whether you've lost your Dad or not....

[azamugg]

what is a special memory you have with him.....

my Dad went to EVERY game I ever played in and whether or not I got to talk to him afterwards or not, the memory of his face in the crowd is .....more special than words can say

[azamugg]

okay, I may be sauced up and that may be the reason for this cheezy thread ....but you guys are a buncha emotional locked up bastards!

[timNem]

I haven't lost my dad but your post kinda reminded me of a post that I posted on here a few months ago

Yesterday the air had a scent of football


by Happy Elephant



It's never subtle. That first hint every summer that football is near. One day you walk outside and the scent of fresh cut grass rushes through your olfactory epithelium and football season is at the doorstep. Yesterday it happened. As I got out of my car, I took a deep breath and there it was. Football season. This off-season has been one of the most unsettling I can remember as a fan. The firing of Shula was awkward, the coaching search was confusing, and the hiring of Saban was like the lifting of a bitter curse. However, the jubilation felt with the hiring of Saban was met with bitterness and vile rebuke from everyone outside of the Bama Nation. Since January, it seems we have been doing the tango in bare feet on a slippery floor strewn with broken glass. When there is a victory, like the recruiting class, it is followed by a fiasco, like the Miami Herald's story about improper contact with recruits. The recent players' arrests coupled with CBS Sportsline's Mike Freeman crowning the Alabama program the most scandalous in college football was another ebb in the cosmic Saban joy flow. In January, when Saban got off the plane, it felt like General MacArthur had just waded ashore. The outrage that had taken place in Tuscaloosa was over. The losing was over. The lack of direction was replaced by singular focus. The weakness and feebleness was replaced with strength and intellect. When Saban took the podium at the press conference introducing him as the new coach, he opened his mouth and spoke without stumbling and bumbling and searching for words. He knew what he was doing. That day had the Bama Nation thinking of the back payments owned to the other members of the SEC and how sweet it was going to be to start the payback plan. However, since that day, the elation has been chipped and chopped at by other people and events. The experts have cautioned the crimson clad masses to brace for a 7-5 season with losses to the top teams in the conference. Patience. Saban will need time. Time. It took time for MacArthur to make it back to the Philippines, but Saban isn't fighting a war. War is serious. Football is pastime. In the last several years with all the losing I think I lost the knowledge that football was just that - a sport and a pastime. The winning might not return at a clip that would satisfy the baser parts of myself, but the better parts of me, which I hope constitute the larger part of me, are regaining the idea of what football should be in the context of the whole of things.

Yesterday, when the grass centered me to the season, memories of my father, at times too sad to recall, came back to me in waves. He cared as much for football as he did for the price of tea in China. It was a foolish endeavor in a world with too little time to do the necessities, much less to indulge in games. Yet, he never missed a single game of mine. No matter where we played or where he might be working that day, he would appear along the fence just before kickoff to let me know he was there. As a kid, I didn't realize the effort that took. As a man with a job and responsibilities, I see what a labor it was to work all day, drive a great distance, and then quietly lean on a fence in some out of the way town. All to watch over your kid as he began to learn how to navigate through the obstacles of a game that shadowed the obstacles of life. Quietly. He allowed me to play, to fail, and to win with nothing more than a watchful eye. My father and I never talked a lot. Some, but nothing more than a few sentences at a time. On a few dozen Friday nights more than a decade ago, we stood in front of each other, separated by a fence and the confusion and tension of me growing up and he not being able to stop time, and we conversed. Words so awkward at other times flowed easily and generously between us. He never cared about football, but somehow my playing the game allowed me to see how much he cared about me. He died several years ago. There are no words that encompass the loss I felt and still feel at times. Time heals to a degree. Time passes and distance from the day creates a sense of separation from the hurt. The hurt dulls and becomes something less sharp, but always there is this feeling of something gone out of the world. The smell of fresh cut grass brings me memories of my father. Football brings me memories of my father. A hundred different things do the same, but football opened a door for us that seemed closed in other situations. People like to say that football is a religion for Alabama fans, that we look at Saban as the savior of that religion. Football is a sport and a pastime. It is also a door that opens avenues that allow people to share in something, to find a common place to connect, and to share. Coach Saban is not the savior of Alabama football. He is the person who will remind us that it is a sport and a pastime, a joy that connects us across generations, social class, race, and religious beliefs. It is a gathering of old friends and new.

When I went inside my house, heavy with thoughts of the interconnectivity of everything, my eyes fell on my wife and all the sludge in my brain that was irrelevant disappeared. She looked up and smiled. I asked if she wanted to throw some football and she smiled even brighter. Yesterday was a good day. I think this is going to be a good season.

