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Thursday, May 22, 2008

Dad Taught Me Value of Work

By Harold Smith
Mountain View Telegraph
      My dad was the hardest-working man I ever knew. Bar none.
       But he never was much of a sports enthusiast, except toward the end of his 88-year-old life when his body, which once featured bulging biceps, began to fail him and the most arduous thing he could do was watch the NFL and Major League Baseball on television. Dad, frustrated that he could no longer do things in his garage or work in the yard, died on April 22.
       His favorite player was Brett Favre, the Green Bay Packers quarterback, even though Denver was his chosen team. He never got over Dan Reeve's unceremonious firing as the Broncos' head coach.
       A product of the Great Depression, my father left home when he was 15 so he could find work because he had a stepfather who drank up all the food for a family of nine children. He subsequently joined the Army so he could eat because FDR's New Deal, contrary to what is often taught in today's classrooms, wasn't a cure-all and didn't work all that fast and just might have slowed the nation's recovery.
       So, Dad's perspective was a bit different from most of us who remain, many of whom I am convinced absolutely do not appreciate how good we actually have it in this country, high gasoline prices or not.
       The act of working was so important to my father that little else took precedence in his mind.
       “If you have enough time to do that, you can get a job,” he told me once when I asked him if he would pick me up after practice if I were to go out for the high school track team.
       Of course, I asked him that question at a time when he, sweat pouring down his face, was working to complete the building of our home in the South Valley after he had already done a full day's work at the post office. I know now it probably wasn't the best time to ask since, I, as a parent of teenage children in my day, said similar things in a too-quick response to my two kids.
       Not that he wasn't supportive of my athletic endeavors. He and my mother, brother and sister stood on the southern edge of Roosevelt Park, which overlooks Milne Stadium, to watch me compete in my first race in the 880-yard run.
       “The Caboose,” as the assistant track coach called me, finished in last place in the half-mile event. But Moriarty coach Joe Bailey would appreciate that it was a personal record.
       The things I garnered from track ultimately got me through the challenges of Marine Corps training.
       My dad also played catch with us, raced us during Fourth of July family gatherings, and once, as we approached the gates of now long-gone Tingley Field, chased down a foul ball for my brother and me that had arced out of the park. I was thrilled when he placed that brand-spankin' new hardball in the palm of my preschool hand.
       But you know what? Work is the most important thing. Even in sports.
       Harold Smith can be reached by phone at 823-7104 or by e-mail at hsmith@mvtelegraph.com.>   

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