In honor of my wife's, father and his passing, I want to point out some wonderful memories of fathers that give me a kick and two giggles to recall sometimes.
The most recent story I heard was about my wife's father, Randy. After he had passed, an old childhood friend posted a Naval picture of himself and Randy on Facebook for us all to see. This prompted my wife, Summer, to ask the man a few questions and a conversation and friendship began between my wife and her father's childhood friend.
Within that conversation the old friend recalled a story of another child who was thown to the ground and being prepped to be beaten by a bigger kid. Randy, a peer to these children, came literally flying parallel to the ground and tackled the big kid off of his buddy. The big kid couldn't catch his breath to save his life. Randy and his buddy dusted off and walked off into the school, probably to catch their own breath from the excitement. Hearing the story was like watching a good movie opening about a coming-of-age child destined to be a great man. And a great man he became.
My father also recalls stories of his childhood that stay with me. One specifically is at a pre-middle school age in class where a bully was picking at my father, Terry. The bully was behind my father at his own desk, repeatedly thumping or hitting Terry. Finally, in a moment of disgust and end-of-witicism (yes I made that up), Terry jumps to his feet and turns with his fist of fury like Bruce Lee in one motion and knocks the bully AND HIS DESK to the floor. Whatever happened with the teacher and being punished I don't remember but afterwards the bully came up to my father in the hallway wanting to fight Terry. Terry said, "I don't want to fight you ..... but I will." The bully walked away. This also sounds like a good movie moment where another great man was in his Genesis.
I also enjoy to hear my mother talk about her dad. You can see and hear that she loved her father, and you can tell that in a hous of four girls, a mother and a son that the father, Richard, was the head of the house. With him passing away at a young age, I get the feeling that it was a bad hit for my mom and her siblings and her own mother.
One story I am fond of is how my mom, Marjorie, had a brother named Rick who made his sister's get into a home-made ring with him and box. Of course, being the eldest and biggest, Rick dominated them. What was worse is that my mother and her sisters did not want to box. They just endured the hits as long as they had to. I don't get the feeling that it was an abusive situation but just that of an elder sibling be annoying. God help me, I know how that is. With this situation at hand, Richard stepped up and said, "You want to box with somebody? Let me get my gloves." On a little side bar, my grandfather, Richard, was in the Navy just like my wife's dad. I am proud to say, he was a golden gloves boxer in the Navy. Now back to the story. It didn't last long, but Richard appropriately and delicately laid Rick on his rump and said without a hitch, "Now leave your sisters alone!"
My father grew up in the 60s and 70s, where Led Zeppelin sang one of their hits "Good Times, Bad Times". I just cannot help but think that my father, my wife's father and my mother's father grew up in a different time where it was good AND bad. To be realistic though, so do I. I am now with child ....errrr ...... I'm not pregnant, I mean I have a 9 month old son. IT IS GREAT!!!!
I have stories. I have good times, bad times, BUT I ALWAYS HAVE MY FUN!!!
One day, I'll tell him about the bully that I slammed on his own head. Maybe my boy, Kai, can recall that story to his child ..... or to his blog.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
"Our Heroes Are Dead, But We're Not"
"No one talks to him about how he lives, He thinks that the choices he makes are just his
Doesn't know he's the leader with the way he behaves
And others will follow the choices he's made
He lives on the edge, he's old enough to decide
His brother who wants to be him is just nine
He can do what he wants because it's his right
but the choices he makes change a nine-year-old's life"
When this song came out, I was 21, maybe 22. My little brother was 8 or 9. Although there are many factors that come into play for me changing from a 'rambling, gambling man' to a man with a hopeful purpose, one thing that helped was knowing that I did in fact have a little brother that I hoped looked up to me.
Maybe at first I paid no attention but at some point I knew I was influential in his life as an older brother. Just as my older brothers were too me, and they are to my little brother also, it was only right to realize that my rights and choices still affected those who were influenced by me. This song mentioned above (Superchick's Hero) really hit a chord with me as I rode down the road one night. It may have played a small roll in me taking my life more seriously and being more consciuos of my decisions, but it still helped.