[azamugg]

wow.............I don't know how or why I missed that post but I did.........words like that will make a man who thinks he's protected by emotional bricks and mortar realize he's nothing but an old sap, like it or not...........where in the hades did you find that....because of divorce and what not, it accurately describes an unorthodox relationship I had w/my Dad.......dammit I wish I wasnt drunk

[timNem]

wow.............I don't know how or why I missed that post but I did.........words like that will make a man who thinks he's protected by emotional bricks and mortar realize he's nothing but an old sap, like it or not...........where in the hades did you find that....because of divorce and what not, it accurately describes an unorthodox relationship I had w/my Dad.......dammit I wish I wasnt drunk

the writer posted it on the blog at Clays

[gatoraus]

Obviously, I have many. I think my favorites are any time were on the golf course together. I think the reason these stand out is I used to have a video of Tiger's life and the song that ended it I related to so well.

"Hey dad let's go out and play the weathers warm and clear I'll give you half a stroke a hole it's golf that keeps us near we'll play it like we always do with no one giving in no matter how the score turns out we know we both will win"

That is without any kind of grammar, but I still remember the song and it has been like 10 years since I last heard it. This song made me cherish all the times I have with him, especially when I am on the course because we both love golf.

[swampgirl5]

i have lost my dad unfortunatley, but i had an awesome relationship with him, and every memory that i have with him i will never forget!

and yes, seeing his face in the crowd was the best feeling ever to me.

[tennesseegirl]

My dad is my hero ! I cannot imagine losing my dad . When I was little he used to get on the floor and put me on his feet and then throw me in the air , I loved that and when we would go to Tenn. football games together . There was the Tenn- South Carolina game in 1993 and the first play of the game charlie garner runs like a 78 yard run(I think ) for a TD and my dad had me in a headlock jumping up and down and I could not see all of the run!!! That game was alot of fun we killed them like 55-3 ,well it is special to us cause we leave in Sc and we went to the year before in SC where they beat us so killing them the next year was sweet! I love my dad and I have alot of fond memories of him and He is still here so Iam looking forward to alot more.

[gatorhater]

I was on an All-Star baseball team when I was 16...college scouts would come and watch the traveling teams in our league play, so it was a big deal for me and my teammates. Well, our coach quit 1 week before opening day and we had pretty much exhausted all our options, so we were going to have to forfeit the season...not many teams had openings, so most of us were going to miss out on playing that season.

My Dad called everybody the day before the game and said he'd be our coach. Now, my dad is a black belt and was a track star, but he never did ball sports. He knew absolutely nada about baseball (rules, etiquette, anything...) He was going up coaching against a lot of his friends and colleagues who had been all-star coaches for a while, so he was really sticking his neck out there. Plus, he traveled a lot...sometimes, he would leave at 4AM to visit an out-of-state client to get back in time to coach a game that evening...

A lot of the season, he had to pull me aside and ask questions about what he was doing...and it was pretty embarassing and inconvenient for him at times. But he made a huge sacrifice so I could play. It might seem small, but to me, it was huge. It wasn't until a couple of years ago that I finally realized how big that was.

[Tator]

Some of the best times I had with my dad was playing "stick ball" in the yard. If you don't know what Stick ball is, basically you take some aluminum foil and ball enough of it up until its just bigger than a golf ball. THen you cover it several layers of electrical tape, thus you have the "ball". Next you take an old broom handle and cut it to the length of a bat, thus the "stick". Same rules as baseball.

It always amazes me that I ever struck out in baseball because I could knock the snot out of that little tape ball with a broom handle every time.


Another set of great memories was working in our 1.5 acre garden with my dad and brothers. Oh, I thought it SUCKED at the time, most of the garden work occurred during summer break and that last thing I wanted to do was waste my time working in a hot as heck garden! But looking back, I cherish that time as a family. It was tough work, but we had some fun too. When it came time to harvest the tomatoes, all the rotten ones became ammunition! We stunk to high heaven after those "food fights", but I smile everytime I think about now.

Those were a few among many happy memories and thankfully my Idol, my Hero of Heros is still with us. I often find myself wondering if my kids realize just how truly great a man he is before he heads home to the Lord. I think they are too young now to realize it now.

I can say this much. If I can only be half the man, the father, and the husband my dad is, I'll consider my life a success.

[geechee]

what is a special memory you have with him.....

my Dad went to EVERY game I ever played in and whether or not I got to talk to him afterwards or not, the memory of his face in the crowd is .....more special than words can say

My dad went to GaTech so I never had that,:laugh:

[JerryBeeds]

My dad went to GaTech so I never had that,:laugh:

My dad went to Clemson and UGA. :laugh:

[geechee]

My dad went to Clemson and UGA. :laugh:

No wonder we are both free thinkers.

[GatorBait15]

I live with my Dad and I don't know what I could do without him really.