“I ran off from home when I was thirteen,” quipped Mark Twain, “When I came back three years later, I was surprised how much my old man had learned.”

           Fathers and sons.

           On a shelf in my kitchen, sets a framed photograph of my father, circa 1940. The season is winter and dad is wearing overalls, a felt hat and a big smile. A collie stands at his feet gazing up as this face. Behind him looms a Belgian draught horse, its halter gripped tight in dad’s left hand.

           The three of them are posed in front of the barn on the farm where I grew up. Rarely does a meal unfold that I do not glance at this picture and, mentally, buckle myself up in fond memories like well-worn coveralls on a Monday morning.

           The nostalgic reverie is compounded by a smaller photograph positioned at the side of the one that features my father. It’s a picture of me, circa 2002, leaning against a pickup truck in front of a horse barn. I’m petting a collie that is nearly identical to the one in the picture of my dad. I’m wearing a felt hat, a flannel shirt…and a big smile.

            When I was young, people would comment on the resemblance I bore to my father. This puzzled me. I was tall and thin, with an angular face—features I inherited from my mother. Yet, as evident in these two pictures, the traits that I inherited from my father extend deeper than those that meet the eye. The attitude says it all: he and I were fashioned for a world of tack rooms, tools and livestock trailers.

           The outdoor memories lead to some quaint indoor memories as well: my father and mother playing euchre with neighbors in the living room, hanging flowered wallpaper on the stairwell, grinding sausage in the basement. Among the most poignant of all is their kneeling in prayer at bedside and my father hoisting me as a child in his hands to touch the crucifix on the wall above my bed.

           Like Mark Twain, I was not always appreciative of my father’s noble traits as I grew up yet, the more I matured, the more grateful I became for the way I was being raised.

           After all these years, the wisdom continues to deepen. The more I gaze at the photo of my father, the more I grasp the meaning of Abba.