bigbendmarine
5 year old buck +
I've mentioned in a few recent posts that just weeks ago I lost my Dad.
Hope the administrators won't mind me posting a bit of a tribute to him. Blessedly I was able to share these words with him two years ago while he was still alive, appreciating as he neared 90 and I neared 50 if I waited too long he might not have the chance to know my thoughts.
He truly was a member of the greatest generation, joining the USMC during WWII and then using the GI bill to become the first member of his sharecropper family to go to college. I've worked with thousands of folks since I entered the work force, but without question he was the hardest working man I've ever known. Though in my youth I was occasionally obstinate or just plain ignorant, over time some lessons he imparted thankfully stuck.
These are the ten lessons I found most meaningful and I bet some forum members will also appreciate them:
1) Life’s not always fair and if you expect it to be you’ll be going around sorely disappointed. He said this often when I was a kid. He didn’t share it with any malice nor anger, but instead just very with complete sincerity. You would think this lesson might sour one’s outlook on life, but quite to the contrary it helped me weather storms and be all the more thankful during good times.
2) Life is much more fun if you don’t dwell on misfortune. I grow more appreciative each day at what my father faced and overcame -- the loss of a kidney during his own USMC service, a debilitating severe stroke in his 30s that robbed him of athletic skills during his prime and left him with permanent weakness on one side of his body, a heart attack in his 50s, and a cancer scare in his 80s. Yet I NEVER remember witnessing EVEN A SINGLE SECOND of self-pity nor fear. Instead, I learned that indeed one can make lemonade out of lemons. The end result of his stroke? Marrying a Physical Therapist who would love him with all her heart for 55 years. Where many men today would use such “disabilities” to excuse themselves from work, I witnessed my Dad cut himself with a chainsaw twice in the same spot because he wasn’t content resting after getting stitched up the first time, working to clear up 300 acres of kudzu infested woodland so he could build a dream house for my Mother on it. Which brings me to...
3) Work, son, work. More than once I can remember my Dad telling me that one of the most used words in the bible is “work” (and indeed it is). My Dad actually seemed to take pleasure in doing jobs the hardest way possible, with a row of hand tools lining the wall next to our home versus automated ones. As a growing boy I had little love for the manual labor he asked from me, but as I aged I began to grow a love for the sense of accomplishment a hard day’s work provides. As an adult each time I visited his home and enjoyed the warmth of a fire I looked at the bricks in his fireplace and thought back to our entire family cleaning mortar off bricks he gathered from old buildings when constructing his home. Another saying he shared has me determined not only to hold on to the lesson but pray I can impart it to my daughter, “Today’s peacock is tomorrow’s feather duster.”
4) Everyone has different talents, and before you rush to judge anyone too harshly understand that they very likely can do something better than you. This lesson helped me tremendously in my own career, where as a manager I put together some strong teams NOT by trying to mirror my own strengths / weaknesses but focusing instead on skills others could bring to the table. That old saying “it takes all types” is indeed often true. Even more importantly, seeing my Dad actually live by this philosophy I witnessed that he never met a stranger as he never distanced himself from others, instead showing sincere interest in others' gifts and talents.
5) Don’t judge a book by its cover. I can remember him often sharing with us that the man you think is “rich” may be living beyond his means and the man living the simple life may in fact be wealthier than you can imagine. This lesson was reinforced in my mind as I grew up and witnessed events such as textile magnate John D. Hollingsworth dying while living in an airstream trailer yet having an empire worth $290 million. In contrast, I also witnessed countless mega-millionaire athletes and celebrities living such decadent lives they declared bankruptcy in short order. Though I remember seeing my Dad come home in a business suit, my stronger memories are of the blue coveralls he donned after “work” and wore until he came in after laboring until dark. One of my favorite memories was of someone driving through the land project he developed, stopping, and thinking him a farm hand, asking if he knew "Jim Kennedy" (his own name), to which I remember him simply replying, “Why yes I do! We know each other quite well!” I can remember him dropping me off in school in a beat up Plymouth, with me wearing cheap shoes not in fashion at the time, and him making me give him a hug before being released to go into school. I was so bothered by what I believed friends thought at the time. Now I’m old enough to know the important part of the book wasn’t the cover.
