Six Pack Wisdom

[Brittany]

We trudged along on the back half of his property line on a Saturday morning in late July of '88-he with a post hole digger, and me, with a thermos of coffee and a heavy duty pair of wire cutters.

We were both in overalls and so knee deep in the thickets of overgrown southern swamp foliage, that it felt like even the morning sun had to strain over the horizon to warm us.

We were at a break in the fence when we decided to sit down on a stump, left by the loggers who'd recently given our land a facelift to pay for my mother's diploma, when my father decided to break with the tradition of working hard for wisdom, to speak to me philosophically. "We are building a fence," he said, " and every fence needs a gate... just like every sentence has the opportunity for a semi-colon".

 

With his trademark smile, he said, it's called evolving.

 

He is gone, and I am older now; wiser in that I have dug my own share of holes- that I struggled to get out of, and one too many fences that still need mending.

 

[Gita]

It's a simple enough story -- father and daughter walk the fenceline and they pause to make a gate in the fence. But, as you so often do, you infuse the moments of your life with warmth and speculation and rich details. Thanks for the memory.

[Teresa]

I can picture you reading this out loud, but deep in the future.  You're in a room with a fireplace, rocking in a chair that squeaks some.  Your grandchildren are sitting on the floor with legs pretzeled.  It's a shame that evolving takes so long, involves so many holes.  But we get where we're going as long as we take others with us.  Wise words. 

[Toby Tucker Hecht]

An opportunity for a semicolon!!!  Wow.  I would have like to meet him.

[Angela]

The best kind of warm memory - wisdom that lasts and grows in its sharing.

[Ron. Lavalette]

Wise indeed.  And god bless the semicolon.

You tell this well.  Salute.

 

[Stephen Torelli]

Wise dad. And an excellent account.