These are some rambling thoughts regarding my dad.  Mostly incomplete but I may come back next week and brush them up.  Thanks for taking the time to read.

Memories of Dad #1

Father’s Day is fast approaching and I am recalling my own dad this week.  Both sorrow and joy; happiness and sadness fill my every moment.  It causes me to be slightly moody, extra sensitive, and weepy as memories escape from my eyes.

Dad passed from this life to eternity just three years ago this November.  His life was filled with both hurt and happiness.  Born at the end of the Great Depression, he knew what it meant to grow up hard.  He was raised on a farm which was the way the family of five survived.  Hard work, manual labor and scraping by were constant companions.  After graduating from Lawrence County High School he worked various jobs-one of which was Hayes Aircraft-but conservationism became his calling.  He worked for the Soil Conservation Service for 30+ years.  He served as a technician in Cullman County, Marshall County, Talladega County and DeKalb County.  I do not believe he would have left that job if they had not pretty much made him retire.

His life was made complete by the people and places he was able to meet and make a difference in relation to conserving the land.  Farmers and business people alike respected his opinion.  He was well thought of and known.  He is sorely missed.

This Father’s Day would have been his 51^st year as a father, a daddy.  They say that any man can be a father, but few can be a daddy.  That is true of John Fuller.  He was my father, born to him in 1964; but he was my daddy because he was there for me.  I still find myself, even after almost three years picking up the phone to dial his number and ask him some stupid question because I cannot for the life of me figure something out.

He would be a might disgusted with me about my progress with the little patio I am trying to build; the fact that I let the AC on the car go so long before getting it fixed; and the truck needing a paint job.  Then he would be so proud of the other things which far outweigh the smaller things.  Sometimes I just want to hear him talk to me.

I miss him a great deal. 

He was my hero. 

   

Memories of Dad #2

I read this morning a fitting thought for me today:

“Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, but love leaves a memory that no one can steal.”

Memories have flooded back over the past few weeks, particularly last week while at youth camp at Camp Toknowhim in Pisgah, Alabama.  These memories were good and healthy, but choked me up as well.

Pisgah is just across the Jackson County line from DeKalb County on Sand Mountain and a few miles from Henagar, Alabama.  Of course, DeKalb County is where I spent the greatest past of my “growing up years” in the home of a conservationist, my dad John Fuller.

From Rockford, to get to Pisgah, you must enter DeKalb County from the south on Interstate 59 and go up the mountain at various places.  On this trip we came in from Gadsden and stopped in Fort Payne, then traveled toward Henagar from Terrapin Hills.  On both sides of the interstate, along the county roads and through the small communities the land is dotted by farms, both large and small.

As I led the little convoy, my eyes caught the chicken houses, the barns, the cattle grazing in the pastures, and ponds and lakes.  Such beautiful sites which caused me to reflect on life in DeKalb County and the work my dad performed all over the county and later in adjoining counties.  He sat with farmers under large oak trees (some of those trees are no longer three since the tornadoes of 2011) sipping ice tea and talking about cattle and the right way to care for them.  Or the ponds and lakes scattered all over the area which he designed and helped build, filling them with a variety of fish for recreation.  Or the houses he helped farmers build to break down chicken litter in order to use it for fertilizer; or the reclaiming of strip mines after they had caused a great deal of problems on the mountain; or the work he performed on the watershed committee among Marshal/DeKalb/Jackson County.

I remembers the stories.  One was the day he came back to the office after getting a contract signed by Randy Owen for a wildlife refuge they were working on and his secretary was trying to figure a legal way to get a copy of the autograph.  Another was a confrontation in the big woods with a couple of rough necks who though he was a revenuer.  Then the time he was walking a field to build terraces and found a ripe, ready patch of marijuana. 

