Five Stick Friday

My Dad passed away in late September of 2007. That’s fifteen years and some change ago. I was at an Upward Football Game with my son Davis when I got the call. It was a beautiful Fall day outside…I remember my first thought being “Well…you picked a good day to travel, Dad”.

And since that first thought, I’ve had all kinds of thoughts, memories, replaying of moments throughout my life that involved him. And me being kind of the matter of fact, analytical type…I began thinking about all the posts I read from others citing “My Dad Was…” or “My Dad Is…” And those are all great. But I decided to take a different angle…and point out the top ten things my Dad wasn’t.

And here they are, in no particular order.

1. My Dad wasn’t a musician…but he loved his. Anyone that knew my Dad knew that our musical inclinations clearly didn’ t come from him. Full stop. I often wondered if he was really as bad of a musician as he let on, or he just didn’t “apply” much time to it. There were times I would hear him carry a tune I could ALMOST recognize, but in general…uh…no. The staff at First Baptist Church in Dalton once bought him a bucket with a piece of sheet music in it so that he could finally “carry a tune in a bucket”. So it would stand to reason that supporting three kids through a ton of musical endeavors would be something he would likely punt to Mom, right? Wrong. There was no bigger supporter of the Dalton High School band program when the three of us marched. I can’t remember but I think he did a stint or two as the Booster Club President, he worked incessantly on Fundraisers, and he could always be heard whooping his support whether it be at Harmon Field on Friday Night or from the top of the pressbox at Desoto Nationals in Bradenton, Florida when Dalton swept through and won that show…twice. He was there both times…with that Chester grin and laugh and willing to take on anyone in the stands that would even suggest that someone had beaten Dalton. My only regret? That he didn’t make it long enough to see Davis conducting the Cavaliers in DCI. But then again…maybe he saw it from the clouds. No…Dad wasn’t a musician…but he loved his fiercely.

2. My Dad wasn’t a fisherman…but that didn’t stop him from helping me become one. In my early teens, I can’t count the number of times I had him up at 4:30 a.m. driving me to Leisure Lake in Cohutta…or the charter deep sea trips we took in Fort Walton. My Dad put my first Zebco 202 in my hands when I was 4. I would practice casting it up and down the center hall in our house on Harvard Drive. Early on, after visiting a pond in Rocky Face and catching nothing at all when I was 6 or so, he arranged to get me to a “guaranteed catch” rainbow trout farm…and as they say in the fishing game…”the tug is the drug”….I was hooked. And have fished freshwater and saltwater ever since. I know my Dad didn’t really enjoy fishing…but he enjoyed that I did.

3. My Dad wasn’t an athlete...My Dad played high school football. Or at least they gave him a uniform. I don’t really know if he ever got to play or not…certainly not something he talked about. The first sport I fell in love with was baseball. And to practice fielding, I would incessantly bounce tennis balls off our closed garage door and field them. I’d create difficult angles. I’d do simple repetitions. For hours. It would be a false statement to say my Dad threw a lot with me. Because he didn’t. But he was at every game, and when…in my very first game I was hit by a pitch twice, he was the one to talk me through the confidence to even have a second game. Which is way more important than being the other end of a catch game. Nope…my Dad wasn’t an athlete, but he sure did support us figuring out we weren’t either.


4. My Dad wasn’t a business icon… A lot of men from my Dad’s era drew much of their identity from their employment. “Lawyer, Doctor, Businessman, CEO…” carried as much if not more weight in those times than even now. My Dad got an engineering degree from Georgia Tech and then went straight to Southern Seminary in Louisville to begin what would be 20+ years in Christian Ministry. I don’t think I ever heard him call himself an “engineer” though he had the degree to claim it. He never called himself a “Pastor” or a “Reverend” because that wasn’t his role in the churches he served. So in Dalton, where in those days probably just as everywhere else a title was a status…my Dad was a Minister of Administration at a local church. And yet..he was a very influential man in his community. And didn’t really on title or status to be such.

5. My Dad wasn’t a “billboard evangelist”… My Dad had a unrelenting belief in Jesus Christ. I’d have to say it’s where my own came from, though I’ve clearly indulged doubt throughout my life. That’s another post for another time. My Dad was a believer. But you know what he wasn’t? He wasn’t a “bullhorn” believer. He wasn’t going to shove his belief down YOUR throat. It’s something that I feel proud to have inherited…because I’m not going to do that either. I’ve outlined where I believe the role of “evangelism” is should be in our lives in another post entitled…AS You Go… but that is literally another post. What my Dad was in this realm was a conversationalist. I can’t count the number of times I ended up stranded in a parking lot somewhere while my Dad talked through someone’s inquiries about faith…most times while the person was experiencing grief or a life challenge. My Dad was a great listener to folks who wanted to “kick the tires” of Christianity. He was also quick to invite in the Mormons or the Jehovah’s Witness that might knock on the door with a twinkle in his eye…as long as they would promise to hear him out after he provided the same courtesy. I have no way of knowing for sure…but I’d bet my Dad put a lot more seekers in the “Kingdom” with his approach than the billboard evangelist or the bullhorn street preacher ever got close to.

