BEUEKEMA: Father's Day is about the memories of dad

As a kid I knew my dad ruled the roost. He was the breadwinner and decision maker, and when needed, the disciplinarian.

Dads were looked up to, respected, and usually set a good example for his family to follow.

You went hunting with dad when you were a youngster. There were no hunter safety classes. You learned how to handle a firearm safely, how to clean and load it, and what game was in season from your dad.

Angling was fishing, plain and simple. When dad wasn't working he might be out in a boat or on a riverbank wetting a line. Kids went along and learned how to bait a hook, catch a fish, and in those days, straighten out a backlash.

It was dad who went along with you on that first campout, showing you how to set the tent up, choosing a level spot, trenching around it in case of rain, and how to stow your equipment.

My dad worked seven days a week, usually 10 hours a day and was happy to do it.

"Do you know that GM even pays me not to take a vacation," he proudly told me once when I asked if we could take a trip that next summer.

But times have changed. In many homes today, dad isn't in the picture. Lots of children are being raised by a mother who is trying to be that bread winner, set a good example, hand out the discipline, keep a clean and orderly house, wash clothes, put food on the table and in her spare time, maybe get the kids to the beach for a day of sun and fun.

Unless a mother today was raised around some outdoor sports there isn't much she can do to help teach a child the difference between crank bait or a spoon.

Sooner than she thinks, her young son is going to want a baseball glove and ball to play catch in the yard.

When football season rolls around it will be a football and maybe a helmet that comes next. Pretty soon it's ice hockey and the list of sports go on and on.

It's mom that gets elected to play catch, throw a football, shoot hoops in the driveway or try to help lace up skates.

This Sunday, BBQs will be firing up, the secret rub for ribs will be spread out, corn still in the husk will have been soaking in a 5-gallon bucket overnight, mom's potato salad and baked beans have been prepared, and that favorite desert will be ready.

In many families everyone will be there except dad. Perhaps he's passed on or because of marital difficulties, he may be out of the picture.

My own dad passed away passed away 23 years ago and I still think of him daily. Time does dull the pain of loss, but memories remain.

The older my dad got the more he was content with sitting in a recliner and watching the Tigers play. If there was a race involving Indy cars, that took precedent over anything else.

When we lived on the west side of the state we might go to my uncle Sam's house for dinner with some of our relatives.

My uncle used to throw the baseball or "have a catch" as he called it. He never tired of throwing a baseball.

Or if Lake Michigan wasn't kicking up too much of a fuss, we would all get aboard his boat and go for a ride out Spring Lake, down the Grand River and into the Big Lake as Lake Michigan was and still is called.

With so many relatives gone, we've become the center of attention during Mother's and Father's day.

Both my wife and I are content to stay home and as the kids say today, chill or hang out.

We have one son and a grandson that live here in Michigan. Our other three children and their children are spread out around the world.

They aren't about to show up to sit in the backyard and eat ribs then fly back to the UK, Germany or South Korea.

The thing time has done to all of us is to help make the change from being children ourselves to the fathers and mothers and grandparents we are.

My dad was mechanically inclined. He tried to teach me about tools and cars but I didn't know a hammer from a crescent wrench.

A lot of his knowledge came from the school of learning as you went. He jumped out a window in the 6th grade and never returned.

That didn't stop him from learning. In the days of midget racing on dirt tracks he was a "wrench" or mechanic for local racing legend John Wohlfeil, then later, Sam Hanks, Parnelli Jones, Bill Holland and Paul Russo, all who graduated to Indy car racing and some even winning the big race.

In the mid 1950's he began work on fuel control for the F-100 Super Sabre Jet, the nations number one line of defense at the time. His work took him to Fairbanks, Alaska and other bases.

Shortly after WWII he worked for Michigan's Continental Motors specializing in maintaining Army tanks, testing the newer models.

After a long layoff from Ford Motor Company, he went to the local library and checked out every book he could find on diesel engines, took them home and read them all.

Eventually he became a dynamometer operator at General Motors Diesel where engines were actually ran under a load and tested before being shipped to a customer.

He had a very broad working experience during his life beginning with driving a team of horses on a farm in Lamont, Michigan.

He briefly drove a truck for one of his brothers. Another brother, Chuck, was a Michigan State Trooper who would just as soon lock his mother up as anyone else.

My dad got a kick out of telling about the time he was hauling a truckload of illegal liquor out of Chicago to Michigan.

His brother Chuck was assigned to the Paw Paw Post at the time. Dad said he would stop by the post and have coffee or a bite to eat with his brother.

"You don't have any booze on that truck do you Ed," his brother would ask. "No, just some steel parts for Ford," was often the answer.

Sunday, be sure and set aside time for dad to play nine holes of golf, get out on the lake, or pitch horsehoes.

The main thing is to be together and remember to chill for the day.

Roger Beukema writes a weekly outdoors column for 21st Century Media. Email him at and follow his blog at