[nONIE]

Mc,

Many hugs going out to you tonite. What a courageous thing to do, starting this thread with painful memories of your dad. I would have been a basket case putting this thread out there and having all those bad memories come flowing back. You gave us all the opportunity to reflect on our childhood good or bad and I thankyou for that from the bottom of my heart. I hope those that had painful memories have a good start on healing because of this thread. Thankyou, you sweet lady. :-*

Thanks Nonie,
You are the sweet lady. I think my Dad did the best he could...and I know forgiveness helps my soul.
I better go to bed.
Love ya,
Mc

[Sidney Lanier]

Just catching up, a few days after Father's Day. I don't have a specific memory that vividly stands out, but I just remember my father as a man who loved his two very different sons unconditionally and openly expressed his love and affection to us. As a child he had lived through the trauma of battle in World War I directly, face-to-face, which profoundly affected him and which I can only assume resulted in his attitude of embracing life, whatever it brought him (and he dealt with plenty of adversity...), putting one foot in front of the next, and living his life as best as he could. From my father I learned the meaning of acceptance (especially in relation to adversity), I acquired a strong and healthy work ethic and sense of self-esteem, I had imbued in me a sense of connection to and responsibility for extended family, and I was exposed to environmental/natural beauty and classical music, which he exposed his sons to. In other words, he not only lived his life in this fashion but he passed these values on to his sons, in spite of the fact that he described himself as a 'simple man.' Thanks, Dad!

[Hyacinth Bucket]

To all of my Sistahs,

I applaud your honesty, strength and courage for sharing with all of us about your childhood memories. I know all to well about the Norman Rockwell family pictures and the glossy advertisements that depict wonderful happy families.

Then there is also the reality that no one wants to talk about or validate.

What is so meaningful to me is you have given yourselves permission to talk about feelings that are hard to express and most people don't want to know about. The freedom to know you can share with us and not one of us will judge you. We will support you, be there for you, give you a shoulder, hug or an arm around your shoulders. We will love you.

Hats off to my wonderful Sistahs,

Love ya all,

HB

[nONIE]

HB,

What a beautiful post. You are a very special lady. Thankyou!

[renielarson]

Thank you HB

Girls,
We must not exclude all the men who were brave enough to post. A special thank you to Sidney for jumping on. I also want to give a shout out to Tal, Happy 62, F-16, RCT, Talk Host, Steve Z, and Muncle.
Forgive me men-if I forgot somebody.
Everybody keep the memories coming!

[Russ_Boston]

I'll give you a guy's point of view as well.

My favorite memory of my dad was jumping over the fence at Narragansett race track in Pawtucket RI (a thoroughbred track of some note back in the day) so we didn't have to pay. Maybe sneaking into a gambling place isn't your basic 'warm the cockles of your heart' story but it showed me how much he wanted me to see his favorite activity. True story! (BTW - he didn't need to sneak in because he had a friend make him a fake groomers ID as if he worked there!).

He was a firefighter by trade and my mom didn't work so the money was tight. He only gambled the allowance that my mom gave him to do so and he'd save up for weeks to go. We had a nice upbringing though. I guess another memory was the rare occasions that he get a real score and give each of the kids $20 or so out of the winnings without telling my mom.

He didn't gamble on anything else - he just loved the horses!

[Muncle]

If I may jump in a bit late (yeah, I already posted a story, but this is a comment), I was speaking with Bright this evening and she mentioned this thread and asked my reaction. Well, to be honest, I'd not really read most of it. I can only take so much maudlin and I assumed that most of the stories would be similar to mine -- boy I didn't appreciate him when I was foolishly young, that kind of thing -- but after our talk I thought I'd better catch up.

I'm somewhat taken aback --- understatement. I've always known that I was pretty lucky in the area of family. Oh, we've had our usual squabbles, but for the most part everyone got along with and even loved everyone --- even my mom's stepmother. I always knew that that was not necessarily the norm, but I really didn't understand. After reading some of your stories, I absolutely salute you. Y'all seem to have overcome various significant obstacles to become really good people. Even for those of you with whom I argue about almost everything, I have great admiration. I don't know if I could have done the same.

Wow
Here I am balling my eyes out. I feel so bad. All goes back to my childhood of sticking up for the underdog and having super low self esteem.