Favorite memories of your father

On March 28, my father went in for a kidney transplant after suffering end stage renal failure for nearly 4 years. The transplant went well and he was released from the hospital only to be readmitted following a non-specific heart event only days after release. This led to him returning to dialysis for a short period of time while his body recovered from all that he'd just been through. During one of these sessions of dialysis on April 15, his blood pressure dropped and he passed away suddenly. I had the benefit of being able to get to know him very well over the past 5 years and I felt like I knew exactly who he was, so it's difficult for me to cope. I know his wishes were always to be remembered positively when he passed rather than have me mourn the loss, so that is my intention with this thread. Of course none of you knew him, but you have your own father and your own memories that I know would do me well to hear.

One of my favorite memories of my father was on vactaion, fishing in Montana. He was always a pretty cheap guy and didn't like to spend money on things he didn't feel he needed, but for some reason he decided that he wanted to take the family out on a charter boat for lake trout in Flathead Lake. I was probably 8 at the time and it was the first time that I even realized that such a thing as charters existed, so I was pretty excited. He and I went to several charter captains to get quotes and learn about what they offered - there was one captain in particular who offered a guarantee that we'd catch fish (which greatly appealed to my dad), but being as detail oriented as he was, he wanted to make sure we explored all possible options to make the best decision. The next captain we went to was a somewhat cantankerous old man who scoffed at the idea of a guarantee on catching fish, he said that he didn't guarantee it because he targeted lake trout in particular. He continued on to say that if we found lake trout and found what they were biting on, we'd catch them, but there's no guarantee of either of those things happening and that any captain that would guarantee catching fish couldn't guarantee that we'd catch what we were hoping to target. I guess that mentality appealed to my father because he decided to go with that captain - he wanted to catch lake trout and realized that someone who knew what they were doing realized the difficulty of targeting something precisely. On what was supposed to be a 6 hour trip, we landed more fish than we could count, several times doubles and triples at a time. The captain himself was so excited he extended the trip (for free) without us asking saying that he'd never seen anything like the numbers we were catching. After we got back to the dock, we had ended up keeping around 75 fish that were all in the neighborhood of 24-30" and we gave the captain another 20-30 fish. The captain made sure to pull my sister, brother, and I aside to tell us to remember this day because if we fished every day for the rest of our lives, we might never see the numbers and size of fish that we caught that day. My dad reinforced that thought as well saying it was the best day he'd ever seen. So every time I go out fishing, I think back to that day and use it as a bench mark to my all time days - I keep a list of my 10 best days ever fishing and inevitably it's one of the top 5 I've ever had when I evaluate that list. My father taught me to fish and how to learn about fishing, but on that day he also taught me that sometimes you've got to rely on the expertise of others (in fishing and in other things) and that's something that I will carry with me for as long as I live.

Very touching......god rest his soul. My favorite memories of my father were from little league baseball. He is up in age now and lives far away from me.....Its time for a trip to see him. Thank you for sharing, My Mom is gone and I need to spend as much time with my dad as possible.

Sorry for your loss - I just lost my dad a few months ago and know the feeling. My favorite memories are all of them he was not just my dad but best friend we talked at least once a day. Still miss him don't know if that ever stops. :beer:

My dad died in 1984 just over a year after he retired. I don't think we were all that close - our lives were too different. One very vidid memory I have of him was once while we were sitting outside on a nice summer day (he lived on 160 acres in the country) I commented how nice it would be to be sitting on a tractor working in the fields and watching the world go by. And he responded "...and give 'em one of these" at which he threw up his right arm with his middle finger extended. It still makes me laugh today. I guess no matter how it goes, once the hurt and loss go away remembering is good. Best to you.

Sorry for your loss.

My father passed away four years ago after an extended stay in the hospital for a stroke. I never really got to know my father very well as he and my mother were always busy working to support the family. My most vivid memory of him was when he picked me up when I came home on leave from the service. Driving through rush hour traffic, he yelled that dreaded "F" word out the window of the car! This was the first time I ever heard him swear, cuss or say anything bad!

My mother passed away last year from a sudden stroke. I never got to say goodbye. I credit my mother for making me independent because after the service, I told my parents I was moving out of state to live. I guess my mother was always the worrier in the family so she told me that she would give me thirty days and I'll be back. That was 42 years ago!

Memories are great!

Lost Dad years ago - when I was too young and stupid to realize how wonderful fathers really are. Not a day goes by that I don't regret it, but it's done, so learn from it and move on.

I've got tons of great stories with Dad, it'd be hard to pick just one. He was always full of surprises, had a knack for getting into minor trouble but managing to narrowly escape real trouble. A great man, great husband and great father taken too soon.

