Happy Father's Day
 I
couldn't wait till June to devote one of my daily
columns to my father (see my April
23 entry), but now that it is actually Father's
Day, I should say a word or two about this great
man.
We've shared some wonderful memories. When I
returned from the Gulf War onboard the USS Ranger,
he met me in Pearl Harbor and steamed home from
Hawaii to San Diego onboard the aircraft carrier
with me and my shipmates. Watching fighter jets
take off from the flight deck, braving the mystery
meat on the messdecks and rising at "Reveille"
every morning, he got a firsthand look at what it
was like to be a sailor in the United States Navy.
It was a thrilling experience for him, and a proud
one for me.
We later spent more time together at sea when I
crewed with him during a trip from Morro Bay to
Ventura Harbor to relocate his 34-foot sailboat
"Peggy Ann." What should have been a pleasant sail
down the California coast turned into a harrowing,
white-knuckled adventure. Not two hours out of
Morro Bay, an impenetrable fogbank descended upon
us, and did not lessen for the rest of the journey.
If not for our GPS locator and a good chart, we
would have ended up either on the rocks or halfway
to Hawaii. As it was, we took turns at the wheel
every hour, spending the other hour getting
whatever fitful sleep we could. Despite a close
call with an oil rig in the middle of the night, we
made it safely into Ventura Harbor at last,
exhausted but relieved.
Still more recently, our family spent a week on
a houseboat at Lake Powell. We rented a small ski
boat at the same time, so when we left the dock to
venture out upon the lake, my dad captained the
houseboat while I followed behind in the ski boat.
We hadn't been out on the water long when a summer
thunderstorm suddenly pounced upon us. The formerly
tranquil surface of the lake turned as choppy as
the ocean in a sea squall. Being at the wheel of
the more mobile of the two watercraft, it fell to
me to find "any port in a storm." Having learned
most of my piloting skills from my father, it
filled me with a sense of pride to work with him to
bring the two boats to safety.
I find it interesting that some of my fondest
memories of time shared with my father involve
being on the water. If there is one intangible
aspect of my personality that I feel I inherited
directly from my father, it is a fondness for the
ocean. Like him, I love being on or under the
water. It doesn't matter whether I'm on the deck of
a yacht with a cocktail in hand or on the deck of a
warship with a paint brush in hand (well, perhaps
I'm laying it on a bit too thick now). Salt water
must run through our veins.
My father has certainly taught me a thing or two
in my life, but I've gotten a lot more from him by
osmosis. Just spending time around him, I've picked
up some of his hobbies, some of his ways of
thinking, even some of his mannerisms. But when I
catch myself telling a story in that same hesitant,
Captain Kirk-like pattern of speech, I don't groan
and say, "I'm becoming my father!" Instead, I smile
to myself, because there's no one else I'd rather
resemble.
©2003 Michael
Strickland ALL RIGHTS
RESERVED
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