A Simple Father's Day Tribute

My Dad, a father of 10 of us kids was a great leader in his own way. Having 10 kids is alone a tribute to his unselfish character. His famous advise to all of us kids was to “Keep Plugging Away” when we would ask his advise with anything. In other words “never give up, always look forward” and KEEP PLUGGING AWAY” As I age and try to do what is right his words couldn’t be more clear. He also taught us as a good catholic that nothing is more important that to “Get To Heaven” so whatever you do here remember that this is the ultimate goal……”Keep Plugging Away” no matter how tough things get……..Happy Fathers Day DAD…….you were the BEST!!

I put this in the wrong place on the website and intended to share it with you here.

My father owned two pairs of shoes. The first pair, the one I most commonly remember him wearing, were stiff, steel toed and often covered in a mix of mud an concrete. They were hard, and rugged and well worn because each day they left the house at four or five a.m. to head to some unfinished highway and either saw through the layers of a road in disrepair or to shovel and smooth a sidewalk in one of our Michigan cities. He worked for weeks at a time in the Upper Peninsula, digging large drains, occasionally coming across a large chunk of copper from the rich earth. He worked in central Michigan, removing bricks hidden beneath layers of asphalt and then shoveling new cement into place and patiently making it smooth with a trowel. When he finished, he and his co-workers would flip a coin to see who would be the lucky person to put the “final stamp” on the work. He was a cement finisher – and it was a matter of pride, achievement, accomplishment for all of those hard working men to place that “final stamp” on fine work that never even bore their names – it bore the company name, and you can still see some of those names today.

The second pair of shoes my father owned were a pair of leather moccasins that were lined on the inside with remarkably soft sheep skin. When he came home, usually long after dark, with only enough energy to make it into “his” chair – my job became to loosen the stiff and dirty laces and remove those boots. The boots were banished for a few hours each night to a small little rug by the door while my father put his feet into those comfortable moccasins that somehow said, “You’re finished for today. This time belongs to you.”

What I learned was that hard work is noble and empowering and sometimes (often times) anonymous – but the value of it is not diminished simply because your name is not on it. I learned that you go to work everyday, even when the days are rainy and gray or you’re not “feeling” up to it. I learned that the moments of “coming home” those moments of softness, comfort, relaxation; moments when the time truly “belongs to me” – are better and more rewarding when I have Earned them through meeting my obligations, doing my best in every attempt and following through. The “hard” moments make the “soft” ones more savory -the way a glass of cool water tastes better after a long hike on a very hot day. They have more value – more meaning.

I learned that one moment is connected to another, the way that one scene connects another in a play – and that we need to be conscious that we are continually writing new moments of “hardness” or “softness” and that we have to be very strategic about our plots to prevent the hard moments from being all there is.

I learned all of this, by watching one inspiring yet simple man with only two pair of shoes. A man whose name you do not know, who never made the news, who didn’t graduate from high school and barely knew his father. A man who for the most part, led a hardworking, hard playing, anonymous sort of life. He was generous with his laughter and loyal to his friends and said to me one thing that I will never forget (though the passing years seem to erase many of the memories I try greedily to clench like a child’s penny in my fist). He said, “People are not disposable. Just because you don’t get what you want, need or expect from them, you don’t throw them away. You learn what you can ask for.” And I have tried, not always successfully, to apply that wisdom – knowing that we are all “feeling” our way through the hard and the soft moments – never really outgrowing the 6 year old value of that penny, simply assigning the value to bigger things.

What a leader. What a father. What a man.