Dads
Nickel dude, in a few short years all will change with your dad, for the better. Right now you are his son and he your father. He believes that he has to be the one leading and making the moves/decisions. It's the way he was probably brought up. That is exactly what I experienced with my own father. A few years ago the transformation happened almost over night. He now phones me daily (at the very least) or shows up at my shop. He know asks me mechanical questions that he wouldn't ask even the most trusted source. He is 72 yrs old and more active than many guys half his age. I never really knew him growing up as we were always going in opposite directions. As a young man he worked his way up to foreman in GM (Oshawa) and quit several years later to go farming. Everyone at the motors laughed and said he would be back in less than a year begging for his job back. To make along story short that was when I was 2 yrs old ('64). By '81 he had 1500 acres of land, 8000 laying hens (eggs) and 100 head of simmential/charolais cows. On this land we also have 5 million yards of black granite (licensed quarry) and 2.5 million yards of choice gravel/sand. Chickens were sold off and also the cattle. He taught me welding, mechanics, basically that everything works on 2-3 basic principles. If he has done his job you should have absorbed all that info that he tried to instill into you. Hang with him a bit more and let him get to know you better. It will happen, but time is of the essence. When I was growing up my family (1 sister) only got to see each other coming and going to the barns. There was alot of animosity between everyone because of the workload. I was in my early twenties and got hired on a professional firefighter and we disagreed on something or other. I never spoke to him for several years and on my birthday he phoned to wish me a happy birthday. I told him I couldn't understand why he would be phoning as he hadn't wished me well for the previous 20 some years and that is when he broke down and told me he didn't want to fight anymore. He said he realized we had some rough times and I now was a grown man and he wanted to deal man to man,, not father to son. I know I'm going to lose him some day and for my own selfish reasons I hope he is around for another 30 yrs but I know this probably isn't going to happen. I have told him that all he needed to achieve on this earth has been accomplished and he has helped me set up my family for generations to come. Ed
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