Thank you for sharing your thoughts about your dad. My advice to people whose fathers are still alive is to draw them out about their early life and about their parents. I wish that I knew more about my parents and my grandparents. Family history is important. Write it down and pass it on to the younger people in your family or do oral histories. Make sure everyone gets a copy, they may want to add to the story.
My dad was a consummate storyteller...he could make a visit from an insurance salesman into a great funny story! He sometimes called himself "the human encyclopedia," because her read widely and REMEMBERED what he read. (He wasn't lacking in the self-confidence department, obviously, but never arrogant.) He encouraged me in a thousand ways, to explore, to become, to trust myself...and sometimes he drove me nuts. I miss him...
My dad was the dad of three girls and doting husband to our mother. He was truly out numbered. Looking back there were many sweet moments for us but for me personally, I remember a particular moment. I was in the hospital and the next morning I was having cranial surgery (for what turned out to be nothing. This was 1965). I was 10. My dad was staying with me that night and heard me crying. He came over to the bed and laid his head down on my stomach and said “what’s wrong?” I said ”I’m scared”
And he said in a very soft voice “me too. But I know you’ll be okay” he was right and I was okay. As a parent now I know he must have been scared out of his mind. I also know he’s the reason I married a man who was a wonderful husband and father to our girls. Happy Father’s Day Daddy and Jeff. ❤️
My dad has been gone for almost 2 years and suffered long term chronic illness and disability the last 15-20 years of his life.
I’ll always remember my dad as being someone that never made me feel I couldn’t try something or do something because I was a girl or lacked the tenacity to do so. When I wanted to take my training wheels off at 4, he said no problem and got me going on 2 wheels that day. Same for when I wanted to run cross country in middle school, he took me to summer trainings and even helped me learn how to play a little tennis before his health declined in middle school. My dad to some could maybe be called mischievous and a little delinquent at times, definitely surly and crass. But I miss his realness even with the edges it contained. We butted heads so much because of how similar we were but also different. The perfect combo of father daughter dueling. He was a very emotional man, who like most men of that time did not know how to manage it or express it appropriately, he was a depressive. But he was a true mechanic by natural talent and intuition and was also a mechanical engineer but not a top secret one. He loved music and actually was the person in our home who watched Glee and all the singing completion shows on TV. I miss his presences and having him as my go to on all things car related. He was human and imperfect but he was my father and he loved me as I did him.
My dad also opened up when he talked about far-off galaxies and nebulae. He knew so much about those worlds, but he never talked about them unless we were looking out into the night.
Thanks for sharing, James. And, thanks for asking. My Dad was a high school baseball player who was recruited for a AAA team, the Durham Bulls. His father had an accident and he had to put that dream aside in order to stay home and run the Phillips 66 service station that my Grandfather owned. Later, he was in the Air Force during the Korean Conflict and was being recruited / qualified for Office Candidate School but once, again had to return home because his Dad was ill. He and his brother ran that gas station until retirement / closing (total 40 years). His life could have been so different but he stood by his family. I loved him very much and I know he loved me - his only daughter.
My dad loves telling stories and he’s a big kid. He should have been a muppeteer. When I was growing up, he would have my teddy bear read stories to me, but my favorites were always the ones that “Huggy” would make up. They almost always involved a bear, and if the main characters weren’t supposed to be bears, he would make them bears anyway. When my sister was little, he got himself a little bear puppet. He still has it. When we were growing up, he would come to our school and Bearnard would read stories to the kids. Now Bearnard reads to my children!
Bearnard is his best bud. I remember when I had moved back home after graduating from college, before I went chasing my art dreams, I walked into the living room to find my dad sitting in his chair, watching TV alone, with Bearnard on his hand. They were discussing what was on TV. 😂 I’ve been saying for a while now that we’ll know when my dad has gone senile because Bearnard will start talking through him!
Dear James, I love how in your posts and videos the emotional human element is always present. I was lucky to have a warm loving father, who was in the British army till 55 and then became a professional photographer till 70+. His education and his generation meant he was never comfortable claiming an artistic side to his work, but he had an exceptional way of connecting with people, anyone. WW2 meant his life went in that direction but the ‘artist’ in him could not be repressed. All the best.
