It is a strawberry eatin' day.
A day to wander down to a patch
An' just squat on your haunches
Maybe if the berries
Are real good an' abundant
We'll just sit right down
In the midst of them vines
Reachin' out all sorts of ways
Just a grabbin' handfuls
Stuffin' them in our mouths
Hungry for the sweetness
That runs down our chin
In our passion for summer
An' Strawberries.

Dear Cousins,
First of all, Happy Father's Dady to all of you who are Daddy to someone. It is a wonderful day. You are an unsung hero, a knight who has rescued your children over and over again from the boogerman under the bed, a dentist who had bravely grabbed a loose tooth that just won't give way to little fingers, a tooth fairy who waits till a little one is asleep and slips coins under a pillow in exchange for the tooth you pulled early in the day.

You are the teary-eyed slob who finds a little jar of those same teeth 15 or 20 years later and stand with a crooked smile as you remember each one and the darling child that lost it.

You are the one who lays in bed at night, listening to the giggles and, with a stern voice tell children to go to sleep. You are the one who grins and giggles as you lay in bed with your darlin', after they have settled in, knowing that you are more bark than bite.

You are the one that lays in the same bed, waiting till they return late in the night... listening for the sound of a car engine, a car door opening and a front door closing. You are the one who gets up, puts on a robe and goes to calmly speak, holding your anger when they come home hours late, or drunk, or worse.

You cry when you hold them for the first time, when you dance a wedding dance and hold a daughter, newly married, when you hold a child who has died too young, when you salute a coffin of one who served loyally and died in service to the country you both love. You are the one who pulls your wife away from a coffin so it can be lowered into a cold grave.

You wipe the tears, thinking no one sees what a softy you are... wanting to preserve the facade you have worked so hard to build over the years, not knowing that they laugh when they are together, with tears in their eyes, reminding each other of what a softy you are in spite of your bluster.

You are the one forgotten for some boy, no longer the hero, no longer the apple of a little girl's eye when a beau comes into her life. You are the one who seems not as big, not as strong, not as immortal when sons rise up and go to join a wife.

You are the one that tells a prodigal they must leave, who stands behind the closed door, the door that you closed behind them because it was time, because they were a disruption and disaster with the decisions they made. You are the one who welcomes them home, who kills the fatted calf when they find their way.

You are the one who holds their hair back as they bow before a toilet bowl and loose the contents of a drunken stomach, swearing they'll never drink again, listening as they cry and beg forgiveness.

You are the one who awkwardly holds a grandbaby, remembering when you held your own. You are the one who magically pulls quarters from behind ears, who watches cartoons for hours with your children's children.

You are the one forgotten, the one who might get a card... or might not, of whom they say,"he doesn't really like that mushy stuff". You are the one who gets the collect call, who is forgotten at Hallmark, who is told in divorce hearings that the mother is more important to the well being of a child. You are considered the less important parent.

If they only knew... if they only knew.

When my little brother and I were youngin's, Daddy had a cedar box he brought home from the Smokies as a souvenir. He always called it his treasure box and we imagined it was filled with family trophies and riches handed down through the generations. We would beg to see into it and occasionally Daddy would pull out a sampling of treasures. They were amazing.

About 15 years ago, just before Christmas, Daddy sat on the floor down in Tennessee where he and Mama had retired, got out his treasure chest and two small boxes - the ones you get checks in when you order them. My Mama asked him what he was doing and he told her it was time brother Mike and I had treasure chests of our own.

He sat for hours going through his treasures and picking things to put in each box. As often as possible he would place the same things in each box. Occasionally he would give each of us a particular treasure all our own and not duplicated in the other's box. When they were full he put the lids on and wrapped a rubber band around each.

On Christmas morning, Daddy sat down on the floor at my brother's home and called for us to sit with him. He gave us each a box We took off the rubber bands with great curiosity. Daddy did not shop and did not buy presents.

Mike and I giggled and shouted with remembered joy as we saw the wonderful treasures in the boxes. Our childhood pleasures of seeing Daddy's treasure chest rushed back and we were 8 years old again as we pulled out old Zippo lighters that did not work, matchbooks from restaurants long closed, broken watches, old pennys, Mercury dimes, a bullet from a 22, screws, bolts and nuts he had absentmindedly carried home in his pants pockets over 30 years of working in a factory. There were brass curtain rings that had found their way to his chest and that looked so much like pirate's earrings that we both clipped them on our ears (bad idea, they clipped hard enough to hold curtains, you know). We cried and laughed for about half an hour as we looked, showed everyone what was in our treasure boxes and compared booty.

Daddy was passing on a memory to his sons in the form of junk from an old cedar box. Junk that was amazing treasure to little boys, even greater treasure because my Daddy remembered our delight, those private moments that he shared with us as we looked into his treasure chest with wonderment.

We each later bought a box to put just those treasures in. Funny thing was, we each already had a "treasure chest" of our own and had showed ours to our children.

When my Daddy died, I bought a beautiful oval Shaker box, made of cedar and our family filled it with "treasures", the top of a Skoal snuff box with "I love you, Pappy" from my nephew, Masonic pins, love notes, favorite crayons, pictures... yes, a broken Zippo lighter.

Even when Daddy was dying of cancer, when asked, he would say "I'm fine" and for years we joked he would have that on his flowers when he died. I cut an oval piece of paper to fit inside the lid of the Shaker box and as each family member put their "treasure" in I would show them the inside of the lid that said...

"I'm fine". Each chuckled softly in their turn. I placed the box in his hands as I said goodbye to Daddy for the last time. It lays there today, buried with him, a fit memorial to a good Daddy.

Stephen
Jimmie's boy