This Father’s Day I celebrated the memory of my dad. He passed twenty years ago.

Daddy lived in Detroit during the Great Depression. He remembered seeing a store-window sign that read HAM! 5¢ a pound, but he didn’t have a nickel to his name. So when he was in the eighth grade, he quit school and dug ditches in order to feed his widowed mother and four younger brothers.

We didn’t talk much when I was growing up, but talking wasn’t Daddy’s forte. He would rather putter . . . paint our house, weed his rose garden, catch bluegills, grill hotdogs.

I’ll always remember his sacred summertime Saturday ritual: his lawnmower buzzed until it was time for Ernie Harwell to blurt out, “Hiya, TIGER fans!”  Daddy would grab a beer or two, turn up the radio, and cheer on his Detroit Tigers until the, often, bitter end.  

My stories could go on and on, but it’s your turn.

What do you remember about your father?

What does (did) your father mean to you?

It might not all be “pretty.”  But tell the stories.

You owe it to him and his descendants.