Thanks for the great verbal picture of your dad, James. My dad was a pastor in Appalachia who believed in his two boys enough to work two jobs to pay for our college! He always hugged me until the day he was dropping me of at Jr High church camp. In front if a group if boys I said, "Dad, let us just shake hands!". Dad laughingly would refer to this moment for years. I miss him. He was a story teller, energized by an audience, even in his late eighties he would stand wobbling by the kitchen table to express lively life stories that we had heard dozens of times but we still loved to hear him laugh as he told the tales!
Thank you for sharing your memories and thoughts of your dad. And I love the photo of you riding your bike!
I love the sketch of your dad.
I wish I had sketched my dad when he was alive.
I have done many of him since then (20 years gone this October).
He was a dentist who had his own lab making dentures/partials for his patients for years until it became too time intensive. He taught me that things shouldn't look "too perfect" as it would be more natural looking for the teeth to be customized per person, which he did.
I can always tell when someone is wearing dentures now , especially if the teeth look too good to be true!
My dad was a “math guy” and CPA, and worked as a comptroller for a printing company. He’d bring home from work lots of paper, pens, gummed tape, labels, rubylith and amberlith (ask your father), flowchart symbol drawing templates, etc., all of which I put to good use as a kid. He researched colleges with industrial design programs and found a local freelancer industrial designer for me to talk with for career advice. Showed me with his example to then provide my kids opportunities and access to resources to help them.
I have this crazy notion that my creative friends sprung to life fully formed, and somehow it's surprising to realize that they were small and undeveloped once and that there are, or were, older versions of "themselves" in the form of parents.
Here's a story about Dad. His friend invited him and some others to go for a short joy ride in the friend's father's car. The Dad was inside the office; he'd never notice the car was gone for a few minutes, and they'd put it right back where it was. So off they went.
When they got back, an issue arose that they hadn't foreseen: someone else had parked in the spot! My father says he can't understand how they did it, but the group of teens (wrestlers, I think?) lifted the second car and moved it to a neighboring spot. The Dad's car was put back in its original place, and no one knew the difference!
My childhood memory is of my father working daily in a family-owned machine shop. He ran a lathe machine making machine parts, and took his lunch to work every day in a classic grey metal lunch box with a thermos housed in the lid, by a rigid wire prong. Daily fare consisted of a white bread sandwich with the lunchmeat of the day and coffee. He returned home at 5:30 when dinner was served.
I was a pencil pusher even then, making graphite renderings of favorite subjects. One day, Pop asked me if he could take one of my horse drawings to work to hang up at his work desk. (Horses were my favorite animal for its beautiful eyes, flaring nostrils and wind blown tendrils of mane.) I relented and Dad popped my rendered horse head appropriately framed by a lucky horseshoe in his lunchbox next day.
It was some time later when Dad came home and announced that he was making parts for a new high speed packaging machine: one that auto-loaded the 64 count super Crayola box that I saw on the shelf but always went home with a smaller selection.
It wasn’t too long before it was determined that the machine proved efficient and the test products used in the process were abandoned on the premises. My new stash filled a wooden cigar box full of the latest up-to-date colors including silver, bronze and gold.
The doors of my juvenile creativity were blown open.
Art Academy of Cinci Foundational course (Fall 1968) included Calligraphy as basic to alphabet and text spec for all design/illustration field candidates. Benson and Carey’s "Elements of Lettering" presented dense essay discussions illustrated with unretouched exemplars which we were encouraged to copy without how-to instruction from our instructor, a left handed photographer gifted with a true eye.
Lettering became a second love— not only historic European calligraphy but also Spencerian and Copperplate, American scripts which I pursued independently and with Guild studies.
Fast forward 15 years, I was able to land a position as the only calligrapher employed in the lettering department at a greeting card company which I maintained for a decade, expanding and applying my skill sets to accommodate the card industry trends of the era. I must recognize the industry influence as a lingering contamination. However, I enjoy your pleasure and am complimented by your interest.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts about your dad. My advice to people whose fathers are still alive is to draw them out about their early life and about their parents. I wish that I knew more about my parents and my grandparents. Family history is important. Write it down and pass it on to the younger people in your family or do oral histories. Make sure everyone gets a copy, they may want to add to the story.
My dad was a consummate storyteller...he could make a visit from an insurance salesman into a great funny story! He sometimes called himself "the human encyclopedia," because her read widely and REMEMBERED what he read. (He wasn't lacking in the self-confidence department, obviously, but never arrogant.) He encouraged me in a thousand ways, to explore, to become, to trust myself...and sometimes he drove me nuts. I miss him...
