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Happy Father’s Day

This is one of those weekends that bring back so many happy memories for me.  I grew up in Camelot with two parents that loved and supported me – always.

My Dad was an exceptional guy. I have so many memories tied to him. The smell of burning leaves takes me right back to my backyard playtime while Dad burnt leaves in a barrel on the driveway. New cut grass is me in the sandbox or on the swings and he’d push me after his yard work was done. I used to sit on the back stop and watch squirrels with him while he drank his coffee. I don’t think this is really something that a child thinks about, but I always knew that I was safe with my Daddy.

My Dad always believed in the value of education. He quit high school to join the Navy after Pearl Harbor. Dad is in the center of the back row. He graduated from high school when I was in Kindergarten! He took night courses until he had his diploma. My love of reading comes from sitting in this very living room and watching him devour the paper at night and he always had a western or two laying by his chair.

He taught me that anything worth doing was worth doing well. I used that phrase so many times with my sons. After the war my Dad went to school to become a watchmaker. He worked in that field until I was in high school. When digital watches came along he took his training in precision instruments and ended his working career making timing mechanisms for Hellfire missiles.

Dad was a quiet man. He loved my mother and me and his grandsons. He was very much a man of his “Great Generation.” He fought, he worked hard and saved his money. He raised his only child and he taught me values by example. He was always there for me no matter how old I was. I always knew that I was his daughter, I was his little girl.

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Written by Cathy Donohoue

10 Comments

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  1. yeah, my late father was poor, and he joined the army so he can be a doctor some day. he was an army doctor, and he went to medical school in Scotland, eloped with my mother in Wales, and I was later born in Edinburgh.

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