The Important Thing is to Never Stop Learning

My love of reading came from my father.

There was nothing my Dad didn’t know and nothing he couldn’t do. When I was a kid, I knew this to be true.

He built a house with nothing but hand tools, including my favorite, a drill that looked like an old-fashioned eggbeater. One summer, he’d accumulated a pile of used lumber. He’d pry out the nails, and I was proud he’d let me take the bent nails and pound them flat for him to reuse. Just working near him made me happy.

The engine of the bulldozer froze up, and he rebuilt it. He killed a moose and butchered it with just the information in a Cooperative Extension booklet from the University of Alaska. I know because I still have the booklet complete with notes he’d penciled in the margins, coat carcass with black pepper to repel flies, wrap with cheesecloth.

My dad was six feet tall, lean, and strong.

He hauled our Jamesway up the mountain and set it up single-handedly. At the time, I never wondered how he lifted 55-gallon barrels of fuel oil upon the five-foot platform to gravity feed the space heater. I just took it for granted; he could do anything.

It also seemed normal that he avoided Mom, too, and jumped when she beckoned. My mom looked down on my dad’s family because his dad was a blue-collar worker, a contractor, and a stonemason.

“I remember them going barefoot in the house and sitting on the porch in their tee-shirts drinking beer,” she explained. “Your dad was the first person in their family to go to college.”

Dad never mentioned his parents, and they did not write or even send a Christmas card. Some terrible event had happened shortly after my parents were married, and I knew my mother had told my Dad to choose either her or his mother. He chose my mom and never mentioned his parents or his older sister or brother.

In our family, Mom’s word was the first, last, and only word that mattered.

My father’s day job was as a civil engineer for the Army Corps of Engineers. Every day, showing up in a sports coat, white shirt. He always wore a bolo tie, one of the Alaskan-themed ones my mother got him for gifts.

We never asked him anything he didn’t know.

My sisters, brothers, and I were sure he knew the answer to every question in the world.

One cool and misty morning, Dad and I were sitting on the porch putting on our shoes. Low clouds blanketed our yard; I couldn’t even see the outhouse 50 yards behind the house.

“Dad? How come it’s only foggy here and not in the valley?”

He pulled his pipe from an inner jacket pocket and a cracked leather pouch from another. I smelled the familiar aroma of wild cherry tobacco as he filled the pipe and tamped it down. Even when he had a lot to do, he moved purposefully. Maybe he was taking time to form an answer an inquisitive eight-year-old would understand.

“It’s not foggy but cloudy. Clouds form when humid air meets a mountain and must rise to get over it. The vapor becomes cooler as it rises until it reaches an altitude where it condenses. It seems that 1500’ is exactly where the moisture gets cool enough to form clouds, and that’s why it’s foggy so often at our house. It’s like a river of air flowing over the mountain behind our homestead.”

We were sure he got all the answers from books.

It was no wonder we kids grew up thinking our dad had a photographic memory. My older sister told me he’d read every book in the library, and I believed her. We all followed his example, started reading, and haven’t stopped yet.

Years later, newly married at eighteen, I was driving with my young husband across the deserts of Arizona.

Strange clouds streaked the sky, and I asked him, “What kind of clouds are those?”

Glancing sideways, he asked, “How the heck would I know?”

Shocked, I felt a mysterious seismic shift tilt my worldview. Somehow, in my naivete, I’d assumed men knew the answers to everything!

Years later, I told this story to one of my sons, who scoffed and said my dad probably faked it. How could he have the answer to all the questions we asked him? So defensively, I checked, and Dad had been right. That odd foggy phenomenon is called orographic cloud formation, and he described it perfectly.

My brother and I discussed the Dad knew everything question just this week.

“Did Dad’s knowledge inspire your curiosity or discourage you from learning?” I asked him.

“Definitely inspired me to learn more!” he replied. “I wanted to know as much as he did.”

When we saw our father read, it motivated us. I have five siblings, and eventually, four of us owned used bookstores. Of course, growing up without electricity prevented us from becoming avid T.V. watchers, too.

I’m writing a memoir and have spent many months researching events and stories of the past. Yes, the hero-worship of my childhood has been shaped through the understanding of adult eyes. My father was flawed, as we all are. If he were still alive, I’d ask him some tough questions.

My Dad died twenty years ago, reading a National Geographic magazine.

Open on his lap was his favorite snack, a bag of candy corn. I think he was happy.

On Father’s Day, I think back with appreciation for what I learned from my Dad. Intellectual curiosity, perseverance, and a rational mind—no small gifts to inherit.

Though he rarely said, “I love you,” he supported me in small ways.

When I had my first poem published in the children's magazine, Highlights, he wrote me this letter that I recently discovered in a box of old photos.

I know that the things you wrote about mean a lot to you, as they do to me, and it’s wonderful to me that you expressed it so well.

His vote of confidence gave me courage. I’ve heard it said that a great teacher inspires, not just instructs. That is what my father did for me, and for that, I’m grateful.

Thanks, Dad. I love you.

Cindy has been a farmer, teacher, bookstore owner, and writer. She loves books and is intensely curious about life. Join the conversation.