My father is the most caring, supportive, and generous person I've ever met. He has taught me countless lessons and skills including some that, I would imagine, he never realized he did. Basic things like how to drive a car or how to talk to people, and more complicated things like how to negotiate, how to work hard for what you want, and how the right combination of swears can serve as magic words to move along a halted project just as you're about to give up and call a professional. He taught me how to be a person who contributes to the world around him, and how to be a father to my own children, something I hope I do half as well as he has done and continues to do.
Of course, I'm still learning from him all of the time, and it is a little intimidating to think that someday my children will look to me in the same way as if I have all the answers. I suppose when faced with a challenging question or situation that I will do the same thing I do for things like job interviews, speaking to a car salesman, or doing some sort of home repair for the first time and I'll just ask myself how my dad would approach the situation and perform my own facsimile of him.People often joke about the panic that accompanies the feeling that they're evolving into their parents as they get older, but if my development as a father and a person leads me to being even more like him, I'd say that's exactly who I want to be anyway...
As long as I get to keep my hair.
Happy Father's Day to my father and yours. What are the most impressionable things you learned from your father?