REMEMBERING MY DEAR OLD DAD!

Monday, January 6^th, 2025

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

 

 

REMEMBERING MY DEAR OLD DAD!

 

In this week’s column, can I divert from my usual agenda of politics and current events?  If he were still living, my Father would have reached the rip age of 110 this week.

 

In his work The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud describes the death of a father, as “the most important event, the most potent loss, of a man’s life.”  This is true in my case.  What I have discovered is that the older I get, the better I understand my Father, because I find more and more of him in me.

 

My Father was kind and gentle, and rarely raised his voice to me. One of the things I remember most was his sound advice and his continuing presence.  Even though he traveled a good deal as a vice president for the Kansas City Southern Railroad, he rarely missed any of my hundreds of ball games and track meets. In the spring of 1962, I was contending to be the hurdles champion at the Atlantic Coast Conference track meet in Raleigh, North Carolina. As the race was about to begin, I happened to look up into the stands. There was my Dad standing up and ready to watch me run. He had traveled two days by train and over 1000 miles unannounced to cheer me on.

 

During my numerous statewide campaigns for public office, no one campaigned harder for me than my Dad.  He would travel and speak to numerous civic clubs all over North Louisiana, wearing a vest that said: “I’m Jim Brown’s Father.”  Few patriarchs could ever have been more committed and more loving.

 

I could never fulfill his decency, and his family commitment. I’ve tried, but my Father set the bar so high. Oscar Wilde wrote that “I find it harder and harder every day to live up to my blue china.”  He was embracing a view that it was so often difficult to meet the high standard that was is expected of him.  I too have spent much of my grown-up life trying to live up to my Father’s blue china.

 

I’m not one to express my emotions publicly. I don’t cry often. When my brother called to tell me that my Dad died, our family was immediately immersed in the details of comforting my mother and making funeral arrangements. Late in the evening, the reality of his loss came true to me. My Father had died. I said it out loud repeatedly as my wife Gladys tried to comfort me. All the emotion of losing him, someone who had been such an important part of my life, came forth. My Dad had died. I lay there in bed, 

and I cried, and I cried.

 

I still remember a pub song I used to sing while attended Cambridge University in England some 60 years ago.

 

I don’t know where I’m going,

But when I get there, I’ll be glad.

 I’m following in father’s footsteps.

I’m following my dear old Dad.

 

My Father was a deeply religious man. His mother saw to it. She too was quite devout, and attended church services twice a day on Sunday and often on Wednesday evening. Sweetie Pearl (I love her name) was a member of the Eastern Star, a group with strong Christian overtones that also does volunteer work in their community.  Dad was a Third Degree Mason, a group the follows the same attributes as the Eastern Star organization.

 

Dad was also a regular churchgoer, and served as a deacon. He attended church services several times a week, but more than that, he would often watch services on television. He sent checks to televangelists, particularly the Reverend Jimmy Swaggart.  I thought he should concentrate his giving at the church he regularly attended. But I could not say much about Brother Swaggart, since he was from my hometown of Ferriday, and one of my first legal clients.

  

I’ve always been a fan of singer Dan Fogelberg. My favorite of his songs is titled “Leader of the Band.”  I thank you for your kindness and the times when you got tough, and Papa, I don’t think I said I love you near enough. So well said. Thank you Dad. Happy birthday. I sure miss you.

 

Peace and Justice

Jim Brown

Jim Brown’s syndicated column appears each week in numerous newspapers throughout the nation and on websites worldwide. You can read all his past columns and see continuing updates at http://www.jimbrownla.com.