The first person who came to mind was Abraham Lincoln. But moving a bit closer to home, I’d have to say my father.
He lost his father when he wasn’t quite two years old, was the youngest in a family of six children, never finished high school, enlisted in the Coast Guard toward the end of WWII, married my mother in the early fifties, worked a lot, scraped and saved little, helped build the house in which we grew up, worked construction– floor and ceiling installation– for years, until that company closed its doors. He then finished his working years as a custodian at one of the local elementary schools.
Dad was keenly aware of and occasionally haunted by his unfinished education, and he would ask us kids– half kiddingly and yet with a certain poignancy and sober intent– if we thought we’d amount to anything. Our family of seven lived paycheck to paycheck, but we never wanted for anything of importance. My brothers and sisters and I were blessed with parents who were focused on raising a family, in it for the long haul. We knew we were loved, even if being loved wasn’t necessarily something we could name, in the moment.
Dad was a smart man, something of a perfectionist, not always brimming with self-confidence. He was a kid at heart, and he stayed that way for most of his life. He had a great sense of humor, would laugh robustly at things until he coughed and couldn’t breathe. He made us laugh. He didn’t suffer fools, though he made an effort to get along with pretty much everybody.
He taught us to be kind and honest, to appreciate beauty and the natural world. He taught me to eat a tomato like an apple (with a little salt, for added flavor). He taught me to work until the job was done. He taught us cribbage, took us golfing and camping and fishing early on, and revealed a competitiveness that fueled certain endeavors but never consumed him.
He was a good man, something of a hero.
3 Cents' 