My father gave me a gift he didn’t mean to.
My father was the son of a coal miner. His father emigrated from Prussia, settled in Morrell, Pennsylvania, just outside Connellsville, and raised a family. They were devout Lutherans. They were poor, but at least they weren’t (Irish!) Catholics.
My father graduated from high school during the Depression. He rode boxcars from Connellsville through Baltimore and into the South looking for work. He was hired by a textile company because they had a baseball team in the industrial league, and my dad could hit a ball a country mile.
A certain Georgia peach liked his swing. They married and moved to Youngstown, Ohio. He got a job as a brakeman with the P&LE Railroad.
And then his life changed.
He became a born-again Christian, a fundamentalist. And just like that, the Bible became everything to him.
My father believed that the Bible is the infallible, inerrant Word of God. He rose every morning before the sun and read the Bible studiously for an hour before taking a bus to work. He carried a compact version of the Bible in his shirt pocket. He read the Bible before bedtime.
Fundamentalism changed his thinking but not his character. He remained kind, honest, industrious, humorous. He remained a slugger. Everywhere I went as a kid people told me what a great baseball player he was. He strove to be the best—at baseball and at Bible study.
My father taught me to revere the Bible. And I did—for a long time. But he had unwittingly taught me a few other things. Read. Study. Learn. Ask questions.
And so I did.
For the past 40 years I’ve gotten up before sunrise to read. I’ve read hundreds of books. I’ve studied. I’ve learned. I’ve asked questions.
And now I’m writing my own book: Putting the Bible in Its Place: Off the Pedestal. Out of the Trashcan. Back on the Table. Or, how an anthology of assorted Jewish writings became the Word of God and why it isn’t.
My dad would not approve. But I think he would understand and perhaps be proud. After all, he gave me a love of reading, studying, and learning. And for that I am grateful.
What gift did your father give you? Leave your answer below. Return later to see the catalog of gifts from our fathers.
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See Paula’s new photo on the home page. Posted June 19
My dad gave me the gift of sensitivity- being able to read a room, check inside, how to take on multiple perspectives. This came to me thru the mystery of his anger and impatience in life. He also taught me the love of listening to classical and jazz. And how to experiment with life.
My dad taught me to love nature. We did bird walks together, identifying and recording the birds we saw and heard. As a family we often walked in the woods and sometimes climbed mountains. It was natural. No special equipment. It felt like true harmony.
After spending 4 years in a German prison camp in WWII, my father met my German mother, married and came to the USA. Together they raised 3 kids. He worked two 8 hour jobs each day for as long as I remember until he died of a stroke on Christmas Day when he was 55 and I was 18. He taught be about devotion to family, hard work, humor, and passed on a presence that lives in me, guides me, and has shaped everything that I am. I am he, as he is me, as we are all together. Remembering the words of a Greenwich Village poet I met in my youth, who said, standing over his Father’s grave, “What’s a little mud between friends,” – Happy Father’s Day.
Michael- love that quote! That’s something to remember.
My dad taught me the value of hard work, devotion to family and the love of gardening and mountains. He died at age 56 when I was 18, the oldest of three children. I am grateful for the gifts my father gave me and my siblings.
My dad taught me that every person has value and an interesting life story – you don’t have to know the specifics, simply honor the individual. He did this with such humor and generosity, teaching me to laugh and give as much as possible.
My father, the top salesperson for his company, left me the good karma of communication skills: initiating and sustaining conversations, writing and making speeches (and eventually sermons), and telling jokes and funny stories. Additionally, he questioned assumptions, saying if one does not, one becomes the first three letters of the word. Loving music of all kinds, especially big band music and later the popular music of the day, I briefly considered being a radio disc jockey while in high school. Last but not least, he taught me the love of baseball, a game that still resonates in my spirit and one I’ve passed on to my son.
My Pop was a man of few words, but he was a man of action. Those actions spoke volumes; family first, integrity, hard work and honesty. He also showed his three daughters that we could do anything; build a deck, change a tire, mow lawn, paint a room. That ‘can do’ attitude made us capable of so much. Miss you Pop – Happy Father’s Day!
My Dad taught me to treat people with kindness and to make peace with those who feel wronged.
My Southern Baptist preacher father gave me a gift of the same sort as your father: encouragement to pray and read the Bible every day and listen for the will of the Almighty in my spirit.
What I read, felt and heard of the Word led me in a different direction leading to a different discernment of scripture to a literal interpretation of the words attributed to Jesus, the poor itinerant carpenter turned preacher.
Thank you all for sharing your fathers… my father taught me about the moon & stars; about infinity that a finite mind cannot comprehend. He taught me to love learning, to work hard, and to make work fun – it’s a choice! He valued education & finished his college degree ( the first & only in his family of 11 children) when I was in high school. He taught me to love poetry ( especially Emily Dickinson & Lord Byron & Robert Frost ), reading, and a respect for all cultures & people. And he loved me, and valued me beyond words. Thank you dad, and thank you for asking about our fathers, and what they taught us.
