This is my father, Bill Durham. Where do I even begin to tell you about him?
My first memories of him were as a very little girl. He was always an attentive loving father...to all three of us girls. There's a picture of him sitting with me at my little table and chairs having "tea"
and I think I was in a red riding hood outfit.
I remember him teaching us the Lord's Prayer and praying with us sometimes at night when we were small.
Money was tight and our parents were resourceful. He refurbished a swingset for us. He rode bikes with us. He played with us. He was always there for us...and yes , he corrected us when we needed it.
He played his ukulele, made up crazy songs and we danced madly! He taught us to dance...our feet on his feet when we were little.
We always felt greatly loved, greatly protected, and greatly forgiven when we messed up.
He supported us and even allowed us to make our own decisions when he knew we were posssibly headed in the wrong direction.
I remember when I was a senior in high school and I got a speeding ticket, (still not quite sure about that one for I was going up hill in a VW Bug). He was disappointed in me. I sort of lost my temper and began crying and sulked off to my room. He appeared at my door and told me that he thought that I had really grown up but he realized I was still "wet behind the ears". I cried even harder as he closed my door. Had a Keyette Club meeting that night and was supposed to drive and pick up a friend. They let me drive even though I really didn't want to that night. I had learned my lesson.
Oh, yeah, when we were younger he paid us a quarter to scratch his back and we did it for hours or so it seemed! And we loved it!
Bless his heart, he could never come home from work and change out of his business suit without an audience of his three girls. We talked his ears off! Every night suppertime was a treat as he told jokes and we all laughed. He would sometimes answer the phone "Joe's Pool Hall, Joe's not here, Archie speaking" and our friends would hang up and try to call again. You really never knew what was going to come out of his mouth.
He mesmerized us with stories of his adventures growing up...sneaking out of the house when he was NOT of driving age and driving off in his Dad's car, ending up in a cornfield and getting to his aunt's house in the wee hours of the morning and she got up and helped him! (We've told him NEVER to share that one with our Grands!)
Memories keep coming to me as I write them! He watched the Beatles performing on the ED Sullivan show with me and went out the next day and bought me the "45" of "I Want to Hold Your Hand."
When they took me to Greensboro College it was a bit hard on all of us. He had told me they wouldn't hang around and when it came time to leave, he was the one who had a harder time leaving.
He wrote me countless letters when I was at GC. Some of them I still have. He would send me money when I needed it.
We watched golf on TV when he wasn't out playing himself. We "knew" many of the "old" golfers... Sam Snead, Dave Marr, Miller Barber, Arnold and Jack, Chi Chi, Lee, etc.
He taught each of us to play golf with the "baby blue" golf clubs he bought for us.
I remember him counting off, over and over when I dropped a 65' putt, only to tee up and hit my next shot right in the lake!
Oh my gosh, I could go on and on.
I've always said we had an amazing childhood and we did! We knew so much love! Our parents always had time for us.
Some years back, I wrote him a letter for I couldn't tell him to his face all that was in my heart that day. I knew I would cry...and I did when I wrote it.
I wrote it to tell him that because he was the kind of father he had been, it was always so easy for me to see God as a loving, kind, gracious, merciful Father.
We still have a close relationship to this day...all three of us to our dad.
We see each other often and speak with each other a few times a week by phone.
I always call him with my "bird" questions for he's quite an authority. I think that's where I get my special love for birds and all creation.
If I could have selected a father for myself, it would have been him!
Happy Father's day...everyday, Daddy.
You are loved so dearly!
