By Roger Grossman
News Now Warsaw
WARSAW — You’ll see a lot of printed columns and videos in tribute to fathers in the days leading up to Father’s Day this Sunday.
Please add me, quite proudly, to that list.
My dad was a big strong guy. He was about 5’10” tall, with a barreled chest and a strong jaw.
He never lifted weights, but he was strong as an ox.
He was a tractor mechanic at a small sales and service operation in the tiny town of Athens east of Rochester.
He worked there for his entire adult life — basically from the time he graduated from Plymouth High School in the late 1940’s until he suffered the first in a series of strokes over the course of a week that took his life in 2005.
As I stood in front of the church and spoke of who Dale Grossman was that early spring day, I described him as a man who was always in control but never controlling. He was the kind of person who seemed to know everything about every kind of combustible engine ever made.
He could listen to a running tractor as its owner held up the telephone receiver to the kitchen window and have a 90-percent success rate in diagnosing the problem.
My dad could take any tractor made to perform any job and make it sing a song of his own choosing.
He was creative and clever. He took the oddest collection of inanimate objects and turned them into something that was functional if not aesthetically pleasing. The doghouse in my backyard, made of old pallets and leftover roofing shingles, is the perfect example of that.
Another is the temporary air filter he created using one of the socks he was wearing underneath his work boot.
He was also a very ironic man.
As strong as he was with a tool in his hand, he was quiet and unassuming.
In my 18 years at home, I can remember him raising his voice only three times…THREE! I am sure that he wanted to let his voice roar more often, but he chose to hold it in instead.
He never saw himself as a teacher, but he stood in front of a group of people at his church and opened the Word every week.
In a world where there are only “takers” and “givers,” he was a master giver.
A farmer would call the shop in Athens in the late afternoon and ask him to stop by their place on the way home to take a look at one of their machines — and he never said “no.”
And that farmer, realizing the time Dad devoted to swinging by on the way home, fed him supper. Dad had every right to charge him for that time, but he never did. He told the farmer, “Supper is all the payment I need.”
He spent many Thursday evenings driving through the countryside, stopping at people’s houses to see if they had a home church and talking to them about Jesus.
And when his chest stopped heaving and he breathed his last that Wednesday night, twenty years ago, many people lost something in their lives — devoted one-woman husband, faithful dad, trusted spiritual leader, reliable handyman, and friend.
I realize that many of you reading this don’t have or never have had that kind of relationship with your own dad.
I am so sorry. I know this time of year can be very painful for you, or it used to be and now it’s just not anymore.
I am not my dad. When my loud mouth is silenced, those who remember me will not do so with the same loving tributes as they did with Dad. I accept that as truth. I don’t deserve it like he did.
But I will tell you that there are things that I have tried to follow in my Dad’s footsteps in accomplishing, and I would like to share them with you, with the hope that maybe you or someone near you can be inspired by him.
First, be honest. No matter how hard that might be, tell people the truth. And do it with grace — with an arm around them or a hand on their shoulder.
Second, be a “giver.” I’m not talking about financially giving, necessarily. I am talking about being someone who finds a passion for something that benefits someone else and pouring yourself into that. Being a “giver” means you will bring life and positive energy to any room you walk into, and we don’t have enough of that kind of people in the world.
Finally, finish the job. My dad was of the thinking that “you don’t quit until the job is done.”
For him, that meant late nights in the work building at our house. It meant Saturdays and sunny days spent lying on his back on a piece of cardboard, staring up at the bottom of a vehicle or piece of farm equipment.
I got none of his creativity. I have none of his ability to fix stuff. Ninety-five percent of everything I try to make or build fails. And I know how to operate a car, but I will never understand how it really works.
But I hope that someday, the person charged with standing up to say a few words about me will be able to say that I was at least ok at these three things.
Thanks, Dad. See you soon.
