I had to think about this blog for a while. I have quite a few loved ones I thought about writing a tribute for. However in the end I had to choose my father. He died when I was 11 years old, I miss him dearly every day and I really want to write about him. I am not going to share my memories of when he died, I'd rather put in the good, happy things I remember about him. The sorts of things I will always smile at while thinking about, and the things I will tell my kids about their grandfather some day, when I have them.
My father was an amazing man. He never cheated on my mom and he and my mom loved each other dearly. He was never cruel, never spanked me or anything like that. He was 5'4" at his tallest, but he was the kind of man who could intimidate someone by simply looking at them in a certain way. I have a picture of me at around 9 or 10 years old, with my hands in the air, looking scared because he was giving me his look and pointing at me, I just knew I had done something bad. With me though, he tended to be a softy, maybe it was because I was his youngest child, my mom says, I was their, "unexpected suprise."
He smoked cigars and pipes so I can always picture him with a pipe in his hand and remember him smelling of tobacco. His favorite color was blue and he usually wore blue jeans and a buttoned up, short sleeved shirt, no matter what the weather was like. He had tattoos from when he was in the Navy, anchors and such, they had the kind of ink that is fading and is mainly all blue. I remember our cats loved him, I don't think he cared much either way for them, but they always ended up curling up on his lap and falling asleep.
I can look back and laugh at how he would be sound asleep and snoring loudly on his favorite chair, and a sports game of some sort was on television. I'd go to change the channel to watch something, and he would scare me half to death when he'd say from behind me, "Hey, I was watching that!" My dad was my hero. When the neighbor boy would pick on me, I would tell him I was going to send my father after him. Of course the boy would try to act all macho and say, "Go ahead, I'm not scared of him." So I would run into the trailer we had and tell my dad what was going on. He'd walk out the front door and if the boy was still there, my dad would give him one of his looks and yell at him to go home. The kid would run so fast around the side of the trailer, I bet he could have beaten most athletes if it had been a race.
Those are just some of the memories I have of my father, but those are the ones that always stand out when I think of him. I just hope where ever he is right now, I have made him proud of his youngest child.
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