6) A truly good deal is one that leaves BOTH parties happy, and thinking outside the box can make for incredible deals. So many people in the world want to paint that every deal has a clear winner and a loser, that someone will be a victor and the other a victim. One simple yet amazing deal my Dad made showed me the fallacy of such thinking. During my teen years my Dad read an article in our state's main paper chronicling the efforts of a young South Carolinian ship builder seeking to build a catamaran far inland, haul it to the coast, and sail the world. My Dad’s instant thought? If ever someone sounded like they could use a cash infusion it’s this young solo ship builder. Never afraid to strike a deal, my father simply got in his car, drove until he found the ship builder's property, approached him 100% out of the blue, and told him he would give him a modest sum of money for one simple promise... that when he finished his catamaran he would take our family for a cruise in the Bahamas. End result? Our family had a private cruise on a brand new catamaran with the ship builder as our guide. We enjoyed the trip of a lifetime at a price that couldn't be beat and at the same time my Dad made a life long friend with the ship builder by helping him at the exact right time.
7) Never underestimate the ability of compounding interest to work for you and debt against you. One of the toughest tasks my father gave me was for my wife and I to save $25,000 by age 25, this after I had just married at 23 and while I was working a minimum wage manufacturing job. We didn’t reach that number by my 25th birthday but did just a few months later. It was FAR from easy. We didn’t have cable tv, we didn’t go out to restaurants or movies, instead keeping our noses to the grindstone working overtime and saving as much money as we could. Not only did the task prove wise in forcing us to built a nest egg early, but the habit of spending less than we brought home stayed with us.
8) Gaining financial security should be a goal but not the only goal. After a lifetime of encouragement to save money for financial security, my Dad shared a question with me that hit me hard (and honestly is one I still wrestle to answer). “Now that you’ve saved enough money to feel a bit more secure, what do you REALLY want to do with it?” I had become so focused on making and saving money, I was extremely resistant to spend it and had no visions of what to do with it. His one simple sentence shifted the ground underneath my feet.
9) Do something outside the box every now and then and life can be much more interesting. My Dad somehow managed to marry a life full of work and labor with unbelievable moments of adventure. We might go two or three years working throughout summers leveling hot patch asphalt roads by hand only to have my father say, “Ok, boys, pack your bags for a long trip!” and then driving from South Carolina through Mexico, Guatemala, into Belize. The man who drove a beat up Plymouth to save money... that SAME man made us the only family on the block with a HOVERCRAFT. Other such adventures included our family visiting Portugal to help with an archeological dig, and later in life my mother and father working in Indonesia to build solar ovens. My Mom would say that some of these spontaneous decisions might have warranted more logical thought (especially after being robbed at knife AND gunpoint during our Mexico adventure, or when my father nearly decapitated himself while riding the hovercraft) but, God knows, he provided us with MANY wonderful memories.
10) The greatest gift of these is love. While being the hardest working man I’ve known, my father also went out of his way to show true love to my wife and me in a way we never, ever will be able to adequately thank him. Incredibly he actually found our only daughter for us and in an unbelievable time frame. Within days of mentioning to him we were opening our hearts to adopting, he contacted one of my wife's med school classmates, an OBGYN doctor, to ask him to “be on the lookout” for any baby we might be able to adopt. The result, one week later the classmate friend was on the phone with us so excited he could hardly speak telling us he had a mother who had just delivered wanting to find a good home for her daughter. What better gift could ever be given?
In an era where the media constantly question what being a "man" really means, I never had to wonder. I saw it every single day I was blessed to spend with my Dad. For that I'll be thankful until my own dying day.
