At the age of ten, I decided to organize a baseball team and I named myself captain. I had visions of grandeur. I set up practice times, arranged for games against other teams and generally set out to put my vision into motion. I was sure I knew what we was needed to make our little team a winner.

One day, upon arrival at the practice field, the team announced to me that they had decided to name someone else captain. His name was Charley. Charley was one of my best friends (I thought), but now I was just a member of the team and he was the captain. I was really hurt, but I went on with life (as we usually do), hiding my feelings as much as I could.

As I grew up and worked myself up the corporate ladder, I never forgot that experience. It had impressed on me the importance of making sure that the people you want to go with you also share your vision. Often, we get so excited about "our" goals, "our" plans, "our" future that we forget that others might not yet share that same vision. Then we wonder why they don’t perform at the intensity level that we had expected.

People want to feel that they are part of the team. They respond best when they are a part of the planning process. It is a real art to be able to include others in this process without compromising your leadership role. Sometimes it takes a little longer to do it this way, but the results are longer lasting and much more rewarding.

When I was very young I remember playing with the girl next door, making mud cakes. We lived in a small house behind the high school in Alton. One day my dad took our picture, mud cakes and all.

My dad took a lot of pictures with his blue Kodak camera. He developed the pictures himself in our basement. I remember helping him. All the lights had to be turned out while we transferred the negatives from one pan to the other. It was a lot of fun for a small boy.

My dad often came home from work for lunch, I suppose because it was a way to save money since it was during the depression. While he was eating lunch one day I drove nails into three of his tires. Not too long after he left to return to work he called home saying that he had just pulled into a service station with a flat tire, only to find out he had three flat tires.

When my dad questioned me about the flat tires I said, "when you had a flat tire last time, and you were pumping it up with air, and I wanted to help, you said the next time you had a flat tire you would let me pump it up. (I guess I just didn’t want to wait.)

Some time later, my dad was going fishing with one of his friends. I wanted to go with him, so while he was getting ready, I got in the back seat. When they got ready to go they tried to get me out of the back seat and I just "held on for dear life". Finally, they gave up and let me go with them. I reportedly later told my mother, " the next time you want to go somewhere just get in the back seat and hold on".

One of my best memories was going to the movies with my dad. We saw a lot of Gene Autry movies. I remember riding on his shoulders on the way home, just the two of us. My dad later would tell over and over the story of how I would hold his hands and sing to him a song I learned from one of the movies. I would sing "Ou R My Ucky Star. My Ucky Star is What Ou R". He never forgot me doing that. Those were good times.

These memories are from my life before I was in the first grade. I know this for sure, because one day right before my sixth birthday my mother told me that I was going to sleep with my dad that night. She said we were going away. I didn’t know what all that meant. I remember my dad breathed deeply in his sleep and snored a little. The next day we moved in with my grandparents in another town.

I missed doing these things with my dad.

My Son – The Father

 

All the kids were home for Thanksgiving this year. That is,  our son, two daughters, their spouses and, most important, the grandchildren. The house was full, but we had a great time!

 

On Saturday afternoon following the big turkey day, I was browsing through "Velvet and Steel", by John K. Ream. (www.effectivefather.org) On page 27 of his book there are 14 different sketches, along with these instructions. "Have your children circle the picture that most reminds them of Daddy!" This is an exercise John uses in his ‘Effective Father Seminars’.

 

I turned to my son who was sitting next to me on the couch and said, " I’ll bet I know which of these pictures your daughter would pick." (There were sketches of a man laughing, another of one fishing, one of an man relaxing in a hammock, one speaking from a podium, and etc." I pointed out to my son the one I thought his daughter would pick.

 

Just then my eight year old granddaughter entered the room. My son called to her, "here sweetie, tell me which of these pictures reminds you of me." While she carefully looked at each sketch I thought, I’ll probably be way off base. She looked at one, hesitated, and then went on to the next, but very quickly pointed to the one in the lower right hand corner. "This one reminds me of you dad, because you are always teaching me."

 

The sketch my granddaughter selected represented a man stooping down with one hand on a child’s shoulder; the other pointed toward something. It was the exact picture I had selected, because I had watched my son time after time, hour after hour, show the patience to teach and encourage his daughter. I was so proud. She sees him that way too!

 

When our sons and daughters are born, we want for them many things – good health –a good education – financial success – happiness- and much more. These are all desirable, but nothing warms my heart more than seeing the loving husband and father my son has become. My Son - the Father, you give me much pleasure.