My dad gave me a good sense of humor, a spirit for adventure, and a strong distrust of politicians: “They’re all crooks!”. Nixon turned him from a Republican to an Independent, the party I inherited. In 1950 he set out for Alaska from his NW DC home in a Model B ford pickup with his buddy Ed Aikman and “proved up” on a homestead claim north of Anchorage on the Eagle River. Worked as an engineer on the ALCAN highway and sang bawdy songs on his guitar in Anchorage dive bars. Served in both the Army and Navy and traveled the world, then gave 30 years to NASA as a satellite engineer. Miss you dad!
Two wonderful sisters and an amazing mother.
My dad gave me:
Tire gauge
Strong sense of self reliance (see above)
Love of growing things
Appreciation of all types of music bar none
And other things (mostly good)
I grew up in the Jim Crow South, in Montgomery, Alabama.
I’ve not previously sat down to think about what my father left me. He was a kind man and very smart but not given to outward demonstrations of affection. He was, like me, an only child, and had been raised largely by a domineering mother embittered by her family’s lost wealth, while HIS father was mostly away as a railroad engineer.
He had three passions: The Bible (which he read as history and literature), History and Shakespeare. We were Southern Presbyterians, and might just as well have been Baptists, except that my father told me we believed in predestination, which I didn’t understand at all until much later.
My father didn’t care much about politics, but like everyone in the South back then, he voted solidly Democratic, (a lingering protest against Reconstruction) while despising most national Democratic leaders (especially the Roosevelts and Harry Truman).
I think my father’s gift to me was unintended, if not regretted. It was a devotion to History. I read it wherever I could, took as many courses as I could, all the while experiencing a good bit taking place around me. Over time I came to see the writings I had cut my teeth on through a different lens. I developed a “critical history theory,” which has, for better or worse, made me who I am, and a different kind of “Christian” than I ever thought I would become.
So, I am forever grateful to my Dad.
I look forward to your book.
A love of reading, writing; two wonderful siblings; an aversion to errands; a healthy drinking habit; and when, seven or eight years old, I went to you in your office and told you I didn’t want to go to church anymore because I didn’t believe in God, you didn’t get mad or authoritative: you asked, mildly amused, sincerely curious, “Well, what do you believe in?” That was a gift of a question.
Still looking for the answer.
I would interested in reading your book. Let me know when I can get a copy of it.
Still a work in progress. Hoping for publication next spring. You and the other readers of the blog will be the first to know.
My dad taught me to change a tire! When I first learned to drive we lived in a tiny community in northwest New Jersey. My father felt that all of his children, including his 2 daughters, should be able to change a tire if they had a flat away from home.
My dad also taught me about community service. He was a volunteer fire chief in this small community and fought fires in his spare time. He taught all 4 of us the importance of being a part of a community and of serving others.
Miss you dad–Happy Father’s Day.
Gifts my father gave me: being a lifelong learner; appreciation of mountains, nature, solitude; putting yourself in uncomfortable situations for a cause greater than yourself.
My father taught me to try to be logical.
My father gave me the gift of strong ethics and an education.
The gift my father gave me is to ALWAYS look a person in their eyes and give a firm handshake. Even as a female handshakes are meant to “contact” with people. Although I had learned 40 years ago that I prefer hugging, if someone offers their hand to me I grasp it firmly and look into their eyes.
My father taught me to put a wiggly worm on a hook and fish for bass in our local river. How to catch crawfish the “right” way so as not to get pinched! My love of dance and singing came from him and to do both going 90 miles an hour [ a bit overblown ] BACKWARDS on roller skates!! Because he didn’t want me to be afraid of thunder storms, we would lay in the grass in the yard and watch the clouds overheard boil across the sky. My father taught me how to grow sweet corn and strawberries to sell in town for summer spending money.
My dad taught me humor in the small details of life. He was eighth in a family of 15 children. He could build a house, a garden, fix a furnace. When I was the single mom of two young kids, and my water heater flooded the basement at 10 pm, my dad and mom showed up in their pjs, wearing galoshes, and carrying buckets and mops to clean up the mess and fix the water heater. “Go to bed, “ he told me in his gruff voice. “You have to get up with the children tomorrow.” The next morning, the basement was clean and the water heater was repaired, and they were both gone. Like guardian angels.
My dad taught me to respect people. He taught me to be on time, it’s respect for the person you agreed to meet. Their time is just as important as yours. If you say you’re going to be there, be there. My dad taught me to be there, in everything you do.
By example, my dad showed me to forgive rather than hold grudges. He encouraged his three daughters to be strong, independent, and to sing great music.