This is a repost of sorts, of something I wrote several years ago for Father's Day. I've done some very minor editing for grammar, flow, and to correct a couple of details that I am reliably informed were inaccurate. No corrections or adjustments were made to counter the "rose-colored memory glasses" effect, as I like the view through those lenses just fine.

For you, Daddy.

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It's been 16 years...

Mom and Dad had gone to Matador for the weekend to visit the folks. My family and I were supposed to go with them, but my older brother and his went with them instead. We stayed home so as to give them some time with Mom and Dad. “We'll go next time” I said.

Next time...

That Sunday morning I was at Albertson's picking up a few things for breakfast when my wife called. “Come home NOW. Just...come home.” It sounded bad, but not too bad, so I finished checking out and drove back to the apartment. My wife met me at the door with the news that Daddy had been out with his brother-in-law checking on the herd, waaay out in the boonies past Whiteflat, and Daddy had had a heart attack. A few minutes later, a follow up call, and Daddy was gone. There would be no Next Time.

How many times have I regretted not going to Matador that weekend? I would have been in the pickup with them, and while I hold no illusions that I might have been able to save him, at the very least I could have held his hand and told him good-bye.

I'm going to scatter-shoot here, as to present a flowing, coherent narrative of the man would take volumes, and more time that we're willing to spend.

He was the hardest working man I ever knew. I was a teen, he was in his 40's, and he could work me until my tongue dragged the dirt, and then he just kept going. Good weather or bad, AM or PM, weekday evening or weekend, if there was something that needed doing, there was no putting it off. He did the job until it was done, unless circumstances prevented it. If they did, he was back at the task as soon as he got home from work the next day. “It had to be done” seemed to be his unspoken motto.

The stock tanks had automatic valves that kept them full. One winter I came in from feeding the cows and told Daddy there was a puddle of water in the front corral. We went out to look and sure enough an underground line had broken. We went back inside, pulled on some warm work clothes, back to the corral and started digging. Lord it was cold, and in short order, we were soaking wet to boot. My feet were numb, my nose felt like it was burning with a cold cold fire, and my fingers were frozen to the shape of a shovel handle. I kept thinking “Why are we doing this now? How does he put up with this crap? Can't we wait until it gets warmer in a couple of days?” He just kept chipping and digging until we found the break. I looked at him at one point, and his nose was running so much little drops of snot were collecting on the end of his nose. It was (to a 15 y/o) gross, and I waited for him to wipe it off. His nose was as frozen as mine, so it took him a bit to feel that stuff hanging off the end of it, but when he finally did, he just gave a little snap of the head to flip it off, and kept on digging. I can see him as clearly as if it were yesterday, runny nose, breath fogging the air, muddy up to the knees.

My older brother was away at college, and his car broke down. Daddy and I drove to Abilene to try and fix it, but it was more than could be done in the dorm parking lot. We had to flat tow the thing 220 miles back home. It was winter (again) and cold and of course the broken down car had no heat, so he bundled me up in his coat on top of mine, a blanket around my legs and feet, and off we went. We stopped every half hour or so to check the chains. At one stop, it was so cold my teeth were chattering and I could barely speak, so he tried to rig the chains so I wouldn't need to steer the towed car. I rode with him in the pickup just long enough to get warm again, but the car was jumping around too much on the bumps, so we pulled over and I climbed back into that icebox on wheels. “I know it's cold, but I need you to steer the Mustang. If you get too cold back here, flash your lights and I'll pull over and warm you up for a bit.” I knew he needed to get home so he could get a little sleep before work the next morning, so I just toughed it out. We finally pulled into the driveway, pushed the Mustang out of the way, and he helped me into the house. Mom had kept the fire going in the big Franklin stove in the den, and we warmed up for a bit in front of it before going to bed. Before I stumbled my way to the bedroom, he gave me hug, long and hard, looked down at me and said “Danny, I couldn't have done this without you. You did a good job.” Hours of fatigue and aching cold melted away in an instant. I can remember that hug and those words to this day. Like it was yesterday.

He was never shy about giving hugs, I suspect because he had had a difficult childhood with an alcoholic dad (a mean drunk to boot) and wanted to make sure we would always know how much he loved us. Because of that example, us boys weren't shy about giving hugs either. It was a normal thing, all the way through the teen years, to give him a hug in the evenings when he got home from work. One time I had come home from college for the weekend, got back in town early, and went by his work to see him. I walked in the front door, found him sitting behind the counter working on an order. When he saw me come in he got up, came around the counter and we gave each other a hug. “Hi Daddy.” “Hi there, Dandy!” (He gave nicknames to every one that he knew and liked. Long after the rest of the family started calling me Joe Dan, because it sounded more grown up, he still called me Danny, or sometimes Dandy. You might think I hated it. You'd be wrong.) We talked briefly, and I hugged him again before heading to the house. When he got home that evening, he told me that after I had left his boss came up and told my Dad how much he envied him. “I have 3 daughters” he said, “and I can't bring myself to hug them the way you just hugged your grown son.” I can remember to this day how astonished we both were, and how we thought it was so sad that his boss couldn't hug his children as easily as he did us.

