Happy Father's Day today to my Dad. And Happy Birthday to him later this week!!!
In the first picture here, I was four years old and we had just moved to Young Ward, Utah. Some of you may not know the circumstances of our moving to Utah. My Dad took a job as a professor at Utah State University in ElEd Science. We left an absolute paradise in Victoria, Canada where I was born. My parents loved, loved, loved living in Victoria. They took an exact 50% pay cut to move from a large home in Canada, to a small farm house in Utah. Yes, 50% pay cut!!! Why??? Plain and simple--they were converts to the church and wanted their nine children to have more opportunities to date and marry LDS people. Looks like their serious leap of faith paid off. I married Darin, and he lived just a mile away from the little farm house we grew up in. We all met our spouses in Utah. And now the great grandchildren are joining the family. Thank you Dad!!
One of the many things that has been a blessing to me over the years, is that my dad loved his career choice. He loved his job as a professor and his students loved him. When I was little, I didn't understand what he did. I just knew that he was always with groups of young adults, or elementary school teachers....doing really FUN stuff!! I loved going to work with him, seeing the pets in his classroom on campus, playing in his office, and getting Aggie ice-cream together. I also loved it when it was my turn to travel with him around the state to do different teacher training workshops. Long sunny car rides, stops for food along the way, and my non-stop chattering. It was on one of these trips that I first heard John Denver's "Sunshine on my shoulders". It always makes me think of my dad.
Growing up with my dad made for a very fun childhood. Granted, there were times I got yelled at in German for pulling out the plants instead of the weeds, and for having a quite stubborn teenage attitude, refusing to talk to my dad, unless absolutely necessary. Hopefully those times rough times have faded in his memory, as they have in mine. The things that shaped who I am and made my childhood magical....were many of the things my dad did with us kids. Fishing trips to nearby dams and rivers, making homemade sausage, french fries, donuts, apple juice, Chinese food, lime aid, etc. Hatching chicks in incubators in the house, having a baby pig in a box in the house, raising a building full of tropical fish, gathering eggs from the chickens, and watching the orange koi in the ponds. Planting, weeding, watering, and harvesting literally acres and acres of strawberries, rhubarb, kohlrabies, peas, beans, corn, tomatoes, raspberries, pumpkins, squash, potatoes, apples, plums, and more. Whatever my dad did, he had some of us kids with him---wethor it was laying on the bed reading the newspaper, cooking, or working on an indoor or outdoor project, he always had kids underfoot, talking only as much as necessary to teach us as we went along. I don't know how he did it with so many of us bouncing and bopping around him all the time like busy bumblebees. But he seemed to like having us around. He let us pull his ear hairs out with tweezers, and he'd pay us $1 to give him a foot rub with Bengay. I loved to lay by him while he read or while we watched Nature on PBS. Right in the crook of his smelly armpit. Loved it. And he called me his "little muskrat".
Thanks for all the memories, Dad. Thanks for raising me in a way that I knew you believed in me. I always felt like you thought I was talented and funny and smart and had endless potential. Like some of the other kids, I too felt like I was your favorite. We can go ahead and let them think that if they want to. Cause I know it was me. Still is. Love you!!!!
Happy Fathers Day and Happy 77th Birthday!!
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