Father's Day

The baseball card was made on a family trip celebrating Matt's graduation from High School back in 2006.

Matt, my Dad, and me on a journey to see six games in six days in five cities.

Sunday - Ft. Wayne, Indiana; Monday - Detroit; Tuesday - Cleveland; Wednesday and Thursday - Pittsburgh; and Friday - Indianapolis.

Outside Comerica Park the New Era people were offering electronic baseball cards, and who could resist?  We all had one, conveniently enough with our hat size for future New Era orders.

Dad passed away at the end of last June.  It's difficult to believe it's already been that long.  In some ways it feels both longer than that and like it was yesterday.

Dad worked hard.  He enjoyed his work - serving faithfully as a metallurgical engineer until the Friday before his death.  It wasn't a job for him.  It was a way to solve problems with a mind nimble enough to solve equations and problems of mechanics, physics, and math.  He enjoyed those kind of challenges.

Dad also loved to write.  He was a poet and writer - that's an unusual combination.

We took trips together.  Growing up - he and I traveled to 35 state capitals - knocking off at least a few each year from around 4th grade through my sophomore year in high school.  We made it as far west as Utah and Arizona; as far south as Tennessee and Virginia; as far east as Maine; and across the state bordering with Canada.

On those trips - we would take the formal tours of the statehouses and then seek out the Secretary of State office where 'goodies' and things for the scrapbook could be found for little or no charge.  One time, in Indiana, a State Representative saw us and brought us out onto the floor (they were not in session) and talked to us for a while.

We would talk about the Packers and Brewers and the future as we drove the many miles across the country.  Those were fun and memorable times.

After moving to Indiana in 2006, it was nice to be closer together again and our common ritual was meeting to watch the Packers play.  If not on the big networks, we would meet at a Buffalo Wild Wings to find a big screen showing the Green & Gold.

I learned a lot from Dad.  I learned how to work and how to live - it would have been nice to have been able to learn a lot more, but I'm thankful for the opportunity to learn as much as I did.

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Last year, after my Dad died - a good friend and colleague - Eric V. shared this poem written by Gordon Parks with me.  Nearly a year later, it rings true for me as I'm sure it does for many of us in the 'I lost my Dad Club:'

THE FUNERAL (by Gordon Parks)

After many snows I was home again.
Time had whittled down to mere hills the great mountains
of my childhood.
Raging rivers I once swam trickled now like gentle streams
and the wide road curving on to China or Kansas City
or perhaps Calcutta
had withered to a crooked path of dust
ending abruptly at the county burial ground.
Only the giant that was my father remained the same.
A hundred strong men strained beneath his coffin
when they bore him to his grave.