From my father, Raymond Allen Gore, 1934-2008:
His response whenever I showed him a report or project: “Don’t ask me if it’s good. Are you proud of it? Did you do your best?”
“That grass ain’t going to cut itself.”
“Those weeds ain’t going to pull themselves out.” You get the idea.
“Life is not always fair.” Every time I whined.
“You need three things in life: brains, balls, and a hell of a lot of hard work.”
When asked, after pulling a lot of fish out of a stream while everyone else got skunked, how he learned how to fish so well: “When I was growing up, if you didn’t catch anything, you didn’t eat.”
On the days when the fish weren’t biting: “Ketchup sandwiches if we could scrounge up the ketchup and the bread.”
“My dad [my grandfather] used to give us a nickel and say: ‘See you next week.'”
How he decided to go to college: “The American Legion gave me a $50 scholarship.”
How he decided to major in electrical engineering: “I didn’t even know what a major was. It was the first one the lady at the counter read off the list.” He would go on to get a PhD in electrical engineering.
His philosophy of raising children: “They’re like plants. Feed ’em and water ’em and leave ’em alone and they’ll do just fine.”
His all-purpose response to prevarication, pomposity, dissembling, kissing ass, and every other form of insincerity: “What kind of horseshit is that?”
His view of the human race: “Most people are sheep.”
His highest compliment: “You’re a good kid.”
Happy Father’s Day, Dad.
