"Tell me a story..."

There's a little song that goes, "Tell me a story, tell me a story, tell me a story before I go to bed.  Tell me about the birds and bees; tell me what makes a chicken sneeze, tell me a story before I go to bed".

We never needed to sing that for our daddy.  He could always tell us a story - for Cindy and me, it was about life when he was a child, and then when the boys were born, it was about life on the ball field or basketball court and the war.  He never told Cindy and me any of the stories that Jonathan and Lester heard - and he loved telling those stories to his grandsons.

When I think of my father, I think of a man who made fudge (with his eyes closed) loved God, Golf, and the Florida Gators. 

But above all, he cherished us - his wife, his children, and later, his grandchildren and great-grandchildren. We were his world.

I often say that I inherited my writing abilities from my parents.  Mother wrote beautiful notes, and daddy was a great storyteller.

This is the 15th Father's Day that Cindy, Lester, and I have experienced without our daddy.  We still miss him so much.  However, as I thought about him and what he meant to all of us, I remembered that he left some stories about his growing-up years for us.  We are fortunate that mother encouraged him to tell her some of them, and they are in a notebook that I helped them write.

I am happy that some of his stories made it into print.  And there are some that we all cherish.

Daddy was the second of five children born to Lonnie Burton Jones and Theodore James Huffiingham.  His brother, Ted Jr., was just 19 months older.  They lost two brothers, Donald as a small child and Charles, who was 16 when he died of nephritis.  They all adored their sister, Gloria Faye.

Ted Huffingham, Sr., always had a job but never made enough money.  Daddy remembered going to the end of Arlington Road and meeting the ferry when his dad worked at Ford Motor Company.  He did not always work there.  At some point, he began working for General Outdoor (a sign company that later became Lamar Dean Outdoor), but I'm getting ahead of my story.  They lived in a small house on his grandparents' property, located between University and Beach Boulevards.

The memories daddy had about not having enough money include the fact that his mother made soda bread (a type of hard biscuit), and that's what she would make into a sandwich for him to take to school.

That embarrassed him.

So, he often watched as others ate sandwiches made with  "store-bought" bread.  He would be starving as he walked up the lane to their house after getting off the school bus.  He remembers the smell of French fries, biscuit bread, and milk gravy that his mother was preparing for her children.

The Huffinghams attended the Methodist church in the community.  Daddy's grandfather, John, and his grandmother's father, Louis Savery, had given the money to build the church and a school. It was also the church where the family of Ellie and Pauline Nesmith worshipped.  That's how it happened that it was the place where daddy met the girl who would later become his high school sweetheart and his wife.

He loved visiting his maternal grandparents.  They would go and spend the day with Grandma and Grandpa Jones, and every time he was there, his grandpa made sure that they had "store-bought" creamed corn for Earl.  That was still one of his favorites when he died in 2009.

One of mother's favorite stories is about daddy and a baseball glove. He was in grammar school when he saw a glove in the window of a hardware store.  He saved every penny he could get his hands on.  

"I'll never forget the way I felt when I walked out of that store with my glove in my hand." I was so happy to have it - I slept with it under my pillow."

Mother always said that was a sign that he would take care of things that he loved - and that's precisely what he did for his wife and their children.

Daddy loved sports - he was too small (130 pounds) for football, but he excelled at basketball and baseball. He played right field and was offered a baseball scholarship to Stetson, but he declined it.  He was supposed to graduate from Landon in 1939. Instead, he convinced the coach that he should stay in school for another year.  He enjoyed running the gym classes while the coaches were gone with the team to an away game.

On daddy's 20th birthday, he gave our mother an engagement ring.  He had already volunteered for the armed services and knew he was headed into the war.  That summer, they were married and had seven weeks together before he shipped out to the Philippines.

The war ended, and he came home, beginning the life they shared for more than 67 years.

One of my favorite stories about daddy is one that I have only heard of.  When grandma Jones died in 1956, there was not enough money to pay for her burial. Funeral homes and cemeteries were different then.  They would handle all arrangements and then ask for payment. My grandmother's sisters, brother, and many of their children were at one of the sisters' homes after the service and her burial at Greenlawn.  As they visited, daddy spoke up.

"We all loved our grandparents," he said. "And there's not enough money to bury grandma."

And so, to use an old-fashioned term, Daddy "passed the hat" and in a day or so, went to Naugle and paid the bill.

As Father's Day approached, I heard a few people answering a question: "What's one word to describe your father?"

I pondered that question and thought of many words.  I couldn't think of just one.  And then I reread daddy's story in their book.

Caring.

May you have enough sunshine in your life,  to make you appreciate the shadows