Father’s Day

Today is a wonderful day for guys like me.  We spend all year quietly, and sometimes loudly, trying to guide our offspring through the pitfalls and trapdoors of the world.  Sometimes minor pitfalls, sometimes major, but the job is 24/7/365.  The pay is abysmal but the benefits are better than any other job.  I am a proud father of two daughters, 9 and 2 (almost).  I make mistakes everyday.  I question decisions almost everytime I make them.  I’m learning.  What I have learned about being a father over my lifetime though has all been thanks to one man; Dewey Wayne Shiver.

My dad is and always has been a hard working man.  A truck driver since he was old enough to see over the wheel, he has spent more than 40 years riding the pavement all over the southeastern United States.  Thankfully, while the workload hasn’t changed, the routes have become shorter and he’s home most every night.  He leaves before daylight and sometimes gets home after the sun sets but I’m sure it beats leaving on Sunday night and getting back on Friday night.  So even though it took many, many years, I had the perfect role model for work ethic.

My delay in picking up that work ethic may have been due to some of the things I was recruited for growing up.  We all had our chores and things we had to help with around the house.  Sometimes, your parents profession has an impact on that list too.  My fun list included many a Saturday, in the South Georgia heat, helping change some oil or helping change some tires or even helping rebuild something I couldn’t even identify, like an alternator or transmission. I probably wasn’t the best apprentice but I got sweaty and dirty and lost my fun Saturday.  Even worse than that though were the nights the weather decided to turn south and he would wake me up from my youthful slumber at 4:00 am to go tarp a load of lumber.  You might as well have asked me to walk on hot coals to Atlanta.  I was a pretty happy guy when the new Wal Mart was built in Camilla.  Where it now sits, used to be the the old Phillips 66, where I spent those Saturday’s and 4:00 school mornings.  The gas station is still there but where we worked is gone.  I wouldn’t trade the memories now though.

When he wasn’t working though is when the real memories were in production.  We spent a lot of time at the lake.  We had a place at Fort Gaines for most of my life.  It started out as a small camper that housed about 4 people and eventually grew into a nice place that housed as many as 10 or more at times.  No matter the lodging though, the man’s best time was spent on the water.  He’s a master at crappie fishing and was able to put us on the fish everytime we backed the boat in, which he taught me how to do also.  We even dominated the adult/child division of the southeastern crappie tournament trail for several years and our plaques remain prominent proof.  While the fishing was excellent, he had some less than shiny moments in the boat.  He once fell out of a tree trying to navigate the boat and his line in the dead of winter.  He, or allegedly his fishing partner, toppled a small charcoal grill in the boat once almost burning the vessel.  But most famously, he had a knack for putting himself on the fish and kicking the back of the boat around leaving me out to dry.  He claims he did not do this and even over corrected in the latter years of our fishing excursions.  

Though there were hilarious moments, the ones in the boat pale in comparison to some of the gems that were later memorialized in a video me and my brother made for him one Christmas.  A lot of them inside jokes, a lot of them just plain embarrassing.  He spewed Pepsi all over his front windshield in a coughing fit.  He slipped while pushing the trash can to the road and tried to eat the can itself.  He yelled from one grocery aisle to the next, “Pam, these yo weinies?”  He had multiple, now infamous, spats with customer service reps leading one such confrontation to end with my dad’s friendly advice that the clerk “may as well work in the panty department and maybe he would actually know something about them.”  Good times.  

Of course, we had our rough patches too.  I was not the best student growing up and usually went half speed when asked to do something.  I also went through my fair share of lawn mowers while blindly running over everything possible in our yard.  I backed into my moms car in our own driveway.  I almost smashed my uncle, his brother, playing with levers on his big truck while the cab was open.  I tried to decapitate myself when I was a wee tot.  I dove down a flight of stairs yelling “yee haw” in what I’ve only been told was a horrendous audition for Dukes of Hazard.  So, when you look at it that way, he’s taught me patience and faith.  I don’t know how else you explain either of my parents surviving my 18 years at home.  

Amid all of that though, he still taught me how to play baseball, how to fish, how to collect baseball cards, how to stand up for what’s right, how a marriage works (when things are good, bad or you’re on the road all the time), how to do the right thing and how to catch a good afternoon nap.  The list is too long to outline in its entirety but it’s very comprehensive.  I’ve never met anyone who was so committed to living the right way and treating people (with the exception of the occasional Sears personnel) with respect.  I’ve learned how to be a good person from my mom and my dad.  If I can live up to half of their example, I’ll be satisfied.  Nowadays, my dad is no longer the stern disciplinarian he was when I was a kid.  He’s a big ole teddy bear with Georgia and Bailey and lights up whenever they are around.  They will never question whether their Dew Dah loves them.  That’s one more lesson that I am learning.  Take care of the people that mean something in your life and let them know you love them.  Thanks Dad for all you’ve taught me and continuing to take care of us even when we’ve grown up and started our own families.  Happy Father’s Day and I love you big guy!

J-Dub