Hope the administrators won't mind me posting a bit of a tribute to him. Blessedly I was able to share these words with him two years ago while he was still alive, appreciating as he neared 90 and I neared 50 if I waited too long he might not have the chance to know my thoughts.
He truly was a member of the greatest generation, joining the USMC during WWII and then using the GI bill to become the first member of his sharecropper family to go to college. I've worked with thousands of folks since I entered the work force, but without question he was the hardest working man I've ever known. Though in my youth I was occasionally obstinate or just plain ignorant, over time some lessons he imparted thankfully stuck.
These are the ten lessons I found most meaningful and I bet some forum members will also appreciate them:
1) Life’s not always fair and if you expect it to be you’ll be going around sorely disappointed. He said this often when I was a kid. He didn’t share it with any malice nor anger, but instead just very with complete sincerity. You would think this lesson might sour one’s outlook on life, but quite to the contrary it helped me weather storms and be all the more thankful during good times.
2) Life is much more fun if you don’t dwell on misfortune. I grow more appreciative each day at what my father faced and overcame -- the loss of a kidney during his own USMC service, a debilitating severe stroke in his 30s that robbed him of athletic skills during his prime and left him with permanent weakness on one side of his body, a heart attack in his 50s, and a cancer scare in his 80s. Yet I NEVER remember witnessing EVEN A SINGLE SECOND of self-pity nor fear. Instead, I learned that indeed one can make lemonade out of lemons. The end result of his stroke? Marrying a Physical Therapist who would love him with all her heart for 55 years. Where many men today would use such “disabilities” to excuse themselves from work, I witnessed my Dad cut himself with a chainsaw twice in the same spot because he wasn’t content resting after getting stitched up the first time, working to clear up 300 acres of kudzu infested woodland so he could build a dream house for my Mother on it. Which brings me to...
3) Work, son, work. More than once I can remember my Dad telling me that one of the most used words in the bible is “work” (and indeed it is). My Dad actually seemed to take pleasure in doing jobs the hardest way possible, with a row of hand tools lining the wall next to our home versus automated ones. As a growing boy I had little love for the manual labor he asked from me, but as I aged I began to grow a love for the sense of accomplishment a hard day’s work provides. As an adult each time I visited his home and enjoyed the warmth of a fire I looked at the bricks in his fireplace and thought back to our entire family cleaning mortar off bricks he gathered from old buildings when constructing his home. Another saying he shared has me determined not only to hold on to the lesson but pray I can impart it to my daughter, “Today’s peacock is tomorrow’s feather duster.”
4) Everyone has different talents, and before you rush to judge anyone too harshly understand that they very likely can do something better than you. This lesson helped me tremendously in my own career, where as a manager I put together some strong teams NOT by trying to mirror my own strengths / weaknesses but focusing instead on skills others could bring to the table. That old saying “it takes all types” is indeed often true. Even more importantly, seeing my Dad actually live by this philosophy I witnessed that he never met a stranger as he never distanced himself from others, instead showing sincere interest in others' gifts and talents.
5) Don’t judge a book by its cover. I can remember him often sharing with us that the man you think is “rich” may be living beyond his means and the man living the simple life may in fact be wealthier than you can imagine. This lesson was reinforced in my mind as I grew up and witnessed events such as textile magnate John D. Hollingsworth dying while living in an airstream trailer yet having an empire worth $290 million. In contrast, I also witnessed countless mega-millionaire athletes and celebrities living such decadent lives they declared bankruptcy in short order. Though I remember seeing my Dad come home in a business suit, my stronger memories are of the blue coveralls he donned after “work” and wore until he came in after laboring until dark. One of my favorite memories was of someone driving through the land project he developed, stopping, and thinking him a farm hand, asking if he knew "Jim Kennedy" (his own name), to which I remember him simply replying, “Why yes I do! We know each other quite well!” I can remember him dropping me off in school in a beat up Plymouth, with me wearing cheap shoes not in fashion at the time, and him making me give him a hug before being released to go into school. I was so bothered by what I believed friends thought at the time. Now I’m old enough to know the important part of the book wasn’t the cover.
