My Father's Shadow

"You have to pay the fiddler his due Gage, never forget that. There is a never a free lunch." - Walter Ward Zobell Jr.

I was taught a multitude of lessons from my father as we use to work in our fields. As I was too small to be of much help, and when I was large enough I had developed a rebellious streak, my father would have be drive the ditching tractor as he slowly moved along the side of it and would manipulate the water to spread across the fields and bring forth life. I never understood that the conversations we had were another example of a man spreading a life giving substance that would of itself bring forth new ideas and life. My father culivated my childhood.

My first memories of my father involve a quiet individual who would sit me on his lap after he had gone running at night, and we would watch television. He would pop the muscles in his leg and I would go flying into the air, only for him to catch me on his other leg and pop me back. He would pick me up and let me walk upside down on the roof. He was the strong presence that would be gone for weeks, working at the Pentagon or shooting trap, only to return and opening his suitcases bring me presents. I loved him, although at the time I didn't completely understand my relationship to him, I knew that I trusted him. As I grew older I had new memories of him taking me out on the horse to move cattle, and later on the four wheeler to move the cattle. He would put me between his legs in between his arms and we would zoom across the fields. He never let me sway despite all the activity with the cattle. He also started to teach me at this time. I was four, and I had just been taught to read by my father's sister, and I was eager to learn more. My father was teaching my brother his multiplication tables. I was eager to do anything like Clay, hence my love of dinosaurs and legos. So, I watched as my father would patiently teach Clay math. I learned it from those silent times watching, and he soon learned of my affinity for it. We then would spend hours doing math on a whiteboard. He taught basic math up to advanced algebra. This was not all, as he knew how much I loved to learn, he would push history lessons and politics, and agriculture, and even basic principles of life. My father would get the family up every day at six in the morning and we would read scriptures for an hour every day. I learned as I watched him come in from the fields and sit at the table and read. I learned that the television was not as important as the knowledge of life. I learned good movies, as he would always find movies that were historical or inspirational, such as Ben Hur or El Cid, and teach me the history behind it. He tried to teach me sports, with baseball, riding a bike, and running. Only the running took hold, and we would get up every other day when I was in high school and run, or run in the evenings when I got home. We ran with either the sunset or the sunrise behind us, and across the fields of our ranch we would run two miles. He would push me, and as he would slowly outpace me, he would get a hundred yards ahead, and without missing a step would turn around and come back and run with me again, and with words of encouragement push me to NEVER stop.

My father is an amazing man. Back to the beginning of this post, I remembing walking the fields with him and he would teach me about life. We talked about girls, about religion, about the ranch, and through all the talks came small words of wisdom. I never knew how much of himself he instilled in me, till now I see my every action a shadow of my father's. Perhaps my lack of sight was because as I grew older and realized that everyone else thought I was intelligent, that my father wasn't as smart as I had always held him. He wasn't not always the most refined in his words, nor was he the charismatic negotiator that I imagined myself to be. He was old and antequated. I disregarded the multitude of men from literally around the world, San Marino/Austria/Germany/Italy/England/Canada/Mexico/Australia/France/Venezuela/Nicaragua/Argentina

and so many other places, that had come to our home and always told me of the magnitude of my father. It didn't matter that he was an Olympian that counted men from around the world, and from the upper echelons of the military his friends. He was just a man with old ideas that didn't understand the new waves.

So I thought I had abandoned my father's shadow as I became my "own" person. I was became popular in everything I did. I won national championships in speech, won multiple competitions in politics, and all the time he would push me to do better. I hated him for it, as it never seemed I was good enough. He told me once as I bragged about my second national championship in business extemp speaking, "When you have won an international championship boy, then you can brag....." I hated him for always beating me. I hadn't really left his shadow, I had just started to compete. So, I finally abandon all that I knew and held dear. I left my faith, my morals, my standards, and even my ambitions for a dream of being my own person. I finally was out of father's shadow......actually I wasn't.

For all my rebellion, my father had walked a similiar path at a similiar age to mine. He had felt his father didn't love or appreciate him, and so he had joined the military, only to have his step father be the only one to consistently write him through his service, and always tell him that he loved him. I don't know my father's whole rebellious life, but I do know the side effects. So as I rebelled and as I grew older and slowly my heart changed and I desired so desperately to come back to my faith and old life, my father knew the way. I never had expected him to be the one to show me love as I came back to my old self, he had never shown me any support while I had rebelled, in fact we had grown to despise each other. Yet as he saw me wanting to change my father showed me a path back, a path he had walked himself. He covenanted in his own way with the Lord for my allowance to serve a mission, and so I attribute my eventual serving of a mission directly to my father, mother, and a good friend's constant prayers for this gift to be given. Perhaps in the aspect of my mission, I only once did escape the shadow of my father. He was not blessed with the opportunity I had been given.

I have now gone to college and I changed my major from Psychology to a new love, Economics. I had never considered this major till I took an introductory class, with only two and half semesters left in Psychology, I left my major to pursue economics. I have never looked back as I entered my new major. It is ironically the same major my father pursued 35 years ago. Like me he enjoyed Macro economics more, but was better at the principles found in Micro Economics. As I have gotten older my father and I have found that many of my decisions are an exact replica of his, and despite our many seeming differences, I become more like him.

My body has changed, and even in how I walk and my speech mannerisms, I copy my father. I have once again fallen into the shadow or my father, but I am no longer sorry to be there. I find great pride in a man who should not be esteemed for his accomplishments, but for his ability to change and become better. I have watched my father move steadily through life, a rock to which one can hold onto, and he has changed from at times self centered, to one of the most selfless men I know. I have watched as he has softened even as his once athletic body has slowly grown soft with age. He still cross country ski's 5-10 miles a day in the winter, and jogs a mile every other day in the summer, but the hours spent doing situps and pushups and blood runs have all left. He no longer shoots around the world competing, instead he takes flights in his airplane to his two sons. He still goes everyday to the table or his office and reads countless books and follows political discussions. He no longer hates men wearing shorts, but he still will never be seen without his long sleeved wool shirt in the summer. He is the tree that has swayed with the wind, but has not been toppled over.

I love my father, and I only hope to live up to his example of being a man and the father that he has been. I look over my life and see the sublte hand of a father that cared. Like my father manipulating the growth of his field, my father has cultured my growth as well. You never know where the water will exactly go as you block its original path and force it to flood into the plain, but as you watch the contours of the earth, and come to know it as you know yourself, you trust that the water will go where it is needed and help the field accordingly. My father never knew where his advice was going, but as he gave it and cultured me he trusted it would end up well. I pray what I have grown to be is of acceptance to him. I hope that I can be like him when I am given the opportunity to raise a family. Once again in his shadow I am not married, nor do I predict myself from marrying till I am 30, much like my father.

This small note of appreciation is to my father, the farmer/rancher who raised me to manhood, and in doing so I have become more like him that I ever had dreamed, and for which I am eternally grateful.