Dad, Dad, Daddy-O

I kind of feel the menfolk got the shaft this year. I was all first-thing-Sunday-morning with the moms post.

Dads, would it make you feel any better to know we were speaking in church on Father's Day, and that - combined with pre-church meetings, choir practice and a visit to homebound woman in the neighborhood - left little in the way of translating thoughts to paper? Or blog, as it were.

It should make you feel better (look at me, telling you how you ought to be feeling about all of this), because I can say without flinching that we inherited this sense of responsibility from you, Dad, Dad, Daddy-O (Furniss) and Pops (Riley).

Our dads are two of the hardest-working individuals I know. But you know what? They're still fun. Yes, it's true!

As I advance in years and wisdom, I find myself more fully appreciating and more deeply respecting the example our fathers set in this regard. Neither seems driven by title or esteem or the number of figures before the decimal. And while they appreciate the necessity and responsibility of providing for a family, both understand when to hang up the pruning shears or put away the abacus (because after learning what one was and discovering my dad owned one, I drew the logical conclusion that he used one in his professional life).

Whether it's a long drive to Logan for any number of his sons' events or his daughter's high school basketball game during tax season (I'm not the baller, that would be Megan. I just couldn't think of any especially busy March/April activities of mine...), I've always felt our dads knew how to keep life in balance. I probably took that for granted as a kid. I probably take it for granted even now. But I think I'm gaining a greater sense of the pressures that can throw this balance out of whack, and I love them for figuring it out. Or, at least, for faking it really well.

*Alan, don't write me out of the will. You must admit this photo is hysterical. That's a good sport right there. For our viewers at home, just imagine "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer" on trombone a la Christmas Vacation.