There are several reasons why I am glad you are my father. First, you made my years of childhood and youth a period of life delightful to live over in my memory. A pleasure I engage in perhaps more than I would if I could see you more often. You found time to go swimming with me, to carry me on fishing trips, and you let me go hunting with you long before I was large enough to carry a gun. My memory of my fellowship with you during my childhood and youth are crammed with vivid recollections of delightful experiences we had together during those years. You may not have had the money to give me everything I wanted, but I don't remember about that. I do remember you giving me something of greater value, that fellowship between father and son-daughter that money cannot buy at any price.
Second, you taught me more by example than words the principle of honesty which you defined as always telling the truth, never telling a lie about anything, paying your just and honest debts, fulfilling all of your promises to other people, and never taking anything that didn't belong to you. The liar, thief, and undependable person you pictured to me as being unworthy of the name man.
The third reason I am glad you are my father is because you taught me to appreciate the dignity of honest toil. You made me feel there is nothing more honorable than manual labor. My work today consists of doing things that do not require me to get my hands dirty. I am not yet able to think of my work as being quiet as honorable and as worthy of the rewards that should be given those who work with their hands. Calloused hands, or a shirt wet with sweat, still seem to me to be symbols of high honor.
Then you made me conscious of the reality of God. That is, you made me believe there was a God. This you did not by sermons or pious words, but rather by the calmness of your personality, which radiated daily that faith and assurance about life that makes others God conscious. The God you taught me to seek after, and prayed I might come to know, was a God to be trusted and obeyed, rather than some kind of king in heaven to be worshiped by anthems and long prayers on Sunday, only to be ignored when dealing with one another. You made me realize you worshiped, and fellowshipped, with a God who expected you to be true and faithful in all your transactions with your fellow man. Long before I knew, in a personal way, that God expected as much from me, I knew that you expected it. I do not remember ever hearing you say you had the faith and confidence in your sons, that they would behave themselves, and be honest and dependable. But as far back as I can remember I felt you expected as much of me, and took it for granite that I would. Wherever I went, whatever I was doing or planning to do, the consciousness that you expected me to do the right thing was, and is, ever with me.
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