We all have to face the fact that the ones we prop up to be heroes are bad idols and so we need to step up to the plate. We prop up sports stars only to be lead to believe that adultery, wanton drugs, rape and animal abuse are heroic acts, Tiger Woods, Michael Phelps, Ben Roethlisburger, and Michael Vick respectively.
Our drama kings and queens who are self-proclaimed artists are only using these labels to debauch themselves and whoever will go along with them, like Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, too many rappers and rockers to name, second-place American Idolists and loud-mouthed racist ex-producers-turned-rappers-with-uncontrollable-diarrhea-of-the-mouth.
Our world leaders and community leaders are less focused on the backs that are broken by the common man and more focused on sneaking to a mistress off the Appalachian trail, or seducing an intern because she has a "thing" for foreign cigars.
Our "heroes", as we have labeled them, as we have propped them up, are dead. They fall short of life and live up to only one thing: self-gratification at the cost of a nation. More sepcifically, the youth of the nation.
Shinedown has stated on Heroes, "All my heroes have now become ghosts, sold their sorrow to the ones who paid the most, all my heroes are dead and gone but their inside of me, they still live on" and Chad Krueger in Hero,"They say that a hero can save me, but I'm not gonna stand here and wait." These are so true and haunting of the way we have self-imaged our own desires to have a caped crusader or an untouchable politician/sports star/entertainer to look up to, only to feel deprived and raped once they fall short of our glorious ideas.
Superchick's song shows a type of hero that's so easy for anybody to be that it's so hard to be that simple sometimes. Standing up to a bully when the bully is on someone else. Changing your actions of self-gratification when your younger brother or sister looks up to you. Telling a depressed fellow student or coworker that YOU care. Sacrificing time and energy to help a friend in need, like Lynyrd Skynyrd sang, "When you see somebody who is down and out you better lend a helping hand if you can". I love Skynyrd.
It's not hard to shift our own motives and actions, considering we are being watched by little eyes as well as His eyes. If Jesus could do it and still live up to the ideas of heroism, shouldn't we strive to be like Him?
"You could be a hero, you could do what's right.
You could be a hero, you might save a life.
You could be a hero, you can join the fight,
for what's right!!!"
Doesn't know he's the leader with the way he behaves
And others will follow the choices he's made
He lives on the edge, he's old enough to decide
His brother who wants to be him is just nine
He can do what he wants because it's his right
but the choices he makes change a nine-year-old's life"
When this song came out, I was 21, maybe 22. My little brother was 8 or 9. Although there are many factors that come into play for me changing from a 'rambling, gambling man' to a man with a hopeful purpose, one thing that helped was knowing that I did in fact have a little brother that I hoped looked up to me.
Maybe at first I paid no attention but at some point I knew I was influential in his life as an older brother. Just as my older brothers were too me, and they are to my little brother also, it was only right to realize that my rights and choices still affected those who were influenced by me. This song mentioned above (Superchick's Hero) really hit a chord with me as I rode down the road one night. It may have played a small roll in me taking my life more seriously and being more consciuos of my decisions, but it still helped.
We all have to face the fact that the ones we prop up to be heroes are bad idols and so we need to step up to the plate. We prop up sports stars only to be lead to believe that adultery, wanton drugs, rape and animal abuse are heroic acts, Tiger Woods, Michael Phelps, Ben Roethlisburger, and Michael Vick respectively.
Our drama kings and queens who are self-proclaimed artists are only using these labels to debauch themselves and whoever will go along with them, like Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, too many rappers and rockers to name, second-place American Idolists and loud-mouthed racist ex-producers-turned-rappers-with-uncontrollable-diarrhea-of-the-mouth.
Our world leaders and community leaders are less focused on the backs that are broken by the common man and more focused on sneaking to a mistress off the Appalachian trail, or seducing an intern because she has a "thing" for foreign cigars.
