Father's Day

As Father’s Day approaches, I think back to the early days with my father, Ora Dean.  His temperament and personality were a combination of strength and gentleness.  A police officer, fingerprint expert, crack shot, and former professional boxer who taught youths in the Golden Gloves, Dad provided a good example for all of his family.
 
While I did not follow in his footsteps as an athlete, I try to emulate his example as a good citizen, family man, and professional worker.  He and my Mom raised eight children, fed the homeless, and were kind to their neighbors and others in our Midwestern town of Kirkwood, Missouri.
 
At the age of four, playing with some children down the street from our house, I saw my father exhibit an act of courage and neighborly concern.  There was some commotion across the street and the mother of my friend called us into the house.  As I watched from their dining room window, I saw my Dad arrive in a Police Car with his partner in the rider’s seat.
 
Dad got out from behind the wheel and walked slowly around the car.  Dad held out his hand, and the black man living at the house across the street placed a gun in it.  (Two next-door neighbors on that side of the street had gotten into a heated argument.)  Dad knew the man he took the gun from who worked at the local Post Office.
 
In another incident reported in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat newspaper, my Father was called a “peacemaker” when he settled another argument.  Two young black men, sons of a man in the trash business, got into an altercation with the manager of a service station over the condition of their pick-up truck.  The white man pulled a gun on them.  One of the brothers ran home to get his gun.  Dad arrived on the scene and worked out a settlement.
 
In later years I asked my Father if he had charged anyone with a crime in the two cases mentioned.  “Charge anyone,” he replied, indignantly!  “They’d have gotten in trouble if I had charged them with anything.”  Asked if he had any trouble with any of the individuals involved in these two incidents later, Dad said not at all.  He knew his neighbors and how to work with them.
 
Another happening I witnessed as a child, expressing my father’s concern for all God’s creatures, took place on the lawn of our Parish Church, outdoors during the Feast of Corpus Christi.  A baby bird had fallen out of its nest, and Dad climbed the tree and replaced the young one tenderly in its nest.  As he climbed the tree, my Father’s gun and holster dangled from below his suit coat.  (One of the few times I saw him out of uniform!)
 
Happy Father’s Day!
 
James Dean