 

Dylan’s Father

I  treasure the Saturday mornings I spent with my dad. I would drive 30 miles each way to get to his house. Often we would take a drive from his house up the riverfront to Grafton, Illinois, a small town on the Mississippi River. There we would have breakfast. Dad always took along his sugar free syrup for the pancakes. He had diabetes.

These were special mornings for both of us. They were especially important to me because throughout the years we had missed so many opportunities to be together . Divorce when I was five had taken care of that. Yes, we stayed in touch and, yes, we got together from time to time, but it was not the same. There was much sadness and a sense of loss connected with the whole relationship. That’s just the way it is sometimes.

So, when my father was in his late seventies, I decided I would set aside every Saturday morning to be with him. It was just something I thought I should do for both of us, while I still could. It was a good decision, and it did much to soften the wounds we both felt.

This experience was not without some difficulty, however. At times, particularly at first, I found myself resenting the fact that I had spent so many years without the closeness I desired with my father. Now, when his mind was not as sharp, his body not as straight, he needed me and wanted that close relationship. "Why now?", I would ask myself. I’m happy that I didn’t let those feelings keep me from doing what I needed to do.

Dad really seemed to enjoy these Saturday mornings together.  That’s an understatement. He looked forward to my arrival with great anticipation. I always let him decide where he wanted to go. Unless the weather was bad, dad usually would choose his favorite little restaurant in Grafton., where he loved to order pancakes. Dad had difficulty swallowing, so it always took us quite a while to get through the meal.

Dad also had a problem speaking. A problem the doctor called stretched vocal chords. When he spoke, it was just a whisper. Some days were better than others, but even on the best days it took a lot of patience to try to understand what he was saying and carry on a conversation with him. At times we had to resort to handwritten notes. Dad had a lot he wanted to say.

Somewhere along the way in our Saturday morning journey’s, I decided it might be good for him to talk about his life and his own memories. So I got a notebook and began interviewing him during our visits. We started with our family tree, Aunt Minnie, Aunt Mary, Uncle Pete, we covered them all or at least all that he could remember.

We talked about his sister Irma, who died at the age of twelve. She was his older sister. We talked about how the family gathered around her bedside when she was dying and some of her last words before she died. We talked about the impact Irma’s death had on the family.

We talked about dad’s relationship with his own father, which was somewhat strained. I was never able to determine exactly why they weren’t closer. Dad was the apple of my grandmother’s eye.

We talked about how my grandparents met at the World’s Fair in St. Louis in 1904. Grandpa was with a bunch of guys and Grandma was there with her girlfriends. That’s where it all started.

We talked about some of dad’s disappointments in life….how his own dad put him in a trade school on his sixteenth birthday, a crushing blow to him at the time….about the voice lessons his dad discouraged him from taking. We talked also about his marriage to my mother and the heartache he had caused her. He once told me she was the prettiest girl in the church. (Her pictures confirm that also.) Dad talked about some of the mistakes he had made. The more we talked, the more open we could be.

On my last Saturday morning with dad we got a later start and I remember that he wanted to go to Grafton and have a catfish dinner. I was driving while he was trying to tell me where to go. I couldn’t hear him, so I had him write on a piece of paper what he wanted to say. When we got to Grafton, however, we could not get into the restaurant with his wheelchair, so we ended up getting a takeout and going back to his house to eat. Three weeks later he passed away.

I’m glad I had this time on Saturday mornings with dad. It couldn’t replace the years we lost. One can never do  that. Sometimes it’s better to take what you can and give whatever you have. This is not a perfect world. Perhaps we can at least help make it less imperfect. I loved my dad and I know he loved me too.

Dylan's Father

[ My Father's Page ]  [ Contents ]

"The Job I Hold Tomorrow May Not Have Been Created Yet"

This is a response I gave to a question someone asked me many years ago and I have since marveled at how prophetic it was.

I had recently been promoted to a good job in middle management. Positions at the next level were generally filled with much older employees with many more years of service.

(We were a promotion from within company and very little thought was given to moving up by going to another company.)

So, Ed asked me, L.. , Where do you go from here? It’s got to be a long time before your next move up. You’re an ambitious person. Are you going to be happy where you are for a long time?

Without giving it much thought I responded, "Ed, the job I hold tomorrow may not have been created yet."

I don’t know what made me come up with this statement, but it certainly was prophetic. Within a year I had been promoted to a newly created position in our home office. This was the first of several moves up the ladder for me. Several of those important moves were to jobs that were created for me or at least had not been created until I filled the position.

Through the years I have observed that some people look around and say, "I have no place to go". I am pleased that throughout my lifetime I have been able to say to myself, " the job I hold tomorrow may not have been created yet." I still feel that way.

