March 05, 2024 / My Dad

Hey, Calvary Fremont –

Let me tell you about my dad. He was born in 1927 and turned 18 a couple of months after Hitler shot himself in the head. The war in the Pacific was still grinding along and so my dad joined the Navy and caught the tail-end of WW2 in the Pacific Theater. He and my mom met and married at San Jose Bible College in the late 1940’s. Up in the mountains east of Fresno, California, there is the tiny hamlet of Big Creek. After graduating from Bible College, he and my mom moved there where he served as a pastor – for eight months. I don’t know if it was a bad experience or just a dawning awareness that the ministry wasn’t for him, but he discovered that empathy was not in his skill set! His personality and temperament were better suited for dealing with things rather than interacting with people. So off he went into the retail business.

He worked for Western Auto and then Sears, Roebuck & Company. A headhunter from another department store, Montgomery Wards, recruited him and so he went to work there. We moved a lot. I went to six elementary schools, three junior highs, and two high schools. All this time we went to church every Sunday morning, every Sunday night, and every Wednesday night. My mom led Vacation Bible Schools, taught the women’s study, and directed the choir. My dad lent his muscles to the church. At one church, I had to go with him early to pick up the church organ from someone’s house. I asked why we had to do this every Sunday. His reply: “It is my duty.” That’s my dad.

My dad was head of the hardware department in the various stores he was transferred to and was annually recommended for store management. Every year, the corporate big shots from headquarters would come to the store and expect my dad to wine and dine them. They expected him to take them to bars and show them a good time. They didn’t know my dad. He has zero tolerance for that kind of foolishness. The day before his 20th year of employment, Montgomery Wards fired him. His pension would have vested the next day, but they canned him. My dad, being my dad, sued them and won a sizeable settlement for unlawful termination.

He was out of a job after being fired, but he said, “I refuse to be unemployed. It will not happen to me.” He started a construction business at age 50 and went on to win awards in California for his passive solar homes. When he was 58, he attended law school five nights a week for four years and earned his Doctor of Jurisprudence. He worked as an attorney for a few brief years and then figured he could make more money in the used tire business. For 20 years and more, he owned two used tire shops in Fresno. He had a contract with the California Highway Patrol and bought their used tires when they still had a lot of tread on them. It’s just a brief car ride from the San Francisco Bay Area to Fresno in the Central Valley and I would drive over and get free tires when I needed them!

I never saw my father sing in church – which was quite a contrast to the dominating soprano voice of my mother. Mom was emotionally warm and outgoing and expressive whereas dad was stoic and reserved and unemotional. Could two people be more polar opposite!? My dad epitomized the work ethic found in the book of Proverbs.

GO TO THE ANT, O SLUGGARD, OBSERVE HER WAYS AND BE WISE, WHICH, HAVING NO CHIEF, OFFICER OR RULER, PREPARES HER FOOD IN THE SUMMER AND GATHERS HER PROVISION IN THE HARVEST. HOW LONG WILL YOU LIE DOWN, O SLUGGARD? WHEN WILL YOU ARISE FROM YOUR SLEEP? “A LITTLE SLEEP, A LITTLE SLUMBER, A LITTLE FOLDING OF THE HANDS TO REST”— YOUR POVERTY WILL COME IN LIKE A VAGABOND AND YOUR NEED LIKE AN ARMED MAN. PROVERBS 6:6-11

In a day when so many are content to cruise through life, depend on the generosity of others, and generally have no gumption and get-up-and-go, my father has been an example of the ant who prepares his food in the summer and gathers his provision in the harvest. He is 96 years old as of this writing. It still rings in my mind when he said, “I refuse to be unemployed. It will not happen to me.” His children rise up and call him blessed in the gates.