Three results. Two were him. In the bottom picture, he's third from the left, top row. Probably 17 -- looks like he could end up being the dad in Back to the Future.
Two years later, HERE, he's in the back row 2nd from the right. He was the team manager.
Less than ten years after these pictures, he had been to war and was a newlywed, then I was born 3 years later.
One word might describe our relationship -- "never." We never talked about anything deeper than Johnny Carson or football. Never discussed the future or what life was all about. Never just hung out, never got to know each other. Oh, we spent a lot of time together, but there was a wall that seemed 6-foot thick that kept us from seeing too much of each other. I hate walls like that.
Maybe that's a little why those kinds of things seem important to me now. Doesn't God have a wonderful way of using parents to shape us, even despite themselves? I love how he used my dad, despite himself. It's the same with me and my daughters -- despite myself.
He would've been 86 today.
