My Dad

My dad, my three-day old sister and me at age three Happy Father’s Day to all you dads out there!!  Today’s blog is to pay homage to my father. Babe Ruth hit his 700th home run the year my father and his twin brother arrived.  His family lived in a dirt-floored home complete with outhouse in rural Oregon. A wood stove would attempt to keep his family warm in the winter, although the cold would often win.  The only plenty in his family was love.  Poverty and Eagle Scouts principles would become my dad’s greatest teachers. By the time I was born, my grandparents had built a comfortable living for themselves, literally.  My grandfather was a carpenter and built the beautiful home they lived in on the outskirts of vast farmland in  Beaverton, Oregon.  This is where I ate my first lemon cucumber picked ripe from my grandmother’s side-of-the-house raised garden bed and where I learned to ride horses. This land would be sold off a little at time with streets...