It was almost a Prodigal Son moment.  I had decided that I was going to take my share of my dad’s tools and – well, keep them in my toolbox.  I was about 14, and I was asserting my independence.

I thought of this recently when I was looking for the Vise Grips.  Couldn’t find them, but I did find a pair of pliers that I’d gotten from my dad.  They were still in the green toolbox with some of the other artifacts.  The pliers were nice, smooth, worn.  They were machined instead of cast.  They were (I’m certain) made in America a long time ago, by men whose fathers had worked in the same factory.  The pliers may have belonged to my grandfather before passing through my father’s hands into mine.

There’s a lot in that toolkit that came from my father. A screwdriver with a shaft so thick I could use it as a jack handle.  Another pair of pliers.  ”Drop forged steel.  Made in the USA.”  Things that last – things you can depend on.

And then I thought about the other things in my toolkit that came from my father.  Not the physical stuff, but in my life toolkit.  There’s a lot of things that transferred from my dad to me.  Though he was a teacher, these things were mostly caught instead of taught.

The love of reading, and the similar love of learning, are critical in my life.  I’m an omnivore when it comes to reading, but I come by it honest.  There should always be a book or magazine handy.  It doesn’t have to be heavy reading (although the encyclopedia is surprisingly fun), but it can’t all be lightness and air.  There has to be some substance occasionally.  I got this from a father who’s equally at home with Louis L’Amour and the early church fathers – and they are at home with him.

Which leads to humor.  My dad has many joke books, but I learned the art of telling the jokes from him.  The essence of my humor – dry, ready, and subtle – comes from him.  I’m sure that with me, as with him, part of the ability to work comes from being able to get along with people well, and part of that is from humor.

My interest in news and current events comes from him as well.  I like catching the news at the top of the hour if I’m driving.  My dad listened to an all-news station, and it bothered the 12-year-old that was me.  I still like music, but have come to appreciate other things.

Like my dad, I am a logophile.  I love words.  He’s more of a crossword person than I am, but I still occasionally enjoy it.  And in our writings, as Mark Twain said, “The difference between the almost right word & the right word is really a large matter–it’s the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning”.

My dad is also a foodie.  I think his love for chocolate is genetically implanted in me.  No teaching, no catching – it’s just there.  And Bettie reminded me of another example: back in early high school, I’d ridden with my dad to our church camp.  It was six hours away from our house, and a good stopover point was the Dairy Queen in Canton.  Since it was just the two of us, I was able to get approval for eating a meal of a banana split.  With another one for dessert.  Lesson learned?  Eat dessert first, and often.  Thanks, Dad!

The most important thing in my toolkit that I got from my dad, though, is faith in God.  That didn’t transfer from him, wasn’t passed genetically.  It was modeled across the years and across the hours.  It was shown on Sundays as well as Mondays.  He showed me that God does matter, that church is more than a Sunday morning sing-along, and that service takes time.  Devotion to God can blend nicely with your interests (see his collection of Bibles – and yes, I’m a bibliophile too).  You never lose track of God’s family – my dad just went to visit some church friends they hadn’t seen in a half-century, and were welcomed like family.  His examples don’t stop just because I don’t live at his house anymore.

He’s not perfect.  Only one Father is perfect, and I am so happy that He’s a big enough Father for all of us.  My dad made mistakes, and apologized for them.  That took humility.  One of his accidents also left him with a nifty scar on his forehead.  No, it was before my time.  But ask him about it.

There are many more examples, more traits, more illustrations to give.  He also believes the Bible is true.  And I’m thinking that he might be advising me to read Ecclesiastes 12:12:

But beyond this, my son, be warned: the writing of many books is endless, and excessive devotion to books is wearying to the body.

So I’m going to quit writing, not be so devoted to reading a book, and instead take a nap.  Thanks for the example, Dad!  And happy Father’s Day.