He’s a CEO, a grocery man, sits on grocery retail boards, a cattle farmer, a rancher, a gardener, a daddy, a pawpaw, a husband, a good man. He wears many hats all year long, but at this time of the year, we honor the daddy.
Father’s Day was first proposed in 1909 by Sonora Dodd. After listening to a Mother’s Day sermon, she thought that the fathers should also enjoy their own memorable day.
We all think about our own daddies on this day, and I recall my small dynamite of a daddy, Earl.
He was a small man, by man’s standards today. He was about 5 feet, 9 inches and maybe weighed 150 pounds. But for what he lacked in stature, he made up for in personality. I always remember the comical things he did like walking through our screened door, forgetting about the screen.
Or the day he went fishing with my brother — he loved to fish — at the Youth Center Lake. He was a little late that morning getting his boat into the water and as my brother sat a few feet away, he said Daddy stood up in the middle of his boat and began to “speak in tongues.” He then hollered to my brother and said, “Mary Lois put turnip greens in my whip cream bowl that has my catalpa worms. I got to go get my bait.” The memory of his shenanigans always puts me in a good mood.
My daughter lives just across the road from us out here on the ranch and this year will be a difficult holiday for our family. They lost the daddy about four months ago and she is trying to be both parents to her two older boys and our little Emmie Jo.
The first holidays are always the hardest. This will be her second time to blaze this unknown trail, as she lost her first husband when their baby was 12 days old. Is she experienced enough to handle it “gracefully” this time? No. But she will, because she has the will of the daddy who lives in this house.
As I pondered on this week’s article, I struggled because there is not a lot of frivolity in this, but I tell you these things to entreat you, if you still have your daddy this side of Glory, go to see him or call him and just say, “Thank you and I love you.” As we age, we do seem to need those words of assurance.
Happy Father’s Day to all you daddies!
Crunchy Cornbread
1 cup self-rising cornmeal
½ cup self-rising flour
¼ cup of sugar
½ stick of butter
¾ cup of buttermilk
Place your cast iron skillet in your 400-degree oven as you mix flour, cornmeal, sugar and buttermilk to a smooth consistency. Pour melted butter into mix and pour all into skillet. Cook at 400 degrees for 20 minutes. So good.
