Dads Fix Things

(A photograph of Dr. Morris's parents)

I worked real hard for the letters after my name, two earned doctorates and my military credentials, only those who have been there and done that, know what I am talking about. I am convinced, however, as one who has received honorary doctorates, that many times these are well-earned. However, on my grave-marker, I just want my name and that marvelous verse: “Because thy loving kindness is better than life, my lips shall praise thee.” (Psalm 63:3)

Everything else, my hard work, my estate, I surrender. I depend on what I leave behind to be used well by the institutions named. The best name I have been called, the best handle, is dad or grandad. I have had little contact with other members of my family...for them, out of sight, out of mind. Believe me, I know what it is like for the disabled to be forsaken. One of my cousins said, about this totally blind, 100% disabled, service-connected, medical-officer veteran, “it makes all of us feel uncomfortable to have him around, he is so pitiful.“ Now, she said that about a man who has accomplished more, blind, who has traveled more, blind, then all the rest of them put together. But, that does not matter, “normal people” do not know what lies down the road for them.

She was about 23, working for me a short time, a graduate of the local university, with “gay pride”, she flaunted her lesbianism...teaching school locally. She said, “I like children, I want the experience of giving birth to a child, but certainly not a husband. It is not worth all the trouble and expense of rearing a child unless you have what you want. 'I want a designer child' to be artificially inseminated from a sperm bank, according to my wishes: a white male, correct eye and hair color, correct DNA, correct family background, correct height and strong, male features.”

The entertainment world was tried its best to discount maleness and fatherhood. Fathers in most situation comedies (sitcoms) are portrayed as buffoons...fathers and real men discounted by children, wives, and even fellow males. On most television programs, blatant, there are at least two homosexual actors flaming around. Just 50 years ago, homosexuality was in the closet, now, adhering to a gay agenda, the gay and lesbian lifestyle is smeared across every area of life. Right now, the military is being bombarded by a “don't ask, don't tell” philosophy at the very time when our country needs a brave, brilliant military structure. We have gnawing at the military very foundation, a small percentage of perverts. There was a time when a few actors or hairdressers did not mind being labeled “gay”, now we get a steady diet of gay notoriety from the congress. Barney Frank is no longer a embarrassment, not only one of the ten most corrupt, but one of the most powerful congresspersons. Senator R.C. Soles, longest member of the NC legislature, lifestyle was discussed in bathrooms and over bridge tables for almost 50 years. Anyone with one inkling of intelligence knew what was going on. Senator Boseman made no secret of her lifestyle. “If gold rusts, what do you expect iron to do?”

Those of us with real men as fathers, should be so thankful, they, like the rest of us had their flaws. My father was the toughest man I have ever known, but he was not ashamed of his maleness. Always, you could hear his deep, male voice singing in the church. At all the other churches in the area, people knew when he and my mother were in the service, because they were not afraid for god, or their fellow worshipers to hear them singing. At the barber shop where he cut hair on the weekends to further subsidize our living expenses, he laughed like a man as he greeted everyone who came in the place. On our large, productive farm the mules, the cows, the hogs, even our always supportive, two collie farm dogs knew when he spoke, he meant business. He could always “fix things”, no matter what broke: a toy, an appliance, an implement, he could always fix it. If we had a cut, bruise, a virus, he always knew what to do, or what book to look in to find the cure. I never knew him to be sick, but when my mother was ill, he knew how to cook.

There were many preachers at his funeral, I remember one saying, “he could sit down at the sowing machine and sow, could cook as well as any woman, help deliver all four of his children, his farm and property were showplaces in the county.” He kept the school, where he was on the board, in good order, and built a large part of the church. I was home from college, and I later told Dr. Guy Phillips head of the Education department at UNC C.H., “I saw the principal of the school go out and talk to my father who was plowing with his tractor, before long, he drove the tractor to the house, put his toolbox in the truck, and headed for the school. The principal knew that he did not have to go to town and fill out any paperwork, then wait for a repair. My father, the principal's friend, could fix things.”

Like a great ship about to go over Niagara falls, since Vietnam, our nation has been on a meteoric down slide, we need some real men, real fathers, concerned about their children, grandchildren, to fix things. On this coming father's day, the world should pray for real dads: dads who fix things, dads concerned about the political, spiritual, and moral condition of homes, country, and world. God never appointed a committee to do anything, always without exception, God called a man.