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Joined: Oct 2001
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To those of us who are fortunate enough to still have our fathers - a huge Happy Father's Day on Sunday! Hope you all get to enjoy the day with your families.

Any good "father stories"?

Here's mine: At 76 my dad is still working 1 day a week and sharp as a tack. He has never been a big drinker (more like a brainiac bookworm), but in his younger years, he carried on a bit. He has done 2 round the world trips and was an avid diver. About 20 years ago, while on Cozumel with a bunch of diving buddies, they had too many adult beverages (margaritas and that darn Vitamin T). He ended up talking to a telephone pole that night. LOL. He will never live that one down!

Joined: Oct 2000
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Happy Fathers Day to all the Dads out there! Wanted to share this father story of sorts. My brother sent this to us about ten years ago. It speaks volumes of the man we call our Dad. THANKS FOR EVERYTHING DAD you're the BEST!

50 Things I Love About My Dad (In no particular order)

1- He loves his boy
2- The pictures on the wall of his office
3- I have about 20 pounds on him
4- Sunday phone calls
5- He's a big kid
6- He took me out of school to go fishing with him
7- He made me believe that I can do anything and be anybody
8- "Front and Center!"
9- The camping trips
10- He was always there when I needed him
11- He hasn't stopped growing
12- Salesman Extraordinaire
13- He was a really cool dad
14- Besides being really cool, he was/is the kind of father everyone should have
15- He'll make a really cool grandfather some day (don't get excited, that's not a hint or anything)
16- A lot of people count on him
17- He looks good with gray hair
18- He stands so straight
19- He's come so far from where he's from
20- I love that he's so proud of me
21- He's the bird man
22- He's always been my hero
23- He likes cotton pants now, and rarely wears coaching shorts
24- Dad: "When Mr. Shushan asks what you want to be when you grow up, tell him you're going to be a business man." Boy: " I wanna be a hippie."
25- Boy: "I might run for class Vice-President." Dad: "Run for President!"
26- Growing up, my friends all looked up to him
27- Taught me to pull
28- He always seemed so together
29- He was together. When he was my age, he had a wife, three kids (5,7 and 9), a good career and a nice home. I look at what it took him to get to where he was, from where he came, and I know he is truly
self-made. It kind of makes me feel guilty that I haven't done so much more. But mostly, I just feel very fortunate that I have him in my life.
30- He likes to read
31- He doesn't stop thinking, plotting, planning, looking for ways
32- He cared enough to be actively involved and was supportive of everything I did growing up
33- He was smart enough to see through my stories, and cool enough to not make a point of it
34- He makes me want to be a better person
35- He tricked me into begging to mow the yard
36- He makes me feel very good about myself
37- He has such a good, long term friendship with Dick
38- He cares and worries for me and my sisters
39- I love that he makes me want to know so much more about him
40- My shoes stay shined
41- Taught me to take a stand for what I believe
42- It was always a foregone conclusion that I was going to college
43- He has always expected more of me than I expected of myself
44- No matter how I did, it made him happy
45- He has an incredible ability to teach himself
46- He taught me to take pride in whatever I do
47- Everybody says I look just like him (wait a minute, that's something he loves about me)
48- He wakes up early, without an alarm
49- He let me wash his Cadillacs
50- He didn't quit



Joined: Oct 2004
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My dad was a volunteer fireman in our little town in the midwest. As far back as I can remember he would take me there to ride in a pumper during a parade or just help wash the trucks. He started taking me to fire calls when I was about 7, and then when I turned 16 I joined the department also. I have a great photo of the two of us on a hose line at a barn fire in 1977. I guess we never realize the effect our dads have on us until it is to late to thank them. He died in 2000. I smile in his memory when I see my kids at the firehouse playing during a visit.

Joined: Jan 2001
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My dad passed away Christmas day of '99. At his funeral, one of his long time business associates said to me, "your dad was the only man in this town whose handshake was more binding than any contract." He was my role model and a template for how I want to be remembered. He left me a sense of honor, the trust to always "do the right thing" and a hell of a big set of shoes to fill. Happy Father's day, Dad.


Been there, done that, the washing machine ate the T-shirt
Joined: Oct 2006
Posts: 2,041
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My eulogy for my dad, almost four years ago:

We kids called Frank Gage dad or sometimes pop. But in my mind he'll always be Big Frank. I'm not sure exactly when or where that nickname arose, but it fit. Frank Gage knew joy and sorrow, success and failure, vitality and mortality, all in large measures.

