Publisher’s note: the editor -in -chief of Mirror Sports Retired, Jim Lane, wrote this chronicle after his father, Kermit Lane, died in 1987. He reprinted each Fathers Day.
Sunday is Fathers’ Day. It’s a chance to say to your favorite guy thank you for everything he has been and made for you over the years. It is generally celebrated with a small gift, perhaps a shirt or a tie or a wallet.
In many cases, few words are expressed.
And it’s a shame.
I wrote this chronicle for fathers a few weeks after my father’s death because I missed him. I always do it. A day does not pass that I do not think of him.
He was special.
From the start, he instilled in me that it is not a physical size that makes an athlete or a person. It is the size of his heart.
I remember trying to bring together enough courage to tell him, him and a mother, that I wanted to abandon the university of my junior year and pursue a career in sports writing. I should not have been surprised that after a discussion from heart to heart, they gave their blessing.
Over the years, he has always been impressed, I have been able to meet and rub the elbows with well -known athletes and see the sporting events that few have done.
He never asked me if I never regretted not becoming a teacher. Of course, he knew that when I married Jean, I had the best of both worlds – a woman and a job that I loved both. Only the addition of a few big children could improve it. They did it and did.
Dad thought that if you wanted something bad enough, you should go. This is why he and mom gave their blessing – even if it broke his heart – when my sister and his family moved to California.
Dad was a little man in stature, but he was tall in other respects.
Even if he was often on leave of the railway during the holidays or when graduation, we did not miss much.
One of my most beautiful childhood memories is a miniature golf course that he built in our backyard. It was not a miniature golf course as we know it today. Soup cans have been placed in the ground for cups and sticks were shaved in golf clubs.
But it was like Augusta for me.
I could not start to estimate the number of hours he and my deceased uncle, don, spent in the baseball field with my cousin, Tom and me. We hit and take the inner field until we thought we were falling, and we loved every minute.
Thank you in part to the Pennsylvania railroad, I grew up rooted for the Yankees. PRR employees obtained travel passes for their families and were able to follow trains for free. Our allocation has generally been reserved for ball games in New York and Philadelphia.
I remember attending nine rain rounds in Philadelphia, and a young knock named Mickey Mantle came out of the Yankee canoe to pinch a big slam on the Old Shibe Park roof.
And there was the moment when Dad launched an online journey in the stands behind the first base and giving it to me while the fans applauded. He never started, although the injury in his hand had to be almost unbearable.
But he never talked about pain and he had his share. Cancer took my mother to him before he could take advantage of retirement, and he never asked why, at least not for me. Even in his last days, when all his strength had been drained, he did not complain.
We had our share of laughter and tears, our share of ups and downs, but he was still there when I needed him. I would just like to tell him more often.
So take a moment today to tell your father that you love him. And hug your mom while you are there.
Jim Lane retired full -time work at Mirror in 2002 but is part of the Mirror family.