6) A truly good deal is one that leaves BOTH parties happy, and thinking outside the box can make for incredible deals. So many people in the world want to paint that every deal has a clear winner and a loser, that someone will be a victor and the other a victim. One simple yet amazing deal my Dad made showed me the fallacy of such thinking. During my teen years my Dad read an article in our state's main paper chronicling the efforts of a young South Carolinian ship builder seeking to build a catamaran far inland, haul it to the coast, and sail the world. My Dad’s instant thought? If ever someone sounded like they could use a cash infusion it’s this young solo ship builder. Never afraid to strike a deal, my father simply got in his car, drove until he found the ship builder's property, approached him 100% out of the blue, and told him he would give him a modest sum of money for one simple promise... that when he finished his catamaran he would take our family for a cruise in the Bahamas. End result? Our family had a private cruise on a brand new catamaran with the ship builder as our guide. We enjoyed the trip of a lifetime at a price that couldn't be beat and at the same time my Dad made a life long friend with the ship builder by helping him at the exact right time.
7) Never underestimate the ability of compounding interest to work for you and debt against you. One of the toughest tasks my father gave me was for my wife and I to save $25,000 by age 25, this after I had just married at 23 and while I was working a minimum wage manufacturing job. We didn’t reach that number by my 25th birthday but did just a few months later. It was FAR from easy. We didn’t have cable tv, we didn’t go out to restaurants or movies, instead keeping our noses to the grindstone working overtime and saving as much money as we could. Not only did the task prove wise in forcing us to built a nest egg early, but the habit of spending less than we brought home stayed with us.
8) Gaining financial security should be a goal but not the only goal. After a lifetime of encouragement to save money for financial security, my Dad shared a question with me that hit me hard (and honestly is one I still wrestle to answer). “Now that you’ve saved enough money to feel a bit more secure, what do you REALLY want to do with it?” I had become so focused on making and saving money, I was extremely resistant to spend it and had no visions of what to do with it. His one simple sentence shifted the ground underneath my feet.
9) Do something outside the box every now and then and life can be much more interesting. My Dad somehow managed to marry a life full of work and labor with unbelievable moments of adventure. We might go two or three years working throughout summers leveling hot patch asphalt roads by hand only to have my father say, “Ok, boys, pack your bags for a long trip!” and then driving from South Carolina through Mexico, Guatemala, into Belize. The man who drove a beat up Plymouth to save money... that SAME man made us the only family on the block with a HOVERCRAFT. Other such adventures included our family visiting Portugal to help with an archeological dig, and later in life my mother and father working in Indonesia to build solar ovens. My Mom would say that some of these spontaneous decisions might have warranted more logical thought (especially after being robbed at knife AND gunpoint during our Mexico adventure, or when my father nearly decapitated himself while riding the hovercraft) but, God knows, he provided us with MANY wonderful memories.
10) The greatest gift of these is love. While being the hardest working man I’ve known, my father also went out of his way to show true love to my wife and me in a way we never, ever will be able to adequately thank him. Incredibly he actually found our only daughter for us and in an unbelievable time frame. Within days of mentioning to him we were opening our hearts to adopting, he contacted one of my wife's med school classmates, an OBGYN doctor, to ask him to “be on the lookout” for any baby we might be able to adopt. The result, one week later the classmate friend was on the phone with us so excited he could hardly speak telling us he had a mother who had just delivered wanting to find a good home for her daughter. What better gift could ever be given?
In an era where the media constantly question what being a "man" really means, I never had to wonder. I saw it every single day I was blessed to spend with my Dad. For that I'll be thankful until my own dying day.