As a child, I remember being awed by his physical strength, by his booming voice (when justifiably provoked-in my imagination, there are certain unfortunate high school basketball referees still cringing thirty-five years later). I was awed by his prodigious appetite, even his size 14 shoes. He could play football in the yard with the neighborhood kids and, even with bad knees, make running up the middle a no-win proposition. Dad loved kids, his kids, his grandkids, his nieces and nephews and their kids, all kids; he had a way of using his size and strength to elicit endless giggles. All of us knew that a tickling from Big Frank could magically end with the words PLEASE UNHAND ME. And yet we were always reluctant to say those magic words, for there was safety in his arms.

Safety was a familiar concept to Dad. He possessed a formidable engineering mind. The firm he founded in 1952, Gage-Babcock & Associates, remains one of the pre-eminent safety engineering and consulting firms in the country. He was a pioneer in viewing engineering as a component of risk management. Abandoning the old premise that risk management was just another term for insurance, Dad championed the notion of proactive measures to prevent losses before they occurred, rather than reacting to them afterward. Sadly, in his life, he was forced too often to react to tragic events and illnesses that he could not prevent; yet he always taught us that each of us could attain what we believed we could attain.

Family and friends were the touchstones of Dad's life. The extended Gage family, centered around the farm in Eudora, anchored Dad in the knowledge that no pain, no loss, no setback could deprive him of that shelter that comes from the community of loved ones. He was blessed also to have made lifelong friends in high school and at KU, friends whose devotion buoyed and sustained him in times of doubt. He told me once that he had been the best man in at least five weddings (maybe more, he wasn't sure). He was a good best man because he was a good man.

Dad was not one for making a fuss. It was all we could do to get him to attend his own 75th birthday party. But on that night almost five years ago, I could tell that he was genuinely touched by the love in that room, by the respect that he had earned for who he was and what he had endured, by the knowledge that his children had achieved, through his nurturing, much that he was denied in his own life and career. Dad's road was not always smooth or straight, but it led him home. In the words of Walt Whitman, from his poem To Think of Time:

The guest that was coming, he waited long, he is now housed,
He is one of those who are beautiful and happy
He is one of those that to look upon and be with is enough.


Happy Father's Day, Big Frank!!


When you find a big kettle of crazy, it's best not to stir it.
Joined: Aug 2007
Posts: 2,781
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I'm with Laurie and Beth, fortunate enough to still have my father. He is a Baptist minister, so conservative he makes some of the conservatives on this board look like lefties! laugh
While our perspectives are very different on very many things, I will always be grateful for the enduring lessons he taught me, more by example than sermon. These are a few: Be able to defend your position; remember that people are created in God's image - treat them with dignity; know the difference between a mistake and a bad choice; learn to laugh at yourself; turn the other cheek; don't be afraid to admit when you are wrong; listen; take time for yourself so that you can be in a position to help others; ask for help when you need it.

We still spend many a dinner hour debating everything from politics to religion (often to the annoyance of anyone else present), but we agree on the important stuff.

Happy Father's Day, Daddy.

Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 6,251
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Bless ya Dad. Look over all those who don't have the opportunity to be with their children this Father's day or any other day.
Keep me from saying what I want to say... try real hard, DAD!!!!
I know you must be busy with all of the others you are helping, but smile
There are some Heart warming posts.
I remember my Dad every day of my life. Everyday is a Father day for me. He taught me to drive. He was a "stock car" driver and hardly a race happened that we weren't there. The big times tracks. Liked Indy and Daytona the best!!
He taught me honesty! I pride myself for passing on some of his love. He taught me to abide by the golden rule..!!!! That's why I love one another as I wish to be loved. I do unto others as I would want them to do unto me.
He was one of Gods beloved lambs. *tears*

Joined: Jan 2008
Posts: 415
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My Dad was Cherokee. He taught me to love the earth, we are only borrowing it from our kids, we don't own it. His integrity was his calling card, if he said it, it was so. If he loved you, he loved you with all his might. He taught us to be true to ourselves, that Karma is real, that you don't have to get what you want, just want what you have. Miss ya Dad, and love you so much!


At what age is it determined I am old enough to know better?
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 6,251
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smile nice!

Joined: Sep 2002
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BUMP wink

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