Father's Day 2007

If we are really fortunate, the family chain that stretches through the generations between a father and his children remains unbroken.

My Grandfather A.H. Harvey is the first man from the left, top row. He is holding my Aunt Rosalie, about two years of age. My Grandmother stands to his immediate left.
The old gent in the front row with the child on his lap is my great grandfather, John S. Harvey.
He is holding my Aunt Bernice on his lap, age three.
My own father was yet to be born, this picture circa 1918.



Dad and I, probably in early 1954.
This was taken in their first apartment in Princeton WV.







Dad closely resembled the only picture I've found of his namesake James S. Harvey, my gggrandfather, his great grandfather.
James S. was a LT on Stonewall Jackson's staff and survived the War Between the States by many years, but he did not see any of his own grandchildren.

One of the great regrets of my life is that Dad did not live to see his own grandson..




My maternal grandfather, L.J. Cupp.
A fine man by anyone's standards, he saw all of his own grandchildren but the three youngest.
He was a man who loved God, and lived like it.



This picture circa 1954, taken in at their place in Narrows VA.
That is yours truly standing on his lap.
I remember him taking great delight in sitting whichever grandchildren were around in his easy chair on Saturday morning and watching cartoons with us.
He loved to laugh, and he loved to make us laugh.

I could not lay hands on a picture of me and my Granddad Harvey, "Paw-Paw"


On November 22, 1986 when Dr. Wells said
"Dad, you've got yourself a boy!"
I joined the ranks of proud fatherhood myself.
Parenthood is not for the faint of heart to be sure,
but nothing I accomplish in life can equal being a dad.

I hope to be a granddad someday.
I will spoil my grandchildren, but also hope to be a source of strength and family history and oneness to them as well.




We cleaned up OK I guess.
I was much smaller and had darker hair then.
We dads earn every gray hair the hard way.

The first time your offspring barfs all the way down your back as you try to race down the hall to the bathroom you start earning your stripes.
And that after drinking grape kool aid.





Worrying over every cold and fever, scratched knee or 'boo-boo' fades as they get older.
"If you're not bleeding or no bones protrude just keep playing" is a sentiment most of us have heard in our youth.
And used ourselves with our own.

Father's pass on all sorts of things to their sons.
Not the least of these are the love for worthy athletic teams.




My boy is still infected with an inordinate love for all things Miami, even though he's never lived there.

The one thread that kept us together throughout the tough late teen years was our mutual love of sports.
We were able to go to the U.S. Open here in NC a couple of years ago.
Still plan on hitting a Super Bowl and World Series.
And if Miami ever makes it the a BCS college football championship again that is high on our list.

Some of the best memory's we have are from the Little League youth sports years.
He didn't know anything about baseball when we started at age six, and I sure didn't know anything about coaching.
We learned together.
Several All-Star teams were in our future, he earned his spot playing and I coached a couple of them.

Long road trips to watch him play High School football were a part of our lives.
Then dad becomes a spectator, and has to bite his tongue and let someone else do the coaching.
"What's wrong with that coach, doesn't he know that he's a linebacker, not a defensive end!"
Of course we never critiqued any of his coaches. Riiiight!

Everything we are told by our elders about the passage of time is true.
It vanishes like a mist, speeds by us like a starship, faster than light.
One day your little one looks up to you, both literally and figuratively.
The next he won't walk anywhere near you in the mall, lest someone he knows sees him and gets the idea that we are related.

Then slowly, and inexorably they will come back around.
"Dad, what do you think about this, or should I do that?"

And then one hot humid summer day you sit in the bleachers at Ft Jackson and watch him take the Soldier's Oath along with 800 other young men and women, thereby becoming a Soldier and Warrior like your father and forefather's before him.
And you ask the inevitable question, "Where have the years gone?"
How did he get so tall and strong, and how did I get so gray and decrepit?"

Time, my childen, time.
Use it well, love your children, and devote yourself to them.
Your job can wait, weekend golf can wait, the rest of your extended family can wait.
Buying them stuff is not a substitute for doing things with them.
They'll forget all of those things, they will remember events where you took the time for them.

"Train them up in the ways of the Lord, and when they grow old they will not depart from it"
And they will do so with their own children, your grandchildren.


Ariel and I last Christmas.










Next on his agenda is Airborne Training this summer.
Only four semesters of college remain, then the full time Army.

Indeed, where have the years gone?