Happy Father's Day
"Only a Dad"
Only a dad with a tired face
Coming home from the daily race
Bringing little of gold or fame
To show how well he has played the game,
But glad in his heart that his own rejoice
To see him come and to hear his voice.
Only a dad with a brood of four,
One of ten million men or more,
Plodding along in the daily strife
Bearing the whips and the scorns of life;
With never a whimper of pain or hate
For the sake of those who at home await.
Only a dad neither rich nor proud,
Merely one of the surging crowd,
Facing whatever may come his way,
Silent whenever the harsh condemn,
And bearaing it all for the love of them.
Only a dad, but he gives his all
To smooth the way for his children small,
Doing with courage, stern and grim
The deeds that his father did for him.
This is the line that for him I pen,
Only a dad but the best of men.
http://festivals.iloveindia.Com/fathers-day/poems/spiritual-poems.html
This could be a picture of my dad, coming home and plowing after a long-hard, hot day working outside in the weather...cold or hot no difference. He still had to do his job to feed his "brood of four".
Tobacco was the money producing crop, but there was corn, potatoes, onions, leaf lettuce, and tomatoes to be planted. Mom tended the smaller vegetables. We were planting tobacco as soon as the plants were tall enough in the early spring, (barefoot and sometimes bringing water when the ground was too dry). There was weeding and the topping of the tobacco to be done when it got bigger. Also, picking off any big green worms that thought the crop was planted for their sustenance.
We had two work horses on our farm and got to ride on the sled to the field when we had the chance. The horses weren't for riding purposes. There were cows and chickens to be tended to, also. Hogs were raised to be butchered for the winter's food supply.
I still don't know how my dad could work so hard. Times were difficult. I guess he thought he had no choice. If there was to be food for the winter and money from the sale of the tobacco for Christmas gifts for us, he had no choice.
His dad was a farmer, and my father was wise to the ways of farming, although he never went farther than about 3rd. grade and could hardly write his name.
He did not attend church, but I believe that he received the Lord before he passed. I have a lot of rethinking to do. As I grow older, and I hope wiser; it is becoming clearer to me what he did to keep his family with a roof over our heads and food on the table. He was good to us children. Mom was the disciplinarian. Only one time did my brothers get punished by him because they went where they shouldn't have gone.
He was a tall man in his bib overalls. He didn't have a suit or a fancy shirt. He was a plain man. He died at the age of 65 back in 1972. My three brothers and I are now orphans, I guess, as mom died that year also.
Anonymous
