I’ve often observed that my parents divorce was one of the best things to happen to me because it provided me with two stable, loving homes to grow into the man I’ve become.  And although my step-father Ed, a saint of a man that I will write more about later, was the head of the household I spent the most time with, there is no doubt that Carl is my father.  Although our time together has always been limited he has gifted me with vital components of my personality that only maturity and becoming a parent myself has allowed me to recognize.  I considered putting this list to music and singing about these gifts but alas one of the things he did not pass along was his musical ability. So feel free to imagine Julie Andrews in your mind while I share a few of my favorite things my dad has influenced in my life.  

I love seeing the world and experiencing the cultures of other countries and this seed was planted in my brain early on by Dad’s travels.  How he transformed himself from a high school student who needed two senior years, and help from my mom, to even graduate into an engineer in the textile industry deserves its own post but his professional growth afforded the opportunity to work abroad.  He spent a year or so in Brazil (which he loved) then after a few months stateside accepted a position in England where he worked for several months before the weather and the food drove him home.  My older brothers were allowed to visit him in London but I was too young so the FOMO in me was strong and continues to this day.  Dad isn’t a braggart, so communication about his adventures was minimal until the last few years and now I could kick myself for not asking earlier.  He has blown my mind on numerous occasions by saying “when I was living in Pakistan” or “try this liqueur I picked up in Morocco” but nothing will top when he shared the story about being offered a helicopter ride by Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.  You can’t make this stuff up and I’m pretty sure he didn’t.  All I know is that you can be from a small, mill town in North Carolina and see the world.  He did and I’m trying my best to as well.

Another gift from the old man is my sense of humor and ability to entertain, spin a tale, and hold an audience’s attention.  This is the predominant feature of my personality and probably the characteristic most folks associate with me after, of course, my tremendous height and good looks.  He is hilarious and the golf course jokes and observations of other drivers on the road have replayed in my mind innumerable times and often make me laugh out loud.  A favorite was when he was blocked in behind two drivers on a four lane highway who had evidently choreographed their trips to take up both lanes but travel at the same speed which was approximately 17 miles per hour less than what Dad wanted.  “I guess neither one of these guys wants to be the first one to the Drag Ass Convention,” he observed dryly and it took me several seconds to recognize the genius of this line.  A few years ago he called to congratulate me on a teaching honor and he said even though he didn’t have much to do with it he was still walking around with his chest puffed out.  I assured him that his gift of gab and my inherited ability to entertain had touched the lives of thousands of kids so it was actually a shared award.  

We call it soccer, the Brits refer to it as “football”, and the Brazilians call the sport “futebol” but what they really love is “Jogo Bonito” or the beautiful game and I love it too.  When Dad came back from Brazil he shared with us stories of raucous stadiums filled with delirious fans while a samba performance masquerading as a sport took place on the field.  After his return from England, tales of muddied pitches and hooligans were fascinating but opportunities to play soccer in rural North Carolina in the early 1980s were severely limited.  For an undersized, but fast, youngster such as myself, soccer presented an opportunity to compete and when I finally got the chance to play it changed my life.  I’ve been addicted ever since.  In high school I would have ridden my bicycle 100 miles to play with a broken leg after cutting the grass on the field with scissors and now that I coach I get to mentor players who feel the same.  Dad uses the internet to scout teams on our schedule and I still send him film to study and share thoughts on the beautiful game we both love. More importantly, I’ve passed the love on to my daughters and had the sweetest joy in coaching them both and hopefully implanting the same connection that I pray to have with their children.

A final gift from my father may come as a surprise to some folks, especially my brothers, but I would have to say it is his temperament.  They are shocked because Douglas, Michael, and I love to share tales of Dad losing it like when his credit card was declined at the seafood restaurant or a guy skipped line at the Eckerd drugs in Lumberton.  And don’t even get me started on the absolute meltdown he had at the Hardee’s Drive-Thru in Asheboro circa 1981 but the vast majority of the time he was as happy go lucky as they come and I am as well.  Now don’t get it twisted because there are times when I feel the seismic activity building and occasionally the volcano explodes but my loving wife has figured out how to head off the eruption.  She simply says, “Alright Carl.”  And like a dynamite explosion snuffing an oil well fire by denying it oxygen, I smile sheepishly and think how much my girls would miss me if I was in prison and just get over it.  Most of the time Dad does too.  

Heather often observes that I am a case study for “nature versus nurture” and I know that my environment growing up had a huge impact on me but the genetics and influence from my father can’t be dismissed either.  He is far from perfect but I can’t help but think that our similarities might also be affected by how much I wanted to be like him.  I still look up to my Dad and even though his body has let him down lately that mind is humming just as hard as when he sat in the shade at Rockefeller Center doing the New York Times crossword while waiting out a 24 plus hour layover.  The gifts that he has given me I’ve tried to pass on to hundreds of young people and especially to my own children who can’t believe their sweet Papaw would ever do anything like what I’ve described but I promise it’s true. They only know him as a funny guy who loves his family and I pray that is something I’ve inherited as well.