So I am lame. That is pretty common knowledge. Example; in one week I forgot my wife’s birthday. I remembered pretty last minuet but still totally blew it. Secondly I forgot all about my dad’s birthday, which is in the same week. That was pretty much the end of it, I forgot, I’m a jerk moving on.
Then Thursday I was ridding the train home from class and I was listening to Relient K’s “Five Score and Seven Years” CD. Side Note: Good CD, don’t tell me they are not proclaiming Christ while succeeding in the mainstream media: End Side Note.
The bonus song that you get when you buy the album from iTunes is
Sloop John B. This is originally a song by The Beach Boys. Well it was actually done by someone else first but you can look that up on Wikipedia for yourself. I really like the Relient K’s version; it’s a catchy little pop song. So I’m sitting there and I remembered a story… Flashback time!!!
So before I tell this story there is a Native American phrase that one of my professors always uses when telling stories it is “I don’t know if this is how it happened but I know it’s true.” So basically I don’t know if these are the exact details but this is what I remember. O.K. Flashback…
The year was, ah I can’t remember the year, it was like 4th or 5th grade. I am one super dorky kid. I am pretty sure I should not listen to KDWB because it is bad and I should be a Christian and be different, but for some reason I love The Beach Boys, I don’t think I have any of their tapes (remember I’m old no CD’s yet) but I think I like them a lot. Well my class from school went roller-skating for a field trip and while we are there I am just having a great time. This is like the coolest thing I have ever done and they are playing music and the lights I am taken away to a whole different world. Well the D.J. says he is taking requests, so I’m like “This is great!” I go and request some Beach Boys song and sure enough he plays it. Awesome!!!
I get home that night and I am like, “Mom, Dad, we have got to go roller-skating as a family it was so fun, the music, the lights, the going around in circles. And I asked them to play a Beach Boys song and they did.”
So this is where the story shifts from me being a dork to how amazing my parents and especially my dad were and are. So we didn’t have a bunch of extra money but my parents said they would give it a shot. I can’t remember if just my dad and I went or if the whole family was there but the next Friday night there we are at the roller-skating rink, paying way to much money to go around in circles. And in my pocket I have my list of Beach Boys songs (So the story is still kind of about me being a dork). The list must have had like 12 to 15 songs on it. And I was going to request them all. We head in get our skates and the scene is a little different. The Friday night crowd is not my 5th grade class; it is a ton of older kids and they are going fast and listening to music I don’t really like.
So I go around a couple times and it’s all right but I am not feeling as good about things I’m going slow and feel like I’m this little kid in the way. But I am here to listen to my Beach Boys and skate. So I want to request my songs but I’m feeling a little nervous and out of place and the D.J. doesn’t look quite as friendly as he did when my class was here. I don’t know if I asked my dad to request the songs for me or he offered but there he is standing in the middle of the roller-skating rink in Woodbury shouting 12 to 15 Beach Boys song names to some 20 something punk of a D.J. while his kid sits off to the side feeling this mixture of excitement and smallness as the older kids go flying by.
I don’t know if he was embarrassed or annoyed that his stupid dorky kid was asking him to do this, if he did feel that way, he never showed it (looking back I feel embarrassed for him, man I was a dorky kid). He made my request for me and we stayed until they played one of my crappy Beach Boy songs, then we went home.
End of Flashback. That story is a small little snippet of my childhood, one little dinky Friday night. But I remember that moment like it was today. That story is a great example of who my dad is. Quiet, yet strong, slow to anger, patient, and endless in his lover for his family and others. No question was a stupid question with my dad. And I knew that if I woke up early enough in the morning there my dad would be, under three comforters in our freezing basement, on his knees in prayer.
If you don’t know we named Micah after my dad. His name is Michael, so we wanted to spice things up a little but little miss Micah Mae is named after her patient, kind, loving, wise, soft spoken grandfather. Our first night after she was born, Missy was holding her in bed and I got out my Bible and read Micah 6:8 and prayed for her. Micah 6:8 says
“He has told you, O man, what is good;
and what does the LORD require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?”
This is what we want for her life and if she needs an example of it she can watch her Grandpa. He is a great example of this verse and I hope that when Micah and my Dad read this verse it will hold a special place in their hearts, just like it does for me.
I love you dad, thanks for always being there for me. And for being a man of God, I hope some day I am half the man you are.
At the rehearsal dinner before Missy and I got married my dad read the lyrics from “Forever Young” by Bob Dylan. So dad, here are some lyrics for you, they aren’t Bob but I like them.
Cheers,
Caleb
“Always Just Beneath the Dawn”
Battle Creek
Something that you said last week
Is eating me with sharpened teeth
And I am so afraid
Not something thrown out flippantly
But to my heart and very core
I may not see you anymore
Or something even worse
And in my bones
Your twenty-three same chromosomes
Reside in twisted prophecy
Likening our destinies
I genuflect. I'll hold my breath
I'll wait and see
Your blood is swimming inside me
And there is no love
Like fathers have for their sons
I am weak
But believe me when I softly speak
If there is strength inside of me
It's you who put it there
And I concede
That something stabbed
And made you bleed
Stole the light you once believed
Yes I still do
Do you believe
Is saw your father in a dream?
He said that he is safe and well
And waiting up for us
And there is no love
Like fathers have for their sons
Boys need fathers, every daughter
Every broken heart so gone
I believe that Love is greater
Never ceasing, always hoping
Always just beneath the dawn
R. Roper
Labels: Serious Stuff