6. My Dad wasn’t “rich”… My Dad was never financially well off. And if I had one regret FOR him is that I felt he spent too much time trying to be. So this is probably the only bullet in the list where I’m a little critical. For a super smart man, he didn’t always go the extra mile to evaluate a business plan, its ROI, and its execution path before emotionally jumping in with both feet. I have the same tendency. But watching him at least taught me how to resist it…how to break down a business plan, etc. And what I learned? Is in most cases if you can’t explain a business on the back of a napkin with a four function calculator it isn’t a business at all. And because he didn’t learn that as quickly as he should’ve…I did. So it’s still a gift to me. No…my Dad wasn’t financially “rich” but he didn’t use finances as a measure of his success.

7. My Dad wasn’t pretentious… Possibly due to point #6, but likely not…My dad was never one to be pretentious and attempt to stake a status or be something he just wasn’t. We didn’t drive new cars. He didn’t wear “brand” clothes. There was no golf club membership to keep up. He was just Dad. Take him as he his. Because that’s the way he was. And I loved him for it.

8. My Dad wasn’t shy… I’m not sure he ever met a stranger! He could enter a room full of them and 30 minutes later know half of them and found common friends, experiences, or shared time with someone in that room! It was one of his most endearing qualities. He was a very kind man. Very slow to anger. And as accessible as a man as you’d ever want to meet.

9. My Dad wasn’t stingy… Not a lot to say here except that my Dad would help anyone in need…almost to a fault. One of his ministry roles at First Baptist ( before there was DOC-UP in Dalton) was to sit with transient or homeless people who needed gas, food, diapers, etc. and execute church policy on how to handle the ask. I know it troubled him sometimes because at least once or twice, after delivering the official church “No” he would come out of his own pocket to help the person in question. Yes, there’s always the thought “What if they use it for booze? What if they use it for drugs?” My Dad’s approach was…”That’s on them. This is on me…what are we called to do for the “least of these”? I’ve inconsistently applied his same approach over the years. My goal is to get more consistent. To the point I might indeed get conned occassionaly. And not even care.

10. My Dad wasn’t hateful… One thing my Dad said repeatedly to me even up until the last few months before he passed was “Mark, I know hate when I see it…” And I’ve vowed to keep this post out of the political realm so I’m not going into policy based hate…from either side of the aisle. What I do know, however, in my heart of hearts…is that a man that was trained in the late 50’s in a Southern Baptist Theological Seminary adapted over decades to form his own personal philosophy outside of the Southern Baptist Conference about equality, diversity, and how to treat people with respect. I’d like to think it rubbed off but I know I fail at this all the time. He gave me a standard that I still strive to…and fail…and regroup.

So…there’s ten things my Dad WASN’T. Let me finish with one thing that he WAS.

My Dad was a survivor from the moment he hit this earth. He was born in July of 1929, right before the Great Depression. He was raised in Owensboro, Kentucky as the son of a grocery store owner. He hauled coal in carts from the Ohio River to his Dad’s store. He was the only of his siblings to decide he needed to leave Owensboro and see the world in a bigger perspective. He tried to join the Navy. He had flat feet. So he got accepted to Georgia Tech…and literally hitchhiked from Owensboro to Atlanta to attend. Since he paid his own way through school, he did the Co-Op program and worked every other school quarter as an intern engineer for Aarmco Steel in Ashland, Kentucky. He graduated from Georgia Tech in 1955 without any assistance from his parents.

Going back to his childhood for a second…or actually a manifestation of his childhood. My Dad used to stand with the refrigerator door open in our kitchen and just “look” at the food inside. Not pull it out to eat…just look. I’ve referred to this before with my friends who had parents who grew up less fortunately in the Great Depression, and evidently its a common thing for adults that were young children in the Depression to do this. It’s a triggered reaction to being a child, opening the icebox door starving, and finding nothing to eat. So…as adults, it gives comfort to open up the fridge and simply be reassured there is indeed plenty of food.

I cite that last anecdote for this reason. I know my Dad had a tough childhood. Stern father, Great Depression, etc. is enough to weigh on the psyche of any small child. But my Dad was such a survivor in the sense that he never let those tough times affect the way he loved us. And I feel so very fortunate to have been raised by him. I could write a full length book about what we didn’t agree on…and it never mattered…because he always loved me and us…all the way to the end.

Happy Father’s Day, Dad…I love you very much, and miss you even more.