My Dad

My dad and I were seldom on the same page on many subjects in our years together. In many ways, he was a hard man to get along with, and often in a bad mood, as I remember those days. But now, in retrospect, and looking back from the perspective of an old man myself, he did a lot for me. For all his faults, he taught me a lot that I didn't appreciate at the time.
He was an excellent welder, electrician, and mechanic, and he taught me some of those skills at an early age. Those things I learned from him played an important role in my professional career, at several junctures, through the years. He was also the inspiration for my love of cars, though I didn't realize that fact until years after he was gone.
My dad was a farmer all his life. He was also an excellent fabricator, often making modifications and improvements to many pieces of farm equipment. If something was broken, he would fix it, often making improvements, and making it a better piece of equipment than it was when it was new. The stuff he worked on was always well finished, cleaned and painted, and looking better than new, when he got finished working on it.
The times I remember best, and when he taught me the most, during my teen aged years, were also the years we got along the worst. I guess that is just normal for a father and son, but I didn't realize it at the time. He actually did a lot for us in those days.
After 17 years together, the love of his life, my mom, left for greener pastures. He was never the same again. He spent the remainder of his life a lonely and broken man. He died at the age of 67 in a nursing home. I find myself thinking a lot about him in recent months, as I am now 67 myself.

My dad, Darrell D. Dirks, on an outing with us in Northern Utah, in the mid-1980's.