Setting up this website has been quite a journey for me. As a ‘digital immigrant’ (AKA old fart that didn’t grow up with computers), I’m a very slow learner. My friend and former student Ben, who was kind enough to set all of this up for me, and IS kind enough to put up with all of my stupid questions (THANK YOU, Ben!), has finally gotten it through my thick head that what I was trying to do wasn’t going to work. . . .I was trying to set up ‘pages’, when what I really needed to do was to add ‘posts’. Now that I think I understand the difference (and the distinction), I’m trying, today, my first post. We’ll see how this goes.

I miss my Dad. A lot. So today, I’m choosing to share one of his favorite stories about HIS Dad, circa 1946 or so.

While in High School, Dad took to running around and staying out late. One night he stayed out WAY late. . . .doing whatever, and drug his self into the house early in the morning. He just knew his Dad would be waiting for him with, lets say, recriminations. But he thought he’d gotten away with it, as the house was completely silent as he snuck off into bed. Whew!

Or so he thought. At about 4:00 AM, Grandpa shook him awake, saying ‘We’ve got work to do before breakfast’. Not a word was said about the late hour homecoming, but they went out and worked like dogs until breakfast time. Every nasty job Grandpa could think of was done that morning, but, as Dad said “he was right there beside me working his butt off as well”. After around 2 hours of sleep, and probably hung over as well, Dad wasn’t feeling to chipper as they went in for breakfast.

After breakfast, it was time for Dad to go down the road a few miles to work for his Uncle John Willhardt. Dad LOVED working for Uncle John, who (I knew him well myself) was an endless source of joyous humor. . . . .if you were around him, you were laughing about something. So Dad thought he was going to get a break by getting away from his Dad’s work program so he could take it relatively easy with Uncle John.

Not so. The telephone beat Dad to John’s place: as Dad said to me “I know the old man called John and told him to ‘work that kid to a frazzle’ today”, and John did. By the time Dad got home from John’s, he had no interest in whatever plans he may have had for that evening. . . . .he went straight to bed and passed out.

Dad said that after that experience, he severely limited his late night carousing. . . .and, as he put it “How lucky was I, to have had a father who cared enough about me to get up at 4:00 AM to hassle the (deleted) out of me so I would learn a lesson”.

Indeed.