“I always wanted to experience everything and go down swinging…And there’s one thing they can never take away: Nobody had more fun than I did.” – Burt Reynolds
I’m afraid I have to challenge Burt’s claim. My father would have given him a run for the “Most Fun Living” championship. He was definitely from the Experience Everything School of Life and he never stepped away from the plate until he’d given it his all.
I loved riding on farm calls with Daddy. We had lots of time to talk. He’d regale me with tales of mischief growing up on the farm – like threading a horse tail hair into an egg to be boiled to take to the church picnic and watching the results without giving away that you and your brother were the crime perpetrators. He fondly remembered the excitement of going off to college at age sixteen, but cautioned me that enjoying too many extra curricular activities could get you flunked out. He enjoyed reminiscing about his military experience as an aide to a general who became the governor of Illinois. He strongly believed that with hard work persistently done you could achieve your dreams. He modeled that philosophy. Throughout college and veterinary school he worked multiple jobs simultaneously – milkman, lab tech, cutlery door to door sales, manufacturing line work, paper route manager – got married and graduated with his DVM with three and a half children.
Daddy dealt with setbacks that would have knocked most people on their keisters where they would have stayed licking their wounds before curling up in a fetal position. When I was twelve, the sheriff came to our house to seize the assets of his veterinary clinic which operated out of our basement. The results of an epic financial planning failure that ended in filing bankruptcy. It was the first time I’d ever seen him cry – not for himself, but because he said he’d let his wife and kids down. But the next morning, at the crack of dawn, driving the family station wagon because his truck had been taken, he was back out on calls helping farmers who needed him. He was over feeling bad. He would work at what he knew. Tomorrow would be better.
I was glad he followed through on his dream of getting a pilot’s license when he flew to Champaign to pick up his homesick oldest child who had only been at college for six weeks.
When one of his cattle buyer clients needed a veterinarian to accompany a shipment of Holstein cows to Iraq, Daddy leapt at the chance to see something he’d never seen. He came home with tales of watching the Iran-Iraq battles from the Baghdad Sheraton rooftop as Scud missiles lit up the night skies.
Later in life he travelled the world extensively, not just for leisure, but as an international expert on raising veal calves. Even after chemo and other treatments and hospitalizations, when the cell phone in his shirt pocket rang he was in full business mode answering, ” Schnepper International, What can I do for you?” He simply kept working hard his whole life.
Yes, I’m sure he gave Burt a run for the prize. Do you think it’s something about dark eyes and a mustache?
Happy Father’s Day Daddy. Thanks for all the life lessons, but most of all for the love!