Happy Fathers Day!

Of course, this is a picture of my dad AND my mom! :-) How I miss them both!
I heard a quote on "Lonesome Dove" that was said over a man that they had just buried and it reminded me so much of my dad:

"He was cheerful in all weathers and never shirked a task."
That was my dad indeed. He was always happy, it seemed. No matter if we were working in the garden or picking berries or mowing grass, Dad had a way of making it fun. How did he do that, anyway? :-)

Because..... we kids DID have to do our share of work. There was a huge garden to tend to. And once the vegetables came on, they had to be picked and cleaned and canned. And guess who helped do that? Five kids, that who! :-)

We had a huge yard that had to be mowed, too, so we five kids divided it up every week and saw that it got done because that was our job. I remember one evening, one of us was finishing up the big yard across the road, when a storm arose. Dad ran across the road and jumped on the riding mower, kicked that thing into high gear and went round and round like crazy finishing it up. We stood on the front porch and laughed like crazy, as Dad put on his antics as usual. :-)

He took us swimming at the local swimming hole....no city pools for us....after he got home from a long day's work and had had his supper, fed the animals and rested a bit. He taught us all how to swim.

And I remember one dark, stormy, rainy night when the power went out. Dad gathered with us kids in the living room, lit candles and made "hand animals" on the wall for us and told us stories. :-)

He played ball with us. He rode bikes with us. He would pop popcorn for us when we all settled in the living room to watch a TV program together before going to bed for the night. He popped it in this big black iron chicken fryer that mom had. I can just see him standing at the stove sliding it back and forth with a flourish....of course :-)....to keep it from burning. Dad kind of did everything with a flourish and gusto. :-)

Oh, and I remember him taking us to get ice cream cones! Being little, we kids couldn't always keep them "licked up" fast enough when they started dripping, so we would hand them to dad and he would lick the drips up for us! Can you believe that I remember that? :-)

Of course, our precious little mother was right there with us, too, but Dad was kind of the "life" of the family. Mom was quiet and dealt with depression and mental illness during many of our growing up years. Oh, she was functional and took wonderful care of us and loved us, but Dad was right there beside of her, helping to raise us. They were definitely a team. :-)

He wasn't perfect by any means.....but he was such a good dad and I'll be forever thankful to have had him in my life.