Proverbs 15:5

"A fool despises his father's instruction, but he who recieves correction is prudent."
Proverbs 15:5

I was led to this passage. I think it prudent to return to the Wood Box and recieve some correction and advice from my dumbdumbdaddyo. I was so foolish when I was young you couldn't tell me anything and now when I am finally willing to listen its too late.

I felt sorry for myself for a lot of years and he wasn't up for giving me this Rocky talk, but he didn't have too. My Dad took more hits and kept moving forward than anyone I have ever met. He knew life wasn't all sun shine and rainbows!

When I was in the sixth grade I couldn't read. My Dad gave me a paperback of Rocky because he knew how much I loved the movie. He said, "Read this, the book is always better than the movie." First book I ever read cover to cover. He would have loved Rocky Balboa. I dedicate this clip to my DDD>




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaaVs5W6T6s&feature=fvwrel  Lessons from Mick!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPnudujlBZI&feature=related  You want something go get it. Period.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCq7eGKcs-w&feature=related  Happiness.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVVsDIv98TA&feature=related  Do not do that thing!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zle0ZgkH4dw&feature=related  You are evil like a Hobbit.

Tyler and Emma, Our latest boy and girl.

Tyler and Emma 2012. So blessed to be dog parents of these two!

Henry and Gracie, Our First Boy and Girl

Henry and Gracie in 2000. Back when we used to roll in a Lexus!

Sammy D, My First Boy!

My roommate Scott brought home Sam as a puppy and asked if I wanted to share ownership of him. Co- mastership of his new puppy so to speak and he said I think he likes you better anyway. Sam our new puppy proceeded to chew up every one of Scott’s valued possessions and left everything of mine untouched. Sam was a Chow Lab and was unlike any other dog I have ever met. We lived in Maryland for two years and then I moved to Colorado. Sam loved Colorado. He blossomed into super-dog when we moved to the base of Basalt Mountain. He loved the snow. Loved it. Every day for seven years he thanked me over and over again for leaving Baltimore and moving to Aspen. A friend once told me if you always have a dog you will find yourself living in better places. I find that to be true. This picture of Sammy D is from some random bush-whacking hike with TVA and Wild Bill overlooking Old Snowmass and Elk Camp. We hiked Mount Elbert twice Sam and I! 14.4K tallest in Colorado and camped on Mount Sopris many times. Sam was the most human dog I’ve ever known. For nine years he was my Yoda. He was my home. He would have loved Emma and had his hands full with Tyler, but back in the day he had Kind Dog to raise and Stinky Moe to love. Because of Stinky Moe Suzy liked me. Morgan was Torre’s red haired Golden Retriever and Kind Dog and Lukey were here pups. Sam was the Alpha Male in a six dog house. Sam knew things other dogs didn’t know like karate. Chow Karate. Whenever a really big dog would bear down on him he would always somehow flip them on their backs dive into the dog’s jugular and hold on for the ride and they always submit whining and whimpering. Not just a few dogs, but all dogs over nine years of rarely wearing a leash. I think it was because his neck was bigger than his head and early on he became an escape artist with even the tightest collars the leash became useless. But he never wanted to be anywhere but by my side anyways so that didn’t matter unless there was a porcupine nearby. He tangled with four killed one. Prairie Dogs didn’t stand a chance when he was ninja stealth mode. Oh and UPS guys. He had gotten maised by a UPS guy back in Baltimore and he never forgot it. The drivers pulled up to one of our trucks and delivered on the roof without ever getting out of their trucks. The Fed Ex guy and mail man fine, but Sam would never again tolerate a man in brown.

I got to go black tie a couple of times with my DDD.

My senior year of high school the Washington Touchdown Club had their annual awards dinner and were awarding my teammate Anthony Dilweg the high school offensive player of the year. My Dad bought us tickets at a table close to the front in a huge ballroom downtown. I remember him saying that it was special opportunity for him to show me what really good looked like. We had been to other events, one where I sat with and had pictures taken with Joe Thiesman and Sunny Jerginson. This night was different. The MCs were Johnny Carson and Don Rickles and they would do each other doing each other together and it was hilarious. It was as tho my Dad knew everyone. He was in his element and I wish I remembered more. Once during the night he saw me go into a serious ADHD over stimulated coma and said to me, "Don't worry about it, you don't need to know any of these people, but look into the faces of each of these award winners because this is a special bunch athletes! Your gonna wanna remember this one for ever." Cal Ripken Jr. was awarded Rockie of the Year and I got to shake his hand. Joe Jacoby and Dave Butts won offensive and defensive lineman of the year. Joe Theisman and John Riggins won awards and had just won a super bowl. My friend Anthony called me over to the head table and introduced me to Butts and Jacoby and we snapped some pictures. Anthony had thrown for 3,900 during our high school football season and this night made me realize how special that really was. I was defensive captain and he was offensive captain and we would walk out early for coin tosses and I really wish I remembered more of back then. I had a bunch of concussions and I remember after one half time when we were heading back up to the field and I asked him, "Are we winning? And he looked at me like I was joking so I laughed it off." But I digress. My Dad introduced me to some pretty remarkable individuals and he always pointed out who he taught special. Anthony was one of those people and that is why we were there.