Dylan's Father

[ My Father's Page ]  [ Contents ]

I started making my own way in life at the age of sixteen. Fortunately, I found a company where, with a lot of hard work, I could move up the ladder of "success". I can’t exactly say I was an overnight success, but each year we seemed to have a little more and eventually we moved into a neighborhood with what to me were beautiful homes in a desirable area of the suburbs.

We struggled when we first moved into our new home. It took us at least a couple of years to furnish all the rooms of our four-bedroom house. We had two bathrooms, which seemed like plenty to me for a family of five. I grew up in a household of four adults and two children and only one bathroom.

In spite of the empty, unfurnished rooms and floors that weren’t yet carpeted, I felt well off. I had more than I had ever had in life and I knew that as the years went on I would have even more. Of course I was working many hours and did not have a lot of time to think of much else in those days.

Next door we had some very nice neighbors who also were moving up in the world. They seemed to be doing a little better than us……an occasional trip to Florida or Bermuda, a second home at the lake, a new boat. Yes, The neighbors were doing quite well and I got to hear a about every new exciting thing happening in their lives …… from my family, along with occasional comments such as, "you have a big job and a title, why can’t we afford to do what our neighbors do?"

Frustrated one day, from the pressure of being unable to "keep up with the Jones’s", I said, "isn’t it amazing that I’ve finally been able to afford to move into a neighborhood where I could feel deprived!"

That comment was right off the top of my head, but I’ve thought many times how well it describes what happens to many of us along the way. There are indeed many in this world who are truly deprived, but for the vast majority of us who live here, we just fail to appreciate all that we do have.

I am thankful that I live in a country with so much opportunity, that I had parents that gave me so many of the important things in life, that I have had a family to love. Not everyone has had these treasures. How could I feel deprived just because someone has a bigger home or gets to go to the "city" more than I do?

No, the truth is, if I had continued to live in the neighborhood where I grew up, and lived in the style I do now, all my neighbors would be asking the same question. " Why can’t we afford to live like our neighbors do?"

[ My Father's Page ]  [ Contents ]

Treasures

 

 

We were having dinner at a great Chinese restaurant at the Hilton Hawaiian Village. We were in the final days of a ten-day vacation in Maui and Honolulu. I had been very quiet during the meal and Pat turned to me and said, "Cheer up, what’s wrong. We only have two days left!"

 

Cheer up, I thought, that’s easy to say. Over the past several days I had been receiving news about my company…. all bad. The CEO and President had both unexpectedly announced their retirement. Our company stock had dropped dramatically. I was losing a fortune. There was talk of bankruptcy.

 

How can this be? I had invested over 40 years of my life in a company that had reached 1.5 billion in sales. Starting as a stock person, I now enjoyed the position of president of a major division of the company. I was depending on my company for pension benefits, stock options, health benefits in retirement and much more. What I was hearing couldn’t be happening.

 

So, when Pat said, " Cheer up", I had a quick response. "Listen, how would you feel if I took all that jewelry you own, put it in a sack and threw it out there in that ocean?" (Pat, like most other women, loves jewelry.) "Well, that’s how I feel right now." Pat had not yet caught the gravity of the situation.

 

The next morning (Sunday), I got up early and went to the swimming pool on the 2nd floor deck of our hotel. A short time later I began to hear some familiar music. It was coming from the beach area. I recognized the music as hymns I had grown up with in my church. I walked over to the rail to listen as people began to gather for a service on the beach. (I later learned religious services had been held on this beach every Sunday for many years.)

 

I enjoyed the music and listened as the minister began to preach. His message was on a familiar scripture, one that I knew well. "Don’t store up your treasures on earth, for where your treasure is, your heart will be also." Wham!

 

After the minister finished, I hurried back to our room to report to Pat. "Well, I got the Word today," I said. I went on to explain what had taken place. The message was not new to us. We believed it with all our hearts, but the reminder was timely. What are the really important treasures in this life anyway? On reflection, I know them to be:

• A loving relationship with my God
• A loving relationship with my spouse
• A loving relationship with children and grandchildren
• A loving relationship with many close friends
• Peace that comes with doing the right thing
• Satisfaction of a job well done

These and perhaps much more, none of which have anything to do with money.

I thank God that He has taught me throughout my life that the real treasures are eternal. Pat and I like material things a lot. Along the way, we have been fortunate to enjoy many of the so-called finer things in life . However, nothing ever matches the really important relationships we have enjoyed, starting with our relationship with our Creator.

 

Dylan’s Father

 

 

Reflection:

Our worst fears did come to pass. The company I had invested so much time in went into bankruptcy………and many of the earthly treasures along with it. However, we have all the treasures on earth we need. God has provided.