If I had to pick one off the top of my head, it'd be the time he was taking me, then 14, to flyfish. In a 14' shallow tinny with no decks, just benches. We both had it going, roll casting dry flys for perch. Out of the blue, as I was stripping line back to the boat with a dink perch on hook, a log appeared off the bottom and ate my perch! Dumbfounded and listening to the line zip back into the water, I started teasing the log back up. Once again the northern surfaced, and descended taking the line with her.

I hollered over to Dad about the fish, who scoffed at me and told me to quit screwing around and get the line picked up - Mom was ringing the dinner bell. Can't, I said, and proceeded to show him slowly and brought the northern to the surface AGAIN. Keeping in mind, the only thing that was hooked in this whole debacle was the dink perch on the dry fly. Well, Dad saw the fish and his eyes got wild. Holy %^$# he cried, DON'T DO ANYTHING!! I'LL GET THE NET!! Stumbling over benches he grabbed the oldest, saddest looking camp net you could imagine - we're talking one step up from a bent stick with a shoestring knotted around it - and then precariously teetered on the bench and gunnel commanded me to tease it closer.

Closer! I thought for sure we'd sink the boat, it was tipping dangerously low on that side with both our weight so close to the bow. Slowly I teased the northern up for the last time, and just as it got to the boat you could see the anger and shock in its eyes. How dare these two yahoos and that ridiculous shallow V pull me up from my safe depths - and what is the tall bearded one have in his hands? Well, I think Dad recognized that look from the fish. He'd seen it countless times, the ol' "You'll never catch me, sucker!" glint - so Dad did what only Dad's could do when perched on the front of a tippy boat's bench facing a trophy northern. He attempted the now infamous Stab and Grab.

With a flick of it's head, the norther was gone - leaving my Dad suspended briefly in mid-air grasping for the ghost. Then reality came screaming back to us, and with a splash Dad went in. The boat's bow recoiled from the sudden impromptu belly flop sending yours truly backward off the other side rod, tackle and all. So there we were. Soaked. Fishless. And in the case of my father, mad as a dunked hen, claiming the ultimately that our misfortune rested solely on the shoulders of a crappy net. Yes, the net. He drove to the nearest shop THAT NIGHT, still smelling of two-stroke and lake slime, and bought a new net. And some beer.

We never had another issue with the net.

Man I miss Dad. :lol:

Stories like these make me laugh and cry at the same time. I often wish I had taken even more time to enjoy those moments. But I have lots of great memories of Dad, few better than those of the times when we fished together out of his tin, a 60's Alumacraft with a 6 hp 'rude. Maybe that is why I still have it.

wihil, your story is terrific. When I think back to learning how to fish, I know my dad endured a lot of years of tying and retying lines, untangling messes, and just several silly things that a bunch of kids will put you through. I don't know that I have all that many memories of him catching too many fish...must have been too busy helping everyone keep their lines in the water to wet his own.

i lost my father 29 years ago when i was 5. so i dont have many memories of him but the one that sticks out the most is when he taught me to fish and the times we did go fishing. first time in a boat. and following him around like his shadow. the things that he did in his short life have inspired me to do many things that i have been told i couldnt do like he did. to this day he is still my Hero.

Let me say I'm sorry for everyone's losses. That being said my father is alive an although I live five hours away I did just get back from a four day turkey hunting trip/family visit with him two days ago. The old man just had a hip replacement and wasn't able to hunt as much as he'd like and I'm just now realizing that our time together may be limited in the future. Anyway, my best memory with my father was in the Adirondack park region of upstate New York. There was a trout stream that we regularly fished and a particular hole we frequented often. It was the spring time and the river was especially high. We regularly fished salted minnows with moderate success but today we were on the rainbows good. I was too young to realize the finesse required to bring the fish on my line in with light tackle so I handed it to my father as he handed his rod to me. He reeled the fish in, remove the 13" trout and rebaited the hook. As we traded back poles my dads face dropped. The whole time I'd been holding his pole there was a fish on and I hadn't even realized it. Normally if you didn't set the hook the fish would just spit it out but for some reason this 18" rainbow didn't that day. It was a dandy fish for the size of the stream. Here is a pic of the river.

