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Father's Day

Dang, this scrapbooking thing really works!

My dad has spent the last 11 Father's Days attending the national meeting of the Spanish Mustang National Registry. Possibly because I don't know that any of us kids ever rally asked him to go out and do anything on father's day. Our family doesn't really talk a whole lot.

I needed to go shoot a segment about me doing a heritage book where I found some pictures of him in the Navy. I sat there with jaw agape, well just like everyone else there.. my brother, my stepmom, my wife, my sister in law. He talked about stuff none of us has ever heard of just because I threw some pictures on a page and started asking for stories. How do you live so long and not know about someone's life?

He was a real wildman. His dad died of a heart attack essetially in my dad's arms when he was 15. He was the youngest boy of the family ( 2nd youngest of all the kids ) who had a rustic life in the mountains of Idaho. He kept money coming in for the family after his dad died and then left home at 17 and joined the Navy. Vietnam shifted into high gear and he stayed in longer than he planned to. He was trained as a machanic and for some reason remembered right away the names of shipmates in pictures, specs on engines, even maintenance info, etc. for the ship even though none of us has ever really heard him talk about it. I guess this scrapbooking stuff has opened up a lot of doors between my family.

It's also reminded me of how I used to like horses. They've been replaced with two wheels but I found all kinds of pictures of horses I've ridden pretty much every decade even though they aren't part of my life anymore. I even remembered I used to be left handed, got thrown from a horse I was riding without a saddle or bridle ( just reigning it with it's mane ) when I was five ( no, it wasn't smart and my parnets didn't know I was doing it until I fell ) and took a spill when I was running it and slid off into a fence breaking both forearm bones on my left arm, having me enter kindegarten as essentially a right hander.

Somebody snapped a picture of my dad, brother and I all together. I don't know of any others with the three of us. I guess after so many years it's probably about time.

We even found an old tree I cut down years ago with my dad in the back of the pasture. Instead of stumping it out I cut a chair into it so Nate claimed it as his throne and commanded his horse mingions to do his bidding ( literally.)

posted by wes @ 11:31 AM