by Missy Schenck

Each year when Father’s Day rolls around, I think about my father. Like most fathers of the 1950s-60s he slept and went to work. Rarely did we interact with him the way fathers do with children today. He came home from the office each day for 2:00 family dinner and talked pig Latin with my mother to keep their conversations top secret. Then he went back to the office and returned in time to tell us good-night. When I look back, though, I realize how much he did do.

My father insisted on a few things in our house; to be a faithful Christian – Sundays were non-negotiable and church was mandatory. To be respectful – there was no excuse for rudeness. To do our share of the work and more – this always meant going above and beyond the call of duty. To be a good community servant - it was such a calling for him that he spent 25 years as the volunteer chairman of the Charleston Airport Authority. He devoted so much time to the airport that my friends all thought it was his “real job.” His heart of gold influenced our entire family and it did not take long for us to see the value in giving of ourselves. Lastly, he always reminded us that if we should marry one day, to be a good spouse and parent – to love and cherish our family. Simple life rules and ones he lived by every day.

My father was a no-nonsense disciplinarian. He deferred to my mother on most of the things a parent can rule upon and if we should get out of hand my mother would exclaim, “Just wait until your father gets home!” We all knew this meant business and often it involved his belt and telling us it would hurt him more than it did us. He insisted on knowing where we were at all times. He had to know who our friends were and what we were doing. By the time we were teenagers, our life became even more unbearable.

My father was not a gourmet cook. He never made Sunday morning pancakes or waffles like my son-in-law does, but he could whip up a mean batch of eggnog at Christmas for our annual party and he would fill our freezer with enough fish, shrimp, ducks, doves, and deer to sustain us throughout the year and to supply my mother with something to serve at their dinner parties. He loved ice cream and Krispy Kreme doughnuts. If he was buying, a variety always came home.

My father was a perfectionist and he expected nothing less of his children. Teaching me to drive is one of my most lasting memories of my father. I was fourteen at the time – hard to believe they let us on the road at that age! We had a stick shift ford bronco – something my father insisted we learn to drive. Lesson one began at our house and a block and a half later, he ordered me to pull over. I’m pretty sure it had to do with the clutch. My introduction to coordinating it with the accelerator and the brake was a bit bumpy. He walked home and sent back my twelve-year-old brother to teach me to drive!

My father loved cameras and over the years he collected quite a few. He was a determined amateur photographer and took lots of pictures of all of us. Christmas morning always included blinding spotlights with his movie camera rolling as we tried to navigate our way down the steps. He documented it all. One summer he announced that I would work part of the summer in his office. I had no idea that his plan for me was to make scrapbooks with years of photos and newspaper clippings. Thanks to him, I’m a camera nut and a scrapbooking, memory-saving junky. As much as my children would love for me to toss some boxes of remembrances, they are here to stay.

My father fought the summer mice that inhabited our beach house over the winter. He taught us to cast a fishing rod, throw a shrimp net, and pull a seine. He drove our motorboat for hours on end so we could water ski from sun up to sundown. He was the only one in the house that was not afraid of the dark or scary summer storms. He took us on an annual pilgrimage to the Sertoma Christmas tree lot and would pull out tree after tree for us to inspect them. Every August, he would drive the terrifying Saluda Grade in our huge three-seater station wagon towing our motorboat so our family could spend two weeks at Lake Summit - his childhood happy place and the best water skiing spot in the world.

Family was everything to my father and he lived for us to be together. He promised us that one day we would thank him for his words of wisdom and family rules. He did it for love …. And I loved him for it.

Happy Father’s Day!