The one that still to this day causes me to laugh out loud is about a bull that attacked his truck.  He and one of the part-timers-a helper-were at a farm and had gone through a gate, which he had the keys to and closed it and locked it behind them.  After taking care of the job they had come to do, which was to stake out a place for a pond, they were observing the cattle as they got to the gate.  The heifers seemed to be rather restless and slowly moving in their direction.  He and the part-timer got out to unlock the gate.  As dad was searching for the key a big bull starting charging toward the truck.  He quickly got the lock undone, left the part-timer with the gate and began to move the truck, but not fast enough.  The bull made contact with the rear of the truck and pushed him through the gate, as his helper was closing it as fast as possible without getting caught in the crossfire.  Needless to say Mr. Bull was on the path of aggression and beating the gate with his head as dad was locking it and backing away.

Both men took a deep breath as they stood looking at the bull with a locked gate between them.  Dad inspected the damage done to his fender, bumper and tailgate.  He shook his head in disgust and then laughed, out loud; a deep, rumbling laugh.  The reason: he knew that no one would believe that Teddy Gentry’s prize bull had attacked his truck and nearly took him out.  Yet, off to the office he went to fill out the needed paperwork.

Yes, lately these are the memories I seem to continue to think about and which can never be taken away.

DeKalb County was good to me dad and our family.  I learned a lot about life by watching him.

I remember a time when farmers were having a difficult time and some were even having to sell out or going bankrupt because of the tough economy.  Some men cornered dad one day, asking about inside information on some land which they were interested in.  They were actually attempting to get the land for a price which was neither fair nor ethical.  They were seeking dad’s help in persuading the farmers to take the price being offered.  Dad quickly and very matter-of-fact put them men in their place.

He worked hard and long hours, sometimes without compensation, to protect the farmers.  He helped them get through the rough times by sharing new and innovative ways to make the most of their land and work.  Constantly taking the side of the farmer and their interest.  Dad was very well respected in that area.  His advice and thoughts were something farmers took seriously.

He allowed himself to be spent helping others. 

Memories of Dad #3   

As a young boy, probably five or six, I would tag along with dad on some of his weekend jobs.  To make a little extra money he would do surveying for a local company.  We were in Talladega then and he would leave out early on Saturday morning with a lunch pail for both of us.  We would climb into whatever was the choice automobile for him at the time.  (We may get back to that later) 

One job he did was the survey for the new high school in Talladega.  I believe it was the summer of 1971 or ’72 (the school was completed in 1973 so it may have been earlier) and we were cutting through the underbrush as he was carrying the survey equipment.  I learned that I was to follow his path, watch him and everything would be alright.  He taught me to step on a log before crossing it, what it meant not to move the boundary lines, and how to enjoy God’s great outdoors.

We would eat our lunch under a tree beside the truck.  The best thing was to stop at the old country store and get a moon pie and RC Cola. 

One Saturday he wanted to drive out to a site where he was overseeing a huge lake being built off of Highway 77.  It was a ways off of the highway on the Talladega side of where Speedway Boulevard begins outside of Lincoln.  We rode out an old logging road which had been recently been run over by a grader, through a forest of pines, to an expansive opening.  It was huge to a little boys eyes.  More than that there, slowly moving along below is were some of the largest earth movers I had ever seen.

The contractor in charge came up to speak to dad; the conversation meant nothing to me because I was watching the activity of dump trucks, front end loaders, tractors as each slowly, methodically were moving dirt and digging dirt and creating a huge crater in the ground.  This was so much different from the small sand box I had at home with all the little toy equipment and not at all like the tractors on the various farms visited as I was growing up.

Then the contractor asked if I would like to drive one of the tractors.  I was beyond happy now!  He led me along the edge of the soon to be lake, hoisted me up on a machine with tires that seemed larger than life, and seated me in the driver’s seat.  He took time to show me the variety of levers, paddles, gauges, and other devices.  Then he came into the cab and we started moved around the lip of the hole.  Slowly, the huge machine rumbled and groaned as he let me lift and lower the bucket, dig a little dirt, and “drive” this larger than life.  It was a day I still recall and the smell and sounds still assault me from time to time; the mixture of fresh soil, diesel and the rumbles, groaning, loud talking.

More later...