Who are you more like, your mom or your dad? Who had more of an influence on who you are today by what happened 40-plus years ago? You look more like one than the other does, or do you really?  Maybe you think you look more like Mom than anyone else, but then you see a picture of one of them that proves you wrong. I think that my appearance more resembles my mom than my dad, as my brother Tom looks more like my dad than any other member of my family. But on the other hand, my cousins claim I look just like their dad, who is my dad’s younger brother. Maybe it’s an optical illusion; maybe it’s just a trick of the mind.

   You could say the proof is in the pudding. Dad knew that my nature was in Mom’s corner, but he forgot about the traits I got from him, traits ‘til this day that I can’t walk away from.
   In the basement, I have part of the cupboards that I tore out of the kitchen when I refurbished it some 20-plus years ago. Part of my upbringing taught me not to throw anything away; when you didn’t have anything, throwing it away was rather ridiculous, so we didn’t. When I tore apart the old kitchen to put a 10-foot by 20-foot addition on so Kathy didn’t have to go to the laundromat, I saved all the materials that I tore out with the idea that I might be able to recycle them. I pulled all the nails that were in the wood that I was tearing out, and threw them in a tin can. And as the cans of nails built up, I had no more desire to throw them than to throw money out my back door. Then one day, when I was looking for a certain tool, I ran across a whole drawer full of cans full of nails that I could hardly get open because of the weight of all the nails. I reflected on my nail collection for a few seconds, smiled inwardly and outwardly, and shut the drawer. I still have that drawer full of nails and don’t hesitate to add to that collection. I guess I should explain.
   As Dad’s ace-number-one helper, I was always ready to assist his newest project, to be his right-hand man, to aid in his every wish of help. But somewhere along the road he determined that my aid wasn’t up to his standards, so he chose an alternative to channel my enthusiasm. One time after I hadn’t met his expectations, he handed me a tomato can full of rusty, bent nails. He then grabbed my small hammer and a straight 2-by-4 and commenced to show me how to straighten out a bent nail. There is a trick to it; you have to get the hump sticking up in the air, and you then tap the nail ‘til the bend is gone, and the nail is as straight as possible by rotating it as you pound lightly. When I got done with the nail, you couldn’t tell they were used except for the rust on them. I think that at the time I realized that my help was being put on the back shelf, but I had no way of dealing with it other than straightening the nails out perfectly, to do the best I could doing the job I was assigned. 
   Although he never showed me how to nail a 2-by-4, set a header, or smooth out cement, he showed me how to get something done. He taught me to do the best I could with what I had. And by that simple task of making use of something that was useless, he taught me to make something useful of the most useful tool I had, my brain. So I did toenail 2-by-4’s, set headers, smooth out and set cement, build an addition, and do a pretty good job of it. He might have thought I was a failure to his teachings, but I guess I have a different slant to it. He taught me to do something simple, but taught me to do is well. And after you are able to do one thing well, can’t you take on a more difficult project and do that well with practice also? 
     I often regret that I never told him something that happened to me when I was going to Stout. I discovered this English professor and I loved going to his classes. I took every class I could that was taught by him: English 101 and 102, Modern American writers, and expository writing. I was the guy that flunked freshman English when I went to high school, but I was eating up the teachings of this guy. When I took expository writing, our first assignment by Professor Paul Edmundson was to write a descriptive narrative. I wrote about an experience in the Navy when my ship collided with a ship we were refueling. I did not hesitate to use descriptive Navy language to describe the situation. I handed the paper in, and was surprised when the professor requested that I read my paper in front of the class. I had used some pretty salty language in the descriptive part of the narrative, so out of embarrassment, I declined. He went on to read it himself, and after he had finished, declared that was what he wanted in a paper by the rest of the class by the time the semester was over. I got an A in the class and didn’t have to attend after that class ended; it was probably my finest moment of college, and after class I had a hard time getting my head through the door way of the classroom. I did go to every class that remained that semester; my A was appreciated, but I guess I appreciated the teacher more than the time spent.
   What does this class have to do with Dad? Dad could tell a story or joke that could make you laugh or cry. I don’t do a real good job of oral storytelling. But maybe the nail-straightening task taught me to think my story out before I presented it, paper being my medium.
   Thanks, Dad. Happy Father’s Day, and although it has been 15 years since you left us, it just seems like yesterday that we shared our last Leinie’s together.