Do you happen to remember this movie, released in 1998?
Image courtesy of Wikipedia
I do . . . it had all of the requirements to get my attention (and some popcorn): Great title, favorite Hollywood stars, disaster, and political intrigue. I think we even watched it twice. Nowadays, we don’t have to go to the movies to get most of that on a daily basis, right? Ahem . . . ’nuff said.
The movie, however, isn’t the topic of conversation this Friday. Just the title.
There was a guy in my life (and he’s still in my life) who has had the most profound impact upon me. All I need to know about how to do life on planet earth has its roots in him. Integrity, honesty, compassion, generosity, and humility were lessons I saw lived out every day of my life, and still, by this man.
Image courtesy of Pixabay
Yep, you guessed it! My Dad. Navy veteran, businessman, husband, and father to two boys and two girls. He just turned 92 last month, he has memory issues, but he’s still the Dad I grew up knowing and trying to emulate. Thank you, Dad!
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TKZers, please share with us who has had the deepest impact upon your life, either personally or professionally. And has that person crept into your writing?
Inquiring minds want to know!
(This will be my last TKZ post for a couple of months or so while I take a break and deal with some *real* life current events. My stellar teammates will be stepping in to post on Fridays until I return. But never fear, I won’t be gone…just lurking around corners, spying on you, and enjoying my time off.)
🙂
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We’ll miss ya, Deb. Come back soon.
Your dad sounds wonderful. Bet he’s pretty proud of his daughter, too. Wish him a happy belated birthday from me. Glad you still have him in your life.
Answer: my husband of 50+ years. Hit the Powerball.
Hey, Debbie!
Hit the Powerball.
Love that, my friend!
We’ll be visiting my Dad today, so I’ll tell him happy birthday from another Debbie. 🙂
Have a great day!
Growing up, my dad, also a WWII Navy vet.
Growing as a writer, my beloved high school English teacher, Mrs. Marjorie Bruce.
Growing as a person, St. Cindy, my wife of 44 years.
I have been blessed.
As for used in my writing, ine of my best short stories (for me, at least) is “My Father’s Birthday.”
amazon.com/Fathers-Birthday-James-Scott-Bell-ebook/dp/B081THHSYL
Good morning, Jim. (Saying that always reminds me of James Tiberius Kirk…) 🙂
Sounds like you’ve had some gold in your life to keep you on the straight and narrow.
I read that short story and loved it. I wrote a blog post on my website about my Dad. You can read it here.
Have a great day!
I am going to split it up and go with both of my parents. My mother’s father had a scrap yard. It is rough work and how much you make varies with the markets. Grandpa, and by extension mom and her brother and sisters, where both very poor and very well to do growing up. Mom was warned to never say anything when she saw her old clothes on someone else because that person shopped at the resale shop.
My father was an attorney. For most of his life, an immigration attorney. His clients came from some of the worst places on the planet. I met people who escaped the Cultural Revolution in China. Fled Cambodia and Vietnam. Jews escaping the Soviet Union. Central Americans. All of them looking for a better life in the US.
My father died in 2001, before the madness of post 9/11 and the current administration. I am very sure I would be now learning Spanish on a floor in Texas while my 85+ year old father tries to bring people over the border.
Good morning to ya, Alan!
Wow! From the rough work in a scrap yard to your attorney father doing his best to give a leg up to a better life in America. How could you not be deeply impacted?
Thanks for stopping by this morning and sharing…
Great topic, Deb.
Growing up, it was my dad and my mom. Dad came from a working class, laborer background. He held down two jobs while myself and my three siblings were growing up. Never complained, and set an example of both hard work, love for family and friends, and taught us the importance of both as well as humility. My mother was a survivor—she’d contracted measles as a child (before the vaccine) and was largely deaf. Born with a congenital heart condition, she had open heart surgery in the 1950s to correct it. She passed away comparatively young at 51, after suffering an aneurysm at 49, after which she spent the last two years of her life working to regain speech. Mom always encouraged my writing.