My second favorite memory is a funnier one. My father was in the final stages of painting my childhood house. I was probably 8 years old or so. The only painting left were two windows that jutted out from the roof on the steep side, probably a 45 degree angle or so. I suspect that he was putting them off for last just because they were the biggest pain in the *** to paint. I was outside playing when I heard a crash and my father calling my name. As I rounded the corner I saw my dad holding onto the gutter with two hands, dangling about twenty feet off the ground. My father gave his marching orders, "go get mom". So I jogged inside and found my mother who was on the phone with my grandmother. As I told her my dad needed her, she looked up seemingly annoyed. She covered the receiver with her hand and said "tell your father I'm on the phone." That sounded logical to me for some reason, so I ran out and told dad. He was not pleased. His response: "tell your mother to get her fat *** out here now!" I then turned back around and ran to explain the urgency of the situation to my mom. Not being one to ad lib, I told my mother exactly what my father wanted to pass along word for word. My mother went outside in a hurry, I think probably because she wanted to kill my father herself, if the fall didn't kill him that is. I probably could've handled that a little better

I remember my dad working in the basement shop making the furniture for most of my childhood home. My dad was an old school carpenter who could rip a solid piece of oak with a handsaw in a perfectly straight line without actually drawing a line on the wood. My dad would have me 'assist' him, and I learned how to use so many tools and skills, but I could never master such precise free hand cutting with a handsaw, even to this day.

I do have a crazy memory, I must have been 3, I was sitting in my moms lap on the riding lawnmower, my dad was using the table saw and yelled at ny mom to come turn the saw off. She asked why and he was wiggling his ring finger with the opposite hand that it belonged on between his thumb and index finger. My dad also made furniture, I have slowly been collecting what he made from family friends I have several pieces he made including a replica of Mr. Rogers trolly that is about 16" long made from several types of wood. Dang I miss my dad. Very talented man, I wish he would have lived longer to teach me some more things

My dad's still around, but not able to do much. I remember when me and my brother were little, 5-6yo little, the Air Force wasn't as security conscious as they are today, in the 60s. My dad used to take us to work with him on the weekends and during the summer when school was out. His was in charge of a maintenance hanger on a ANG base. The base was a maintenance facility for large refueling tankers, I think they had the 135s and the older Lockheed 130s, but pretty much every kind of aircraft went through that place. How many 6yo kids got to sit in an F-4, I did, touch me. Those airplanes were mine and my brothers jungle gyms, we went everywhere in those airplanes, it was awesome. I don't think that kind of "take your kid to work day" would fly today. They also had ramps on base to launch sea planes, when the "Snapper Blues" were running we would go down to the ramp with the little pull net, get a mess of shiners, and catch a bucketfull of those little Blues. Those trips to the ramp way back when started a lifelong pastime that I am still into today.
Thanks Dad.

I lost my dad October befor last, in 1990 I messed up my back, and my dad tell me, it is not how you get hurt boy, but how you get up,
and I rember him always working even after he got cancer in 1999, he was in remission for almost 7 years and then it started to come back.
one month after he got his ss. check at 65 he went home, but as I thought about him in the first few hours after he left,
I realized that we are hear on loan and can be called home to heven when we are needed there.
so sorry for the loss of the ones we love. as my dad said to" come back to this, no let me go, with no regrets and happy." as said by carlos my dad two weeks befor he went home.

My father passed back in 2005 at the age of 58. I was sad but he had a great life with a lot of good memories I'm sure. He'd retired at 45 after raising 5 kids so at least he had some free time at last.

Favorite memory has to be when we were moving him back from Branson to live closer to us kids. It was a three hour or so drive and a pretty decent snowstorm came upon us. I was driving the box truck with all his stuff and he was following me in his PT Cruiser back when they were cool to have I'm looking in the rearview and the PT starts fishtailing and he goes off into the ditch. Traffic is going 5-10 mph tops so I stop the U-Haul and put the flashers on.

It wasn't that bad of an incline but trying to push a vehicle up out of a ditch by yourself in the snow is a pita. He was dogging the crap out of it in reverse without going anywhere lol. Good thing I was young and strong back then. After pushing him back up onto the road I'm running back to the U-Haul when I notice that the traffic behind me is applauding, giving me thumbs up, etc...I'm sure they had no idea that we were related but it still feels good. Sort of like a repayment for all he'd done for me over the years.

My dad was jokester. he passed in 96 and i miss him everyday. other than fishing my funniest memory of him is when we were working on a roof and he had just gotten down to get some material well i stepped in to close to a soft spot and went thru. Luckily i grabbed on one of the rafters on the way down and was hanging about 15ft in the air..mind you i was 15 at the time so i started yelling for him and he came around the corner, saw me holding on for dear life and said..hold on ill be right back..he came back with a neighbors plastic swimming pool and his words were.." they do this in the circus all the time, jump into the pool, there's water in it!" It was only a matter of maybe 30 seconds but seemed like an hr but he came with the extension ladder and got me down. On the way home all he could say was..dont tell your mother...