Had a scare a while back. During a family vacation I was woken up at 4 am. Dad was having a minor stroke. He looked confused, scared and his speech was slow and slurred. He was okay after a short hospital stay, but the experience left me thinking about the influence he's had on me.
My wife is always telling me how much I'm like my father. I take that as a great compliment.
I think about the values he was instilling in me long before I understood what such ideas really meant. Those ideals have taken root in my heart, and even after seeing what seems to pass for acceptable behavior from people in power these days I can't find it in myself to accept that he was wrong.
I see a struggle between achieving power and what I was brought up to believe are the larger truths of this life. It's Dad vs. the Bushies.
I'll explain what I mean below the fold.
When Dad was 18 he left his home back East and went into what he's always called "The Service." He spent four years seeing the world and wrenching with elite squadrons flying early jet fighters. After he retired he used those skillful hands to help build houses for Habitat for Humanity. He didn't see being in service to something as denigrating, just a way to contribute to the greater good.
I see people in power who seem find more opportunities to serve themselves than others. If you can get into a position of privilege (like Clarence Thomas) and pull the ladder up after (trying to dismantle Affirmative Action), your accomplishments demonstrates your virtue in a way that quietly helping others never could. I don't care what Ayn Rand said. I don't think my father would approve of that.
He went to school, moved out West and got a government job. He fought fires and built trails into wilderness. Along the way he taught me to fish and shoot. He pretty much stopped hunting after he earned to pay for the meat he put on the table. I think it bothered him a bit to tag fawns in the spring and turn around and cut them into steaks in the Fall.
That shooting thing was pretty useful I put on a uniform and started my own service. Even if I was a "college" kid, I was the best shot in my platoon at Ft. Benning. The drill sergeant didn't have much reason to harass a soon-to-be grunt with an expert qualification badge, even if I did talk funny.
I like the word "chickenhawk." People who seem eager to send others in harm's way, never having put their own anatomy on the line, I hope there's a special place in the afterlife for them. Dad never asks others to do what he won't do himself.
He spent the largest part of his working life in conifer nurseries, turning his intelligence and knowledge into productive forests for future generations. He knew he'd never live to see the distant harvest of these seedlings. It never stopped him from always trying to improve the post-planting survival rates, reduce cost of goods, and improve the general operations.
After James Watt arrived with his Millennialist notions of stewardship of Federal land Dad was less satisfied with his job. Eventually it dawned on him that they'd pay him most of what he was making without going in to watch what he tried to manage scientifically and objectively damaged by ideologically driven bad decisions.
His pay grade was management, but Dad liked having lunch with the field workers: Hispanics who helped him learn to eat hot peppers, hippy counter culture types still lost in some back to nature movement in the late 70's and 80's, or anyone else willing to do backbreaking, seasonal labor.
I never heard him use any racist expressions for minorities. I think he truly believes that you judge person "by the content of his character, not the color of his skin." When I visited his family back East I realized that was probably a conclusion he came to on his own.
My experience in life backs up his attitude. I've met wonderful and nasty people, and which side of that line they fall on has nothing to do with their color, gender, sexual preference, social status, or age.
I don't think it would ever occur to him to demonize any group to further an agenda. He wouldn't approve of me doing it either.
He taught me to be honest and own up to your mistakes. Always pay your way. Try to be generous and compassionate in dealing with people. Do your share of the work, and maybe a little bit more. Read a lot and love learning.
If I told my Dad I couldn't think of any mistakes I'd ever made he'd give me a disapproving look and have a couple of stories to remind me of lapses in my judgment. I'd feel a bit more humble by time he was done.
If I told him I was in debt up to my eyeballs he'd offer to help and wonder where he went wrong. Luckily I keep those card balances at zero, no matter how high they raise the credit limit. It's a good habit to have.
If he knew I was using another person's tragedy for my own gain I'd get an earful.
Being lazy in getting information before making a critical decision wouldn't sit with Dad. If I blamed my lack of diligence on someone else, he'd call bullshit. I'd deserve it, and coming from him it would hurt.
I've gone through a lot of books in this life, still read the paper, and get excited when I see a new explanation for the neural source of consciousness or a picture of deep sea vent lifeforms. Having a closed minded attitude about the world around me would be very disappointing to someone whose opinion means a lot to me.
I often think that being given immunity to one's own hypocrisy might be nice. Celebrating race baiting or gay bashing as successful political wedge issues, vigorously defending wasting money and lives on a futile war with misinformation, replacing civil discourse with talking points, challenging the patriotism of a decorated vet, thinking that passing on great wealth on to a future generation is a greater virtue than paying one's dues, and so many other things happening today strike me as immoral. If I wasn't bothered by them I could feel aligned with the currently high and powerful people in the country.
An awful lot of wealth and power has been acquired by people whose behavior contradicts the values my father showed me. There's some temptation to wonder if their apparent success is worth compromising beliefs I hold so dear.
The Bushies have demonstrate a twisted way to power. There are quite a few people in this country who seem willing to follow them and gain whatever is found along that path, convinced of their righteousness and willing to sacrifice other to their goals.
Even I had money and influence to show for it, my father would never approve of me turning my back on his efforts to make sure I turned out okay.
In the battle for doing what's right, I'll follow a different light toward on a more honest, if less lucrative journey. I want to be worthy of a life's work done by my father.