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The wit and wisdom of my father
I am reading Poor Charlie’s Almanack, a collection of musings and speeches by Charles Munger, who died in 2023 at age 99 as one of the world’s richest men. He was Vice Chairman of Berkshire-Hathaway and partner to Warren Buffet.
Charlie and I share a historical hero: Benjamin Franklin, a fountain of inexhaustible wit and wisdom and, in my opinion, one of the 100 most influential and important figures in world history. Franklin wrote Poor Richard’s Almanack, thus the chosen name for Charlie’s book and this article.
With Father’s Day approaching, my mind has frequently returned to my youth and early adulthood and to the man who, despite my intermittent reluctance to the idea, most influenced me.
William David Strother was born on March 20, 1940. He died on March 28, 1991. He was 51 years and eight days old.
Dad was a car man and a preacher man. He was a Cadillac man and a Baptist. He was only formally educated to the 11th grade when economic circumstances compelled him to leave school and work to help support his parents and sister.
Dad had a brain for math. He could work large figures in his head as fast as you could tally them on an adding machine. It was a nice parlor trick and evidence of an exceptional IQ.
Sing a song, song man
Dad had a decent enough voice. He could carry a tune but he was not a singer unless you count the fact that he sang all the time at work, at home, to Mom.
“Have I told you lately that I love you”
“I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles”
“The Battle of New Orleans”
“There is Power in the Blood”
This is not a complete song list or even close, but these represent the man and why he sang.
“Have I Told You Lately” was one of the songs he would sing to Mom. He did love her with his whole being. No one was left to doubt that. He leaned on her, as he was given to melancholy and uncertainty while she was as steady as Democrats raising taxes and as sturdy as the rock in Morro Bay, California.
“I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles” represents Dad’s lament of the elusive success a small businessman pursues. He often told people that D&F did not stand for David & Freda but for David & First National Bank.
“The Battle of New Orleans” is a funny song about a vital battle in the War of 1812. Dad sang it for my sister and me when we were young. My sister especially loved it and requested it on every road trip.
“There is Power in the Blood” is the gospel hymn I most associated with Dad. Sometimes in the small churches he served as a bivocational pastor, he was pressed into service as the “song leader.” He loved to lead the congregation in Power In the Blood. He sang all four verses and would increase the number of “powers” each time, by double.
The chorus goes like this: “There is power, power, wonder-working power in the blood of the Lamb; there is power, power, wonder-working power in the precious blood of the Lamb.” In the place of “power, power,” he would fit, “power, power, power, power” in the second verse, and then eight powers in the third, and 16 in the fourth. It was exhausting and fun and indicative of his unwavering faith in Jesus Christ and the Resurrection, the redemption of sin.
These songs and a host of others, many of them Hank Williams ballads, filled the space he occupied. He usually only stopped singing to cuss when riled. I got both my cussing and love for the sacred from my father, whose feet were clay but whose heart was gold.
Say something I will remember, Dad
Dad was a quipper. He quipped. My uncle and I worked for Dad at D&F from a very early age. We heard them all and some we heard often. I am 62 now and can still hear him
“You’d sooner go bear hunting with a switch than mess with me, boy.”
“You’d rather climb a tree and lie than stand on the ground and tell the truth.”
“I don’t have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of.”
“You’ll shit and fall back in it, too.” (In response to a brag.)
“Go butt a rubber stump.”
“If I tell you a grasshopper can pull a stagecoach, hitch him up.”
OK, so most of his quips had a negative vibe but they taught me valuable lessons, like:
If you are a bantamweight, don’t start a fight with a heavyweight.
Lying creates unnecessary work, like remembering what you said.
Poverty is a missed paycheck away for most people.
Don’t brag before you do it or after.
Don’t bother people too much.
Be somebody everybody can believe.
Preach it, Preacherman
Dad pastored a few small churches in one-horse towns along the way. He never gave up his auto repair business to do it; he just juggled the two. I must have heard him preach hundreds of times but can only remember one sermon title: Getting What You Want and Missing What You Need.”
I do not recall the Scripture passage he used for his text or the exact things he said. I guess I tuned him out royally because I remember so many sermons from other preachers. The gist of the sermon was how people get in the way of their salvation or what is ultimately best for them by being foolishly willful, hard-headed, and short-sighted. They let the immediate take precedence over the future when they will live with the consequences of such foolishness.
I see you, Dad
I was 15 years old and committed to becoming a preacher when I grew up. Only, why wait until later when opportunities presented themselves even then?
I preached at the church where my maternal grandfather was the pastor and we were members when Dad didn’t have his own congregation. The sermon went well. You could mightily feel the Spirit moving and the energy in the sanctuary. Afterward, there were hugs, back slaps, tears, and predictions of “God’s got big things for you, boy.”
On the ride home, I sat in the backseat. I wanted more than all of the accolades of the congregants a word from my father. I wanted to know he was proud of me. He was. I saw it in his eyes when he looked at me in the rearview mirror.
What he saw in that mirror made him proud but also worried him.
“Son,” he said, “God has given you a gift few people have. That is a big responsibility. Don’t let the praise of people go to your head. ‘Pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.'”
He quoted Solomon to me. He warned me about making things all about me, about getting too wrapped up in the acknowledgment of others.
Here I write 47 years later and I wonder who will read it. How many will see it? Will anyone “like” it? Foolish pride tells me that matters when what ought to matter is that I give what I have and let God see to the rest.
I see you, Dad. I hear you, too
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