116 years. That's how old my daddy would have been today. For most of my life I was afraid of him. He was a no nonsense man who did not suffer fools lightly. Most of his life he was a smoker, a drinker, a manual laborer, a boxer, and a disciplinarian to his 10 kids. He quit smoking three packs of cigarettes a day cold turkey when the doctor told him he would be dead in ten years if he kept smoking. I remember him coming home, collecting all his cigarettes, and throwing them in the trash. He never smoked again. When I was 14 he found me trying to smoke one of his I had taken out behind the house. He made me eat it, filter and all. I threw up everything I had ever eaten in my life. I never tried to smoke again. That was 62 years ago.
He found Jesus later in life and gave up the drink. Our family became much more peaceful and I no longer feared him. He prayed when I left for the Navy.
In lean years he hunted and fished and fed his family. Too proud for welfare he never took one dollar he didn't earn. I asked him once why he had so many kids and he looked at me and said: "Cold winters."
Prostate cancer finally took him at 83.
He hunted. He fished. He helped build the Hoover Dam. He dug potatoes in Idaho for a silver dollar a day. He picked fruit in California. Canned vegetables in New Mexico. He went wherever the work was. He did whatever it took to take care of his family.
Respect dad, and happy birthday.
ALT A photo taken in the late 1930's of a man wearing a hat and overalls.