Happy Father's Day! I know most of you visiting here with me this morning are women, but if you're as lucky as me, you had/have an amazing father and today's a great day to honor him!
My daddy passed in 2018 and I miss him so much. He was truly a great man and I want to tell you a little about him if you'll let me.
He was born in a 2-room dirt floor house and lived the first part of his life in humble conditions (my grandparents didn't have running water until after Daddy was married). I'm sure a lot of you who are my age (over 50) can say the same about your parents' upbringing. Especially if you're in the South.
The most important thing my daddy taught me was a good work ethic. He started with nothing and worked and sacrificed until he made a good life for us. He and Mama built the house I grew up in. Not alone - they subbed out the work they couldn't do themselves - but they did most of it. I was 3 at the time but I have glimpses of memories of them building the house. I remember Mama laying the tile in their bathroom, Daddy hand-nailing 2x4s, and Daddy and my Uncle Earl shoveling sand into what would become our patio. Daddy would spend 2 weeks trying to figure out how to do something himself before he'd pay someone else.
And I inherited that from him. I can usually afford to buy new things when I need them or pay people to fix the broken ones but I kept my dishwasher holding on with zip ties and YouTube for 20 years before I finally broke down and bought a new one. I'm pretty dang handy and I'm glad I had a daddy who taught me how to do stuff.
And OH, how he enjoyed being a grandfather!! He carved the pumpkins, dyed the Easter eggs and did all the things. Not only was he at every single sporting event my kids were ever in, he was at most of the practices too! Of all the ways I miss him, one of the things I struggle with the most was that he didn't live long enough to see The Boy become a college baseball player.
Oh, and his grandfather name was “Gigga”. When I was pregnant with Baby Girl he'd say, “I don't want to be called Ga-Gaw or Poo-Poo or any BS like that. I want to be called Granddad. Period.” Well, as soon as Baby Girl wrapped her mouth around the word “Gigga” he answered to it and never looked back! There are probably 100 young people in this area who could tell you exactly who “Gigga” was because he was so active with my kids' lives, teams and friends. He was everybody's granddad.
Well, I could write a book about Daddy so I'll stop here. I tell a few stories about him in some of the recipe articles, so you may have read some before.
This week I'm sharing Daddy's favorite recipes because, LORD, he loved to eat! He'd go back for a third helping of something and say, “this is gonna hurt” then dig in anyway!