As an adult, my wife LeAnn (who I began dating when we were both still teenagers) as shaped me in so many ways. She also always encouraged my writing and is the perfect life partner for me. I definitely won the jackpot.
Take care—we’ll all be thinking of you while you are taking this break.
Hi Dale!
Your parents sound a lot like mine–tough as nails mixed with compassion and big hearts.
My Mom, who passed away in June of 2016 (about 4 months before my first book published) contracted rheumatic fever at age 14. She married my Dad at age 15 and had 3 kiddos by age 20. And a 4th ankle-biter 7 years later. But the RF damaged her heart, so as she got older she had to be on lots of meds. She also had dementia for about 5 years prior to passing away, so didn’t really know that I’d started my pub journey. But she would’ve loved it. It was because of her I learned to love literature.
Thanks for stopping by this morning, and for your kind thoughts. It’s been rough, but we’ll make it.
Have a great day!
My Grandfather was the one who made the biggest impression on me. I’ll not forget when he said question everything. Don’t take anything a face value. If you do that, you’ll find life has more meaning. He was a preacher and he even encouraged us to question religions.
By questioning things, I’ve learned a lot and it creeps into my writing. And yes, I’ve used him and some of his teaching in my books. Even though he died when I was 10, I still remember a lot of advice he gave (mostly to my older siblings/cousins) while eavesdropping on the conversations while doing “kid” activities like puzzles.
You remind me of…me! Although they say eavesdropping never results in hearing anything good about yourself, I can’t discount the wisdom I overheard, especially when it was one of my sibbies getting a lecture about some kind of foolishness.
“Question everything”. Good advice indeed for these tumultuous times.
Have a great weekend!
Deb, a happy belated birthday to your Dad. My Dad definitely had a deep impact on me. Both my parents were great. While both are deceased now, I can tell you that you gain even greater appreciation for your parents as you get older and hear all the horror stories from other people who had terrible parents (or no parents).
And if I’m writing good father figures, my wonderful dad is in the back of my mind as I write father figures in fiction.
Good afternoon, Brenda!
I’ve heard some of those horror stories. I had some friends in college who could’ve written their own Stephen Kings about their parents. I feel very fortunate to have had parents who may have started young, but worked hard to give their little tribe the best they could.
And very fortunate to still have my Dad with me, along with my older bro. ☺️
Thanks for stopping by, and have a good one!
Share with us who has had the deepest impact upon your life, either personally or professionally.
Late to the party, again, and a tough question today. My dad died when I was 17, so a lot that was supposed to happen simply didn’t. There were many teachers, of course, and I learned little bits and pieces from many, but not enough from any to have a real impact. At USC in 1959, my Astronomy prof said they needed a department secretary. I’d studied typing in Jr. & Sr. High and could easily handle anything they needed done. There were two of them, Dr. Reaves and Dr. Russell, both gentlemen and scholars of the best sort. I had no classes between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m., so I’d hang out in the office and study if there was no work. I got my best GPA ever that semester. Both of them are gone, now, but in 2017, I helped sell Dr. Reaves’ house, near me.
Late’s okay, J…
The profs sound like gold! I had a history teacher in high school, both junior and senior year, who gave me a love of history. He was quite a taskmaster, but was fair. And he knew his stuff. I’ve always been grateful to have had him both years.
Have a great weekend!
I’m late to the party and late to wish you even a belated birthday! But we had our annual writers conference near Memphis this weekend and I’m just not catching up on emails. (I even got to visit with Kay DiBianca!)
My mother who didn’t get to finish 3rd grade (because both her parents died and she had to help her older sister do the cleaning, washing, and cooking) is my hero. She taught herself to read when I was in the first grade with my books and “True Confession” magazines. She taught me whatever was worth doing was worth doing right the first time. And if I didn’t do it right I got to do it over).
She was my biggest cheerleader and actually got to hold my first book in her hands and even read a few pages. She died six weeks later.