For a Father Who Taught me Much
I only heard my father cry once. Born in 1919, coming of age in the fang-bearing years of the Great Depression and rising to a fast adulthood on the battlefields of the Pacific during World War II, Dad had a pretty tough shell around him. But that night, Dad had reached his limit. It was the early 60’s. My father had worked his entire life in the dairy industry, and he knew it from cows in the field to processing at the plant, to delivery on the front porch. We had finally settled in Denver when the physical pressures of this life, his war wounds and a life of poverty and stress caught up with him. Not yet 50 years old Dad suffered two heart attacks in quick succession. The doctors suggested a less rigorous vocation. At about this same time my father was offered a position with the state department of agriculture, inspecting dairies. The job was his, all he had to do was pass a competitive oral and written examination. Here was the problem. My father, like many young m