For years he drank enough coffee, every day, to float a boat. He had always had allergies, and after a round of tests he discovered that he was allergic to coffee, among LOTS of other things. He tried substituting with hot tea, with mixed results. It's not that he didn't like the tea, it just wasn't coffee. One time we were on a weekend trip to Bonito Lake near Ruidoso, camped near a stream. The rest of the family was off on a walk, and Daddy and I were sitting around the fire while he cooked supper. He took a sip of his hot tea, sighed deep, and looked at me. "Danny, there's something about being here in the mountains, sitting by the fire, supper cooking, the wind blowing in the trees, and (through clenched teeth now) drinking a cup of hot tea that just isn't right!" Man, can I relate to that.

He worked for years selling truck parts, and had an encyclopedic knowledge of the Cummins parts catalog. It was a rare occasion that he had to consult the microfiche (!) to look up a number for an order. He was a square shooter too, and his customers knew that if Daddy told them something, they could take it to the bank. He would not lie to or cheat a customer, and they knew it, so much so that the other parts men would be standing around looking at the line of customers that wouldn't let any one but Daddy wait on them. After years of waiting for a decent raise or promotion and not getting it, he left that job to start up a new branch office for a Cummins distributorship. I worked there with him for a while, and we had a wonderful time together. I moved on, and after a time that Cummins distributor was bought out, and they laid off most of the sales force, Daddy included. After 20+ years selling Cummins parts, he was out of prospects. But Daddy was not one to accept defeat. He worked for a while selling cars (he was good at that too) but the money wasn't very good, so he went to work in the pot ash mines. The money was much better, but he hated the job, and with his sinus problems the underground work was not healthy. So in his 50's now, he and mom started over. They sold the house in Hobbs and moved to Plano, partly for the job market and partly so they could be closer to us boys (we had all ended up in the Dallas suburbs over the years). He worked as a temp for a while, and one of his assignments was in a warehouse for EDS. They liked him so much they offered him a permanent job, and he worked there until his death. The office was in Carrollton, and there was a little pond nearby that he used to go fish on his lunch hour. He had one of those little plastic pontoon boats, and he took it to work a few times to put it in the pond, but I think the cops made him quit that. We used to talk about going fishing together, but never seemed to get our schedules worked out. Man, I wish I had made time to drop a line in the water with him.

He was good with his hands. You know the verse “Whatsoever thy hand find to do, do it with thy might?” That was Daddy. He could fix or build just about anything. It was a very rare car problem that he couldn't diagnose and repair, he could handle just about any kind of construction or remodeling work, he could do appliance repair (he had once been a certified Maytag man), he and my maternal grandaddy rebuilt an old Massey-Harrison. I can remember a couple of spectacular kitchen remodels. And he loved wood-working, making all sorts of shelves, cabinets, little tables, potato bins, all kinds of home décor stuff. He would build it, and then he and Mom would paint or finish it. Sometimes they would pester me until I helped out. I always protested at first, but somehow found myself enjoying it in the end (I would never have admitted it at the time though). I still have a head board he built. Nothing fancy, just a simple pine plank headboard with posts, stained a beautiful dark honey color. If there's ever a fire, I don't know how I'll get that thing out, but it's coming out with me.

These are just the things that spring immediately to mind. There's so much more.

We took him back to Hobbs. The little chapel at the cemetery was overflowing. They had 30+ years of friends in Hobbs, and I think they were all there. His bosses at EDS flew in for the funeral. Old co-workers from as far away as California sent flowers and condolences. A pretty big deal for a man that the world would see as a simple truck parts salesman. But he was so much more than that. I learned from him what it was to be a Godly and caring man, not so much from his words as from watching him as he moved through this world, sometimes struggling, sometimes succeeding, always working. They played “Daddy's Hands” at the service, because as my younger brother remarked, he was always doing something with his hands, and it was always for us. Soft and warm when I was crying, hard as steel when I'd done wrong, there was always love in Daddy's hands. I still tear up when I hear that song.

It's been 16 years. 16 years, and there's not a day go by that I don't think of you Daddy, and measure myself against you, and come up short. You were the greatest man I ever knew. You were, and still are, my Hero.

I miss you Daddy. 16 years, and I miss you like it was yesterday.