A Day Late

I have been planning (and dreading) this blog for a long time. I even had a date picked out to publish it - October 16th. Well, October 16th almost came and went without me giving it a second thought, until shortly before midnight. I was actually typing the date into a document, at precisely 11:53pm, when I realized what day it was. My dad's birthday. I also knew it was too late to sit down and blog coherently at that time on my dad. So here I am, a day late, but hopefully no less honoring of my father's memory. He would have been 77 years old yesterday. When I say "would have been", you can see how this blog will go.

He has been gone now for over 22 years, taken at the young age of 54 by cancer. But I wish not to write so much about his death - though he faced it bravely, resting securely in the everlasting arms of his heavenly Father right to the end - rather I would like to talk about his life.

My dad was born Robert Edward Wilson on October 16th, 1929, and grew up in Cambridge, MN, just off the main drag of Highway 61, about an hour north of the Twin Cities. In fact, if you drive through Cambridge today and stop at the Dairy Queen, you are stepping in my dad's vegetable garden. I don't think he minds. In fact if you had stepped in it 70 years ago, I don't think he would have minded either. He probably would have asked you if you wanted a tomato. Just guessing, as I didn't know him then, obviously. Maybe someone more "seasoned" than I can corroborate.

My dad was a Boy Scout in Cambridge, attaining the rank of Eagle Scout, and his father, Edward, and his father's twin brother Edgar, were scout leaders. This leads me to my next story. My dad always kept a picture in his office at home of the Boy Scout troop of his childhood, with his dad and Uncle Edgar right there in the front row. Coming home from taking that picture, as they pulled into the driveway, Edward suffered a heart attack. Edgar got him out of the car and up to the house, where he also suffered a heart attack. Edward and Edgar, having been born within 5 minutes of each other, also died within 5 minutes of each other, there on that day. My father was 12 years old at the time. Now you know why that picture was so special to him. It was the last picture of his father and uncle alive.

The main reason I share that story is to say that I have always marveled at the fact that if my dad lost his father at age 12, where did he learn to be such a great father himself? My grandpa Edward, whom I never knew, must have packed a lot of character and upbringing into that boy in 12 years (and yes, I'm sure my grandma Olga had a little bit to do with it). I can only share a few memories to illustrate.

The first memory goes back to the days when we lived in Richfield, at 6444 12th Ave. South. The fact that we lived there tells me that this story dates to my kindergarten days or before. One day I went down to the corner drug store at 12th & 66th with my friend Steve Nygren. We both picked out a package of Lik'M'Aid (a fancy name for a packet of sugar), which at the time cost a nickel. My friend Steve gave the clerk his nickel. Now understand, this was about 18 years before I attained my B.A. in Economics, and I was not real clear on the ways of commerce. I figured if Steve's nickel was good enough for his Lik'M'Aid, it was good enough for mine too. Honest. Stealing did not even cross my mind. I think I even said something like "That's for mine too". So either the clerk did not hear me, or thought I was cute, because I was allowed to walk out of the store with my Lik'M'Aid without giving up a nickel of my own. Well, you can guess what happened. On the way home, I met my dad on the sidewalk, and he asked me where I got the Lik'M'Aid, knowing that I did not have a nickel. I told him the same story I just told you, innocent as can be, and my dad set me straight. Not in an angry way, but he explained to me that I had taken it without paying, and he walked me back to the drug store and made me return the Lik'M'Aid and apologize to the shopkeeper.

The next story is similar, only fast forward about ten years. Remember the Minnesota Kicks? I do. They were the local professional soccer team that played at Met Stadium (now sadly, Mall of America) in the mid-70s(?) and I went to many a game. One night after the game, as I was coming out, I bought a miniature soccer ball from one of the vendors, and he gave me back the wrong change, several dollars to my favor. I thought I had hit the jackpot. You think I would have known better by this time, but evidently not, because I was even dumb enough to mention it to my dad when I got home. This time his reaction was a little more, shall we say, animated, than in the story above, because supposedly I was old enough to know better. I guess the right thing to do was to acknowledge the error to the vendor and give him back the money. Because now he will be short at the end of the night because of me, and it will come out of his pocket, and that isn't right.

As you can see from the above stories, my dad was a strong believer in "doing the right thing", long before Spike Lee ever coined the phrase. And this deep sense of doing right did not spring from nowhere, but from a deeply rooted belief in the God of the Bible, and in his son Jesus Christ, whom he spent his life serving, and desired more than anything the same for his children.

And he walked the talk. One of the strongest memories of my father was of one night when he called me into his office. Though it is a strong memory, I do not recall exactly what age I was, probably around Jr. High age. And usually, when we got called into his office, it was not a good thing. I was really going to get it now. But instead, he wanted to sit me down in private and ask me to forgive him for wrongly punishing me in recent days for something that was not my fault. He had been mistaken, and said he was sorry, and asked me to forgive him. That floored me. I don't remember what I said if anything, but I do remember how I felt. For all the times I had made that man's life a trial, and never said "I'm sorry", and now he is saying "I'm sorry" to me? I was in awe of him. I still am.

I could go on forever, but I won't. You get the idea. Like I said, he has been gone 22 years now, and I can't say he comes to mind every day (I almost forgot his birthday, for goodness sake), but very often when I am trying to be a good father, and sometimes missing the mark, I find myself wondering "WWDD" - "What Would Dad Do?"

I love you, Dad, and I'll see you soon.