My dad was the dad of three girls and doting husband to our mother. He was truly out numbered. Looking back there were many sweet moments for us but for me personally, I remember a particular moment. I was in the hospital and the next morning I was having cranial surgery (for what turned out to be nothing. This was 1965). I was 10. My dad was staying with me that night and heard me crying. He came over to the bed and laid his head down on my stomach and said “what’s wrong?” I said ”I’m scared”
And he said in a very soft voice “me too. But I know you’ll be okay” he was right and I was okay. As a parent now I know he must have been scared out of his mind. I also know he’s the reason I married a man who was a wonderful husband and father to our girls. Happy Father’s Day Daddy and Jeff. ❤️
My dad has been gone for almost 2 years and suffered long term chronic illness and disability the last 15-20 years of his life.
I’ll always remember my dad as being someone that never made me feel I couldn’t try something or do something because I was a girl or lacked the tenacity to do so. When I wanted to take my training wheels off at 4, he said no problem and got me going on 2 wheels that day. Same for when I wanted to run cross country in middle school, he took me to summer trainings and even helped me learn how to play a little tennis before his health declined in middle school. My dad to some could maybe be called mischievous and a little delinquent at times, definitely surly and crass. But I miss his realness even with the edges it contained. We butted heads so much because of how similar we were but also different. The perfect combo of father daughter dueling. He was a very emotional man, who like most men of that time did not know how to manage it or express it appropriately, he was a depressive. But he was a true mechanic by natural talent and intuition and was also a mechanical engineer but not a top secret one. He loved music and actually was the person in our home who watched Glee and all the singing completion shows on TV. I miss his presences and having him as my go to on all things car related. He was human and imperfect but he was my father and he loved me as I did him.
Lost Souls of Men
By ©R. Budig 2016
dad was a quiet man
severely abused as a child
he found it almost suicidal
to voice feelings or ideas
but he was so taken that night
with the lights of the aurora
it was the first time either of us
had seen them for ourselves
we lived in the center of the country
rarely did those soft lights
streak through the valleys of the sky
among the lost souls of men like my father
he marveled at their freedom
finally theirs released his
and we lay on the lawn talking
until long after the lights
slipped quietly away
on the outgoing tide
of the celestial sea
Thanks for sharing that Richard.
My dad also opened up when he talked about far-off galaxies and nebulae. He knew so much about those worlds, but he never talked about them unless we were looking out into the night.
Beautiful, thank you for sharing this poetry
My favorite blind contour drawing I ever made was of my dad, driving. I think I really captured the overall mood in the car with this one: https://64.media.tumblr.com/c4e9345078d530d312538795772bc525/db49caf5e7d37838-e2/s1280x1920/449115349ee5523a877760a7a057e2cc6d40e0cf.jpg
Thanks for sharing, James. And, thanks for asking. My Dad was a high school baseball player who was recruited for a AAA team, the Durham Bulls. His father had an accident and he had to put that dream aside in order to stay home and run the Phillips 66 service station that my Grandfather owned. Later, he was in the Air Force during the Korean Conflict and was being recruited / qualified for Office Candidate School but once, again had to return home because his Dad was ill. He and his brother ran that gas station until retirement / closing (total 40 years). His life could have been so different but he stood by his family. I loved him very much and I know he loved me - his only daughter.
My dad loves telling stories and he’s a big kid. He should have been a muppeteer. When I was growing up, he would have my teddy bear read stories to me, but my favorites were always the ones that “Huggy” would make up. They almost always involved a bear, and if the main characters weren’t supposed to be bears, he would make them bears anyway. When my sister was little, he got himself a little bear puppet. He still has it. When we were growing up, he would come to our school and Bearnard would read stories to the kids. Now Bearnard reads to my children!
Bearnard is his best bud. I remember when I had moved back home after graduating from college, before I went chasing my art dreams, I walked into the living room to find my dad sitting in his chair, watching TV alone, with Bearnard on his hand. They were discussing what was on TV. 😂 I’ve been saying for a while now that we’ll know when my dad has gone senile because Bearnard will start talking through him!
Dear James, I love how in your posts and videos the emotional human element is always present. I was lucky to have a warm loving father, who was in the British army till 55 and then became a professional photographer till 70+. His education and his generation meant he was never comfortable claiming an artistic side to his work, but he had an exceptional way of connecting with people, anyone. WW2 meant his life went in that direction but the ‘artist’ in him could not be repressed. All the best.
