To Dad...

Remember When…
• We were told to wear “everyday” clothes on Saturdays and if we were not, we had to change our clothes and shoes.
• We would collect leaf piles to jump in.
• You taught us all how to drive a stick in the Tektronix parking lot.
• We took early morning bikerides.
• At a 4-way stop in the neighborhood, we usually ended up stopped in the middle of the intersection. Then I later got a ticket for rolling through a nearby stop sign. I wonder where I learned it from?
• The mail would turn into a flying lesson at dinner.
• Toothpaste wasn’t finished until you squeezed everything you could out of it.
• Same goes with any food.
• Saturdays consisted of oldies in the morning, Bob Brinker in the afternoon, and America’s Most Wanted at night.
• Sunday mornings were filled with Country Oldies and church, followed by the Sunday paper and a piggyback ride on the living room floor.
• We bought a trailer and a suburban to go camping with, although tent camping in previous summers was just as fun.
• You tried to build a bike rack like the one on the squareback station wagon, but it just wouldn’t work on the suburban (so we tied the bikes up inside the trailer).
• You and Mom planned a surprise trip to Wildlife Safari but I got sick with pneumonia, so instead you spent your vacation days at home with me.
• You would tell us to “ease up on the gas” if there was a red light five miles up the road.
• You sucked up bees with a vacuum cleaner outside for hours on end.
• You are always a gracious host- never ceasing with offering second, third and fourth helpings of food to guests because otherwise they would starve.

• In later years, we took up bowling.
• Christmas tree cutting turned into a lesson on how many ways you could tie a tree securely to the roof of a car.
• On the Fourth of July, we biked down to the fireworks stand after seeing the Hillsboro Parade.
• Allowance was $5 and everything was a lesson in economics.
• Everything always turned into a lesson, because I think you wanted me to know how to fix everything just like you (the dryer, the car, the dishwasher…)
• Mom helped me on Spelling words, but somehow I always ended up going to you for questions on Math.
• You are also the best at pulling out slivers from fingers.
• Our van broke down at the first rest stop we stopped at on the way to California (Disneyland!) and just when I thought my dreams were ruined, you got it to work. But I still worried Cliff wouldn’t start the rest of the trip.
• You took us flying in a small plane. I liked it until the last time, when my door came unlatched.
• You faithfully offer $20 (or $40 or ???) to the offering plate at church every week, even when times were tough and budgets stretched.
• After all that, you paid for four college tuitions and four weddings.
• We would drive to North Dakota and get up at 4:00 am.
• We hung wet swim towels out the window of the van as we drove along.
• You taught us to record gas mileage, cost, mpg, and number of gallons.
• You installed a blue light in the staircase.
• We went to parks and swimming pools in the summer.
• You would wait for us in the car as we took piano lessons, after a long day

….I remember all this too and I just wanted to say THANK YOU!
Happy Father’s Day 2011!
Here is to many more memories 
I love you- Love, Mitch (aka Rascal)