William Henry Burkhart - and make no mistake about it, he hated formality and would set you straight in a heartbeat that he did not like being called "sir" and that he preferred to be called "just plain Bill" - was my father. I'm so proud of that fact. I inherited a number of good non-material things from him, including what is perhaps my biggest asset (at least I am told this), my gentle nature.
Dad was born on August 16th, 1925 (having only a political blog with a narrow focus at the time I was unable to post this on the 16th of this month) and died on December 11, 1997. I think about him and miss him every day of my life. I would like to tell you a little bit about him. I only I wish I was able to post a picture of him at this time. Maybe in the near future.
My dad taught me that gentleness is not an unmanly characteristic. He worked hard in a factory until the day his broken health prevented him from doing it any longer. He was a deeply religious, but not a religious nut, a prude, or a pushy, preachy person. He had firm convictions and opinions, but neither shoved them down anyone's throat nor disputed with others of a different persuasion. He took care of his family, loved my mom until the day he died (even though, sadly, they divorced when I was 11), worked on cars for stranger, friend and family alike, liked to tinker with things, always planning but never quite getting around to building a workshop in the basement. He loved to tell jokes, the cornier the better, and laughed hard and often. He was not a complainer, always making the best of any situation he was faced with. Dang, how I admired him for that! He continued that sweet attitude all through his years of his declining health (caused by a series of strokes), the final fourteen years of his life, and never once through it all did I ever hear him complain.
My dad instilled in me a love and reverence for animals. He especially loved squirrels, which were plentiful where I grew up. Child-like, my friends and I would sometimes throw rocks at the squirrels as they scampered around the phone and electrical wires running from pole to pole and pole to house. If dad saw us (which was often) we would get a lecture.
My mother's brother was a hunter. He used to ask my dad repeatedly to go rabbit hunting with him on his farm, but Dad would always decline. Finally my uncle figured out it was because my dad was just too tenderhearted to kill animals. My uncle poked fun at dad over this, but it didn't sway him a bit; and my mother defended Dad's tenderheartedness (for it was the quality she liked best about him) to her brother and finally it just ceased to be an issue.
My favorite animal story concerning my father, one I heard him tell repeatedly and which was verified by other members of his family who were there (his mom and brothers), concerns a chicken he owned as a young boy. My mom still has an old faded picture of my father as a boy holding this pet chicken. Dad's chicken once got into some rat poison my grandmother had put out in the barn and this made it sick. My dad, not willing to give up his beloved pet, cut open this chicken (he told me that when he did this there actually was a puff of white because so much poison had been consumed) and cleaned out that bird's craw! Then he stitched it up with his mom's needle and thread. Believe it or not, that chicken actually recovered and lived on for some time. Like I said, dad was a tinkerer!
Dad also loved little children. He loved me and my little brother dearly and showed us in so very many ways. When he married my mom, she had an eighteen-month-old son from a previous marriage - my half-brother, although I never referred to him as anything else but my big brother (he too is gone now, damn it!). Anyway, Dad raised my big brother as if he were his own flesh and blood, never making the slightest distinction between his natural sons and his step-son. My brother always appreciated that. In fact, on the night my father died I called my brother to let him know. I still remember his exact words: "Doug, that's the only father I ever knew" (although he did know his "real" father, who was never around when he was growing up).
Dad used to teach a Sunday School class of young children at the church we attended. This continued until one of the men at the church made some wisecrack about Dad's fondness for one of his little female students. This troubled him so much that he gave up his class to avoid any hint of impropriety and never taught Sunday School again. That was sad and totally uncalled for. Dad would never have done a thing to hurt any child. In fact, he rarely disciplined his own kids, forcing Mom to be the "bad guy." All my childhood friends liked my father and were amused at how unadultlike he could be at times. And my brothers and I loved him all the more for it. When he was in his nursing home bed during the last years of his life, he would hold my little brother's young children by the hour, with a look of total contentment.
Another thing my father taught me is that all people are just people. One day when I was quite young, my dad brought out to our car (Mom and us kids had gone to pick him up from work) his best friend from his job because he wanted to introduce him to his family. Unbeknownst to us it was an older black man named Linc. That might not sound like much in 2008, but let me tell you, it was most unusual in the early to middle sixties deep in the Heart of Dixie! Old Linc was so fond of my dad that I remember one year for Christmas he bought and wrapped a carton of cigarettes as a present for him. (At the company where I have worked for the past fifteen years it was my pleasure to meet and work with two gentlemen, now retired, who knew and worked with my dad; it literally brought tears to my eyes as they spoke of - and these were their exact words - what "a fine man he was." He was, because he saw all people as people just like himself.
In 1968 when the first black family moved into our neighborhood, adjacent to our backyard and separated only by an alley, the head of the family, a Mr. Jenkins, would back out of his driveway and straight into a small part of our backyard in order to avoid a barn that sat on the edge of his property. This continued for some time and left a small portion of our backyard barren of grass. This was no big deal to my laid-back dad (we lived on a hill and the backyard was not used that much except as a ball field for us kids), he just figured that was less mowing to do. One afternoon there was knock on our front door and there stood Mr. Jenkins, and he proceeded to give my father a nice hunting knife as a gift for not saying anything about his using our backyard. Dad was speechless. He talked about it for months and never could figure out what the big deal was. My dad and Mr. Jenkins remained good friends until they finally lost touch.
I also remember hearing Dad talk about his war days (he fought overseas in World War II). He told us about his poker games with captured German soldiers and of sharing cigarettes with them. But Mr. Burkhart had German roots, you might say. Yes, but those Hun b*stards were our enemies they said. But not to my dad, who saw all people as people like himself. He said they had been drafted and didn't want to be there fighting anymore than he did. So he made the best of the situation. Dad had a polish girlfriend that he got close to during the war, long before he met my mom; he spoke warmly of her up to the end of his life; I think he regretted not being able to get her to leave her family and follow him back to the States. Dad also was quite fond of the French people, and enjoyed seeing France. Dad loved all people.
I've rambled on and still haven't even scratched the surface. My dad wasn't a profound man, he dropped out of school in the eighth grade to help out on his family's farm, and his choice of reading material was comic books, although he did read the newspapers when we could afford a subscription, mostly skipping the sports section, which he cared little for, and always ending with his beloved funnies. Once, near the end of his life, I asked him what was the most important thing he had learned in life. He was silent for a few moments and then looked me square in the eyes and said, "oh, I don't know." I still laugh when I think of that. But that was my dad, down to earth and unpretentious.
Dad taught me by example. He taught me to love and to be gentle, to trudge on without complaining (I still have trouble with that one!), to accept people as they are without prejudging them, to always take the time to find the humor in life. Dad taught me the beauty of simplicity and the value of being humble. He was indeed a fine man and I'm so proud to be his son.
One last thing. I want to share with you the last words Dad and I exchanged. It came on my last visit to see him in the nursing home, shortly before he died. As I was walking out of his room, I turned suddenly and waved to him and said "Dad, I love you." He smiled at me and waved back and said the last words I will ever hear him say: "Son, I love you too."
There are not words to express how much I love that man's memory and how badly I still, just as when I was a small child in his arms, want to be just like him.
I put my chronically overactive mind to bed around midnight last night and fell almost immediately into a nightmare. That is the norm for me when I am overly tired. 
