Happy Father's Day

That fine looking gentlemen is my Daddy, holding my baby girl (when she really was a baby girl). I lost him quite a few years back, a few months after this picture was taken as a matter of fact; but not before he transferred a lifetime of wisdom to my brothers and I, most of the time without us even knowing it was going on.

This man grew up in segregated east Texas but went on to serve this country honorably during World War II as a Red Ball Express driver in both the North African and European Theater of Operations, facing more racism and disdain from his fellow American soldiers than from the Germans they were all over there to fight.

Coming home, he settled back in east Texas and worked for city government before starting his own business hauling trash, on which he raised a family of six kids.. The business grew to hundreds of customers, and exists to this day run by my cousin. There's a lot more I can tell but I won't here. Suffice it to say, I miss my Daddy and wish I could get the chance to talk with him a few more times now that I have a little more sense in my head.

Happy Father's Day.