Teach your children, well?

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My dad was a meat-packer by trade and the best man I ever knew. 

When I was growing up and then all through my adult life, and even now at the age of 62 I have wanted to be like him. I never had aspirations of becoming a meat-packer although I did work for a meat-packing company for a few months when I was in high school and when I did that I know he was proud of me; he may even have hoped I would like it enough to follow in his footsteps but I didn't; instead I went in another direction, actually in two different directions. I became a radio announcer and then later a cop.

I believe a good son pays homage to his dad in a good way if he hopes to be like him, even if he never tells him that. I never told mine that I wanted to be a meat-packer or even that I wanted to be like him and then one day it was too late; he passed away in 1998, but I hope he knew from watching me make my own way through life that all he ever taught me didn't go to waste; that I used the respect I had for him and my desire to be a man like he was to keep reaching for the best things in life. Not the most things but the best things such as respect from those around me that I was doing the best I could and that I too was leaving a trail for my sons to follow that would shape them into good men.

My middle son Kevin followed me into the broadcasting world and my youngest son Todd wants nothing more from life than to be a cop. I want nothing more than to see him achieve his goal. I already saw my oldest son Ricky achieve his; he followed me into the Franklin County Sheriff's office and has since worked his way up to chief deputy. My own broadcasting career is behind me now but I hold fast to what I learned and loved from the radio business by programming and producing an internet station that is broadcasted around the world now. That and writing blogs and publishing books is how I spend my retirement years. My law enforcement legacy will live on a while longer through my sons. Todd will make it in some day, I am sure of that because he is the most determined young man I know, and although Kevin has moved on from the life of a broadcaster I know that he too will always use for the good all he learned from it. That knowledge will serve him well for the rest of his life and continue to make him a better and more competitive man all his life. It did for me so I am sure of it.

All of this was what I hoped for when I first became a dad and looked into the bassinet and watched Ricky sleeping in it when he was a baby. I was just 19 years old then and just a rookie dad who had no idea of what I could do to put down some footprints for him to follow and I was far too young then to have much going for me for him to even admire. But I did hope that he could find reasons as I did to admire my own dad as he grew. I didn't become a disc jockey nor a cop with any of that in mind just as I am sure my dad never became a meat-packer for that reason. I only went through life as he did, doing what I wanted to do and hoping I was getting it right. My dad never asked me what I thought of him as a man but I want to believe he knew by the things I did say to him and about him whenever I spoke of him. 

Today, September 21 is Ricky's 43rd birthday and although I won't call him and he won't call me to discuss it I hope the triangle between him, me and my dad is a solid one. Now before anyone wonders, "what do you mean you won't call him, that's your son and it is his birthday for crying out loud"  I can clear it all up by again by re-entering my dad into this story. Like I said at the beginning, my dad was the best man I ever knew. He was my dad for 40 of my own birthdays and although he never called me to say say Happy Birthday I always knew that he wanted me to have one. 

It wasn't his style to feel he needed to say everything he felt. He was always there when anyone ever needed him to be and he probably believed as I do that-that should suffice for proving that he loved all of us. I mean after all, he worked and sacrificed enough to become the man he was, a man that I still hope I can resemble, 

and just as I know Ricky won't call me today I never called my dad on my own birthday hoping that he would wish me well on that day. I didn't have to because on all of those birthdays that I could, I went to see him and my mother. Even then he rarely said Happy Birthday to me because he knew that he needn't do that to convey what he hoped for me. He was my dad, he taught us all well.

However, I have something now that he didn't; it is called the internet and there is a social networking site there called Facebook. I may go there later today and wish my son a happy birthday but even if I do there is a chance he won't see it. It won't matter to either of us if he doesn't because that is the kind of men we are and since he is too old for toys now I won't feel guilty about not buying him one for his birthday. He found himself in a place in life where he is able to buy all the toys he might want. He has found himself in a place I did a long time ago.