things done. We never had a lot but we always had what we needed. Daddy and Mama always let us know that we were loved. As I look back on things, those were the good old days. We were brought up to have respect for our parents, and taught to help when there was work that needed to be done. We were not told that they loved us like we do today, but we never doubted their love for us. Small things that they gave us meant a lot to us and we didn’t expect a lot. We were not envious of others as most people didn’t have a lot either. We went to church every Sunday and visited family members on Sunday afternoon. I am thankful to have grown up in those days and to have their beliefs instilled in me. Again, they were the “good old days”.
Author
Sweet memories, Brenda. It was a good time to grow up when as you say, most of us didn’t have a lot, but we always had enough. We raised our own food or some of it and did all pitch in with whatever needed doing. And you’re right about nobody telling kids all the time that they loved them. We knew by the way we were treated. It’s good both ways but the words don’t mean much unless the actions prove it.
Thank you for sharing about your good old days.
Author
He was far from perfect, Suzanne, but then none of us are perfect. He was a good dad. Growing up on a farm can make a person learn how to do things and appreciate your blessings.