It is a mystery

On New Years Eve I took my daughter to Citimarket and when we got home Tyler, our Golden got out and ran across the street and was barking at the neighbors dogs through their fence. I dropped the groceries ran over and twisted my ankle on the edge of their drive way. I heard a pop but I didn't go down all the way. I grabbed Tyler by the collar and dragged him limpping back to our house. Suzy came out and grabbed the dogs and groceries and I sat on my driveway until the really bad pain went away. I iced my ankle for about half an hour and then realized I didn't have my wallet or Blackberry. I traced my steps from the grociery store to the ankle twist, twice. Nothing. I lost my wallet and phone. I looked everywhere for two days, nonstop and finally gave in and started replacing everything.

Twenty days latter Neil and June, next door neighbors to the dog barking ankle twisting neighbors across the street. Earlier that day June had found my wallet and phone laying in their yard. Twenty days latter, right where they would have been plainly seen, my phone and wallet are untouched by weather or cold or whatever we've had here in Fruita over the last 20 days in January.

Thank you for the mystery and the lesson. Sometimes no matter how hard you look you might not find what your looking for. Also stuff can be replaced except for the youth in my previous drivers liecense from twelve years ago. I don't know who the guy is on my new DL but man he looks old.

Since I was on vacation and my girls where home from school all of this went down under the view of eight feminine eyes. My wife and three daughters had to put up me pacing around like a gorrilla looking in all the same places over and over again. Growling and moaning and feeling sorry for myself. Just call me Dumb Dumb DaddyYo!

"Sometimes the things that may or may not be true are the things that a man has to believe in most...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXn5-r8mj-s

I did not do Robert Duval justice in my last post. He gives wise old uncle advice that's worth checking out.

"Sometimes the things that may or may not be true are the things that a man has to believe in most. That people are basically good That honor, courage and virtue mean everything. That power and money money and power means nothing. That good always triumphs over evil. And I want you to remember this that love, true love never dies. Remember that boy. You remember that whether they are true or not a man should believe in those things because those are the things believing in."

Second Hand Lions 
By Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat

Second Hand Lions

On a previous post Big J recomened Kunf Fu Panda 2. Shortly before leaving his place he gave me Second Hand Lions for the girls to watch on our way home, 5 hours through the Rockies. They watched in the back seat and I only listened while driving, but what a great movie to listen too, chuck full of fatherly advice to the seekers of manhood. In this blog I have shared a lot; the awsomeness of Kung Fu's Po (The Dragon Warrior), my own health problems, advice from my father, woodbox wisdom, dumb dumb daddyos and among other things, what it was like growing up the son of a Champion.

If this blog has become anything it has become a collection of fatherly advice.

It has been weeks since listening to Second Hand Lions and lines from that movie keep coming back to me. One it has taken me this long to start to get. The heroic Uncle is talking to his Nephew with no intention of verifying any of the wild stories told about him (from the voice it has to be the, "Smells like victory..." guy from Apocalypse Now).

"The things you need to believe in most are the things that may be untrue."
Heroic Uncle, Second Hand Lions

For me, God, Jesus, Love, my memories, my destiny...

The 1953 National Champion University of Maryland Terrapins

Scot A. posted this on my wall in Facebook.

My Dad was #44 fourth from right, second from the top. It was his Senior year and he always did say he was pretty small for every position he ever played. Standing behind that giant #77 kind of brings the point home. He looks fierce. He doesn't look anything like I remember him. It is definitely his Marine face expression but on a much different face. The guy in the picture looks like a handsome tough guy. That guy isn't my big jovial dumb dumb daddy-o. That guy is a champion!

Sometime early in his career at Maryland he had taken a knee to the top of his helmet and it shattered most of his teeth. He said he spent everything he had on the gold the Dentist students at U of M installed for free as a bridge and fake teeth. He said he spent months in the dentist chair. He said he didn't miss a game or a practice. He said it was only a mouthful of shattered teeth.

Maybe this was the source of one of his daddyoism, "It only hurts when I breathe!" When I would get hurt or injured and I did that a lot. He'd say something like, "Come on, you'll be fine, it will only hurt when you breathe!"

University of Maryland 1953

Facebook rocks!

Scot A. pposted this picture of his grandparents and father. I love the V for victory! So much more class than we are number one! But they were number one and I have Dumb Dumb Daddy-O's letter jacket to prove it. It has a Sugar Bowl National Champion patch on it.

Look at the joy on their faces. Mr A. looks awesome, he was twenty, strapping, handsome. Talk about the best of times.

I  asked my Dad what it was like winning all those bowl games and he said it was kinda like winning the war. But at the end of the games you knew the season was over and it was OK to celebrate. But after marrying your mother and having you children those things don't mean as much as you might think. It's who you choose to be right now that matters!