Thanks for the great verbal picture of your dad, James. My dad was a pastor in Appalachia who believed in his two boys enough to work two jobs to pay for our college! He always hugged me until the day he was dropping me of at Jr High church camp. In front if a group if boys I said, "Dad, let us just shake hands!". Dad laughingly would refer to this moment for years. I miss him. He was a story teller, energized by an audience, even in his late eighties he would stand wobbling by the kitchen table to express lively life stories that we had heard dozens of times but we still loved to hear him laugh as he told the tales!
Thank you for sharing your memories and thoughts of your dad. And I love the photo of you riding your bike!
I love the sketch of your dad.
I wish I had sketched my dad when he was alive.
I have done many of him since then (20 years gone this October).
He was a dentist who had his own lab making dentures/partials for his patients for years until it became too time intensive. He taught me that things shouldn't look "too perfect" as it would be more natural looking for the teeth to be customized per person, which he did.
I can always tell when someone is wearing dentures now , especially if the teeth look too good to be true!
Nice tribute, James.
My dad was a “math guy” and CPA, and worked as a comptroller for a printing company. He’d bring home from work lots of paper, pens, gummed tape, labels, rubylith and amberlith (ask your father), flowchart symbol drawing templates, etc., all of which I put to good use as a kid. He researched colleges with industrial design programs and found a local freelancer industrial designer for me to talk with for career advice. Showed me with his example to then provide my kids opportunities and access to resources to help them.
I have this crazy notion that my creative friends sprung to life fully formed, and somehow it's surprising to realize that they were small and undeveloped once and that there are, or were, older versions of "themselves" in the form of parents.
Here's a story about Dad. His friend invited him and some others to go for a short joy ride in the friend's father's car. The Dad was inside the office; he'd never notice the car was gone for a few minutes, and they'd put it right back where it was. So off they went.
When they got back, an issue arose that they hadn't foreseen: someone else had parked in the spot! My father says he can't understand how they did it, but the group of teens (wrestlers, I think?) lifted the second car and moved it to a neighboring spot. The Dad's car was put back in its original place, and no one knew the difference!
I want to hear what the guy said who parked in that space and had his car moved—“ I could’ve sworn I parked somewhere else.
My childhood memory is of my father working daily in a family-owned machine shop. He ran a lathe machine making machine parts, and took his lunch to work every day in a classic grey metal lunch box with a thermos housed in the lid, by a rigid wire prong. Daily fare consisted of a white bread sandwich with the lunchmeat of the day and coffee. He returned home at 5:30 when dinner was served.
I was a pencil pusher even then, making graphite renderings of favorite subjects. One day, Pop asked me if he could take one of my horse drawings to work to hang up at his work desk. (Horses were my favorite animal for its beautiful eyes, flaring nostrils and wind blown tendrils of mane.) I relented and Dad popped my rendered horse head appropriately framed by a lucky horseshoe in his lunchbox next day.
It was some time later when Dad came home and announced that he was making parts for a new high speed packaging machine: one that auto-loaded the 64 count super Crayola box that I saw on the shelf but always went home with a smaller selection.
It wasn’t too long before it was determined that the machine proved efficient and the test products used in the process were abandoned on the premises. My new stash filled a wooden cigar box full of the latest up-to-date colors including silver, bronze and gold.
The doors of my juvenile creativity were blown open.
Marlene Steele
Wow, thanks for sharing those really specific and vivid memories. Where did you learn your amazing skills of lettering?
Art Academy of Cinci Foundational course (Fall 1968) included Calligraphy as basic to alphabet and text spec for all design/illustration field candidates. Benson and Carey’s "Elements of Lettering" presented dense essay discussions illustrated with unretouched exemplars which we were encouraged to copy without how-to instruction from our instructor, a left handed photographer gifted with a true eye.
Lettering became a second love— not only historic European calligraphy but also Spencerian and Copperplate, American scripts which I pursued independently and with Guild studies.
Fast forward 15 years, I was able to land a position as the only calligrapher employed in the lettering department at a greeting card company which I maintained for a decade, expanding and applying my skill sets to accommodate the card industry trends of the era. I must recognize the industry influence as a lingering contamination. However, I enjoy your pleasure and am complimented by your interest.
That was a beautiful post James, I really think one of my favourites!
Happy Father's Day to you!