Our "heroes", as we have labeled them, as we have propped them up, are dead. They fall short of life and live up to only one thing: self-gratification at the cost of a nation. More sepcifically, the youth of the nation.
Shinedown has stated on Heroes, "All my heroes have now become ghosts, sold their sorrow to the ones who paid the most, all my heroes are dead and gone but their inside of me, they still live on" and Chad Krueger in Hero,"They say that a hero can save me, but I'm not gonna stand here and wait." These are so true and haunting of the way we have self-imaged our own desires to have a caped crusader or an untouchable politician/sports star/entertainer to look up to, only to feel deprived and raped once they fall short of our glorious ideas.
Superchick's song shows a type of hero that's so easy for anybody to be that it's so hard to be that simple sometimes. Standing up to a bully when the bully is on someone else. Changing your actions of self-gratification when your younger brother or sister looks up to you. Telling a depressed fellow student or coworker that YOU care. Sacrificing time and energy to help a friend in need, like Lynyrd Skynyrd sang, "When you see somebody who is down and out you better lend a helping hand if you can". I love Skynyrd.
It's not hard to shift our own motives and actions, considering we are being watched by little eyes as well as His eyes. If Jesus could do it and still live up to the ideas of heroism, shouldn't we strive to be like Him?
"You could be a hero, you could do what's right.
You could be a hero, you might save a life.
You could be a hero, you can join the fight,
for what's right!!!"
"Turn the Page"
It took my wife losing her beloved father to realize that one of her smaller desires of becoming a blogger should finally come to fruition. This sparked the chain reaction for myself to do it also. I always wanted to write on a blog but I also did just as my wife previously did: complacently and consistently acted normal.
I loved writing posts on Myspace before that site basically became obsolete in my social life (and moved slower than a Baptist heading to church on a Sunday morning). I moved on to Myface, I mean Spacebook ..... errrr ...... FACEBOOK, and wrote a few blog posts there. It's liberating to express yourself but you feel even more accomplished when you actually write it down. You never know who is going to read your words but you DO know that your words are there to always be read. Also to be critiqued.
I hope to be an entertaining blogger with something worth reading, although my first post here is simply basic and basically simple. I look forward to living an excting life with my sweet-heart of a wife, my always smiling baby boy, my absolutely huggable and playful Labrador and most imprtantly, my all-consuming, mysterious and AWESOME God.
I don't want to lose another day to complacency and regret when I could have easily just made a move towards anything and made an effort to make my day worth talking about in a positive way. So if blogging will help me to be expressive and adventurous and have a life worth writing about, then I turn the page right now and begin a new chapter in a life that's just south of Heaven and not far from Hale.
Next chapter: "What Women Want and Why Men Can't Do It: An Intense Look at Dirty Diapers" :)
I loved writing posts on Myspace before that site basically became obsolete in my social life (and moved slower than a Baptist heading to church on a Sunday morning). I moved on to Myface, I mean Spacebook ..... errrr ...... FACEBOOK, and wrote a few blog posts there. It's liberating to express yourself but you feel even more accomplished when you actually write it down. You never know who is going to read your words but you DO know that your words are there to always be read. Also to be critiqued.
I hope to be an entertaining blogger with something worth reading, although my first post here is simply basic and basically simple. I look forward to living an excting life with my sweet-heart of a wife, my always smiling baby boy, my absolutely huggable and playful Labrador and most imprtantly, my all-consuming, mysterious and AWESOME God.
I don't want to lose another day to complacency and regret when I could have easily just made a move towards anything and made an effort to make my day worth talking about in a positive way. So if blogging will help me to be expressive and adventurous and have a life worth writing about, then I turn the page right now and begin a new chapter in a life that's just south of Heaven and not far from Hale.
Next chapter: "What Women Want and Why Men Can't Do It: An Intense Look at Dirty Diapers" :)
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