Happy birthday, Dad

My dad would have been 96 today. He died a couple months shy of his 90th birthday. My dad and I were not close. I was several rungs down the ladder from his favorite child. That is not to say I took nothing positive away from the relationship. My dad taught me two productive lessons I have adopted as my own. They were useful in our farm life when I was a child and I draw on them still today. “After you go through a gate, close it.” “After you use a tool, put it back in its place.” I might not exhibit much discipline in many areas of my life – I have been known to eat out of the frozen yogurt carton on occasion and the floor of the car can make a good collector of empty coffee cups when I am driving. But I know where to find my hammer when I need it, because I put it in its place after I used it the last time. And if my horses get out, it’s because passing white-tail deer tramped through their pasture fence, not because I left a gate open.