Father's Day

[Stan]

For some of us here, this is our first Father's day, without being able to contact our father as he has succumbed to that old enemy, death. Our hearts pain for you this weekend.

HOWEVER, we can share those 'moments' we have had with our Father. One of my friends has never known a father, other than our Heavenly Father.

Share an outstanding memory, let loose. Share as many as you want. Some may only be able to talk about our Heavenly Father, and that is fine.

[rudywoofs (Pam)]

My dad and I used to go panning for gold. Everyone else in the family thought we were nuts and refused to go with us....maybe we *were* on the eccentric side, since we never found any gold.. but it was fun anyhow.

The incident that comes to mind was one Sunday Dad and I decided to drive up to one of the peaks called Round Top in the Coast Range. My dad had heard about an Indian who in the 1920's and '30's would walk into town here every couple months and buy food and other stuff, and pay with raw gold nuggets. The townspeople tried to follow him as he walked back out to the Coast Range to find out where he could be getting those nuggets, but he always evaded them.

When he was a kid, one of the teachers Dad worked with in Portland was a friend of that old Indian, and would listen to the stories. The Indian never told him exactly where the gold was, but gave some clues. When my dad heard about it, he and I decided it must be in or around Round Top.

So....one Sunday, when my brother was not home, my dad and I took my brother's 14 passenger van out for a ride. Just Dad and me. We decided it would be a good idea to drive up to Round Top. There are no roads leading up to the top.....just overgrown deeply rutted logging trails. So we got on one of the logging trails. We smashed through dense forest and onward and upward we went. We got to the top where there were several bikers and an old lookout tower.

We got out of the van and looked at the bikers. They were all staring at us and at this great big van.....that had a flat tire and one of the side mirrors hanging down and covered with twigs and moss.

Dad and I found a dry stream bed that would probably a good spot to look for gold, but we never had a chance. It was getting dark, and DAD had to change that flat tire. He fixed the mirror when we got home.

We never had a chance to go back up there...my brother sold the van, and none of the other vehicles we had would've able to negotiate the deep logging trails.

But there's gold in them thar hills!!!!!!

[John317]

My dad and I used to go panning for gold...But there's gold in them thar hills!!!!!!

Wonderful story, Pam.

I love the great Northwest. Used to live in Bremerton, Washington.

[Gail]

My dad, like his mother before him, has great wisdom and I respect him a lot. He used to teach me about cars and life.

My life wasn't so great growing up, and he was absent a lot, but we did have GTs (good times) when he was around.

He has funny stories about growing up on the farm in Alberta as well.

[Amelia]

I have awesome memories of my poppy. He is still alive and kicking and on vacation somewhere up in Canada. So we wont have the Fathers Day BBQ until after he and mum come back from their trip.

Once a month while I was growing up poppy and I went out to Sunday breakfast. He would always pick a different place to drive to so the breakfast was also a special trip. Another fun thing we would do together was to go to the airport and watch the planes take off and land. It was fun to see if we could guess the airline by the outline of the plane before it landed. There was a special parking area off to one side of the airport along one of the runways, for watchers. A Canteen truck was always parked there and poppy would get me cotton candy. Then poppy decided I could be of help by pulling his golf cart around the course he was playing. Soon he had me out at the local pitch&putt learning. Then it was out to the long course. I really hate golf. Poppy took me to work with him long before "take a daughter to work" became popular. In fact one of my first jobs was at the steel mill he retired from. That company funded my four years at college too. I won the scholarship my senior year in high school. I still can't figure out how I did that. I must have had some brilliant moment when writing the essay. I told poppy that I've never had a brilliant moment since.

My poppy taught me all kinds of things from home repair to yard upkeep and blade sharpening. The love of the crossword puzzle and of course all kinds of creative swearing. He even taught me how to sew a button on a shirt. He learned as a kid too. His theory was, "There wont always be someone around to do for you; so you need to learn to do for yourself". Boy was he right on the money with that one.

[Gail]

Quote:

His theory was, "There wont always be someone around to do for you; so you need to learn to do for yourself". Boy was he right on the money with that one.

Yeah, the older I get the more I think that parents really DO know something!