National Write Your Story Day is March 14; a day that encourages you to put pen to paper and chronicle your own adventures. Here is a chapter from one man’s son:
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My Daddy used to tell me that a short pencil is better than a long memory. So, rather than rely on a long memory to recollect my life’s experiences and thoughts, I am taking up a short pencil to write them down.
Dan Mathis was simple in many ways – but he had a deep appreciation for science, for technology, for nature, for all of God’s creation.
When I was little, Dad would see a floodlight in the night sky and he would gather the family and go search for the source – like looking for gold at the end of a rainbow. We would find the origin of the giant spotlight and we would ooh and aah at the new car dealership or whatever it was.
If it was a carnival at the foot of the floodlight, he might treat us kids to a ride in the bumper cars. But more than the amusement park thrill, I like the fact that Dad would look into the night sky in the first place, notice the unnatural light in the distance, have the curiosity to wonder what it was for, and then act on his impulse.
Daddy loved trains – and he would sometimes travel a thousand miles just to ride on them. “The destination is not important,” he would say, “the journey is all the fun.” Was it the movement of the rails beneath his feet that compelled him, like a moth to the flame, to seek it out?
We rode the Daylight to Del Rio, Texas, and watched the back yards of the city turn into throngs of people gathered in each small town to wave at the famous train from the West Coast – and we would wave back, happy as kids in a candy store.
We rode the Chihuahua al Pacífico choo-choo through the Copper Canyon of Mexico and enjoyed days of changing scenery – from the desert, to the mountains, to the Gulf of California. And we enjoyed the ambiance and personality of every place we went.
One of our locomotive thrills was when I took Daddy and his brothers to ride the Eagle, the miniature train in San Antonio. One buys a ticket at the Brackenridge Park station but can get on and off at the stops for free. Uncles George and Winford laughed and laughed that we “hopped a train like a couple of hobos.”
Daddy loved trains, but he loved planes too. He used to take the family out to the airport when I was a kid – just to watch the jets take off and land. It was what we did on a Saturday afternoon.
He would watch the huge passenger planes take off so slowly in the distance and marvel at the engineering that could make that happen, the ascent of man into the atmosphere. And after a while, his enthusiasm would infect me and I would beg for the binoculars to watch the wonder.
Dad’s appreciation for nature took him on countless camping trips but sometimes only to the front yard when it rained. He would stand in his London Fog slicker, overalls tucked into rubber boots, and he would water the lawn with a hose, squirting an errant leaf this way or that, soaking a brown patch of grass, but mostly just enjoying the rain.
Maybe in some metaphysical sense, he became the rain. Daddy became immersed in the rain as if it would whet his appetite for life.
In the same way with water, Daddy would play with fire. He would squirt a big bunch of lighter fluid on the charcoal, ostensibly for a bar-be-que dinner, but I think he just loved to watch the flames.
One time, when the coals didn’t catch, and he began to fan the flame with a Frisbee, I playfully suggested he use his leaf blower. He laughed, went into the garage, and came out with 50 feet of extension cord and his leaf blower.
The flames shot up in no time but he kept the blower on it until the coals were nearly exhausted. This combined the best of nature and technology. He would play with fire but he did not get burned.
Daddy loved science and nature programs on television. We would watch Wild Kingdom and my brother and I would screech and scratch like little monkeys. Later, when cable TV came out, Daddy would watch the National Geographic wildlife specials. My other brother called it “The Monkey Channel” for all of Dian Fossey‘s gorillas and Jane Goodall‘s chimpanzees. Daddy loved nature.
For years, Daddy subscribed to Popular Mechanics magazine. I don’t think he ever built any of the projects in the periodical but he would marvel at the thought of a self-propelled thingamajig or a flying contraption – and he would dream.
He was not an engineer but for years he worked on his own cars. He was not a scientist but he loved contemplating the possibilities of biology and technology.
I went to see the largest train in America 25 years after his death – and I saw the ghost of my father, some old man smiling in his overalls admiring the Big Boy locomotive. I know my old man would have enjoyed that.
I get caught in a rainstorm on my bicycle and think, “What would Daddy do?” I smile at the memory of him and ride on in the rain. I make a bar-be-que and in the flames, I see my father’s happy face, and send my memories of him to him on the rising smoke.
I assimilated my father’s value of wonder, his interest in physics, his appreciation for nature, and his love for being in the moment. Thank you, Dad, for the inheritance.
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Photo: Courtesy of Author