Make a Difference and Share Your Heart
Bob Wickizer
Isaiah 1:10-20
When my father passed away in 1989, my siblings and I went through the usual ritual of sorting through all of Dad's stuff. You know what I mean. The old WWII Army officer's hat, uniform, captain's bars, Lt. Col. Leaves, etc. It always seems like a task that will never end. Box after box. At one point we were down at the family cabin by the river still sorting. I took some old, yellowed engineering drawings and put them in the box of stuff to go on the burn pile. My oldest brother angrily retrieved those drawings from the pile, rolled them out for me and showed how they were drawings of airplanes that Dad had done as a teenager. Drafted to perfection presaging his eventual life's work as a civil engineer.
Later on, my brother sold all of Dad's surveying equipment including an exquisite transit. I had used that equipment countless summers in high school and college. To this day, I recall that the equipment meant nothing to him and he sold it. I still get angry about it every time I have to rent or borrow a transit. Obviously what has great meaning and importance for one person may be the opposite for someone else.
The surveying equipment held deep connections for me of working with the surveying crew in the summers. Lots of toil under the hot sun. Learning from Dad about all kinds of things. Being outdoors. Working with all kinds of people. The meaning of that equipment for me had everything to do with the time I spent and the things I learned from my father. The fact that I could actually use them for my own projects laying out vineyards and surveying my own property was only secondary. There was a deep connection between my father and me in that wooden box with a precision, German optics transit in it.
So today, with that transit gone forever, I can still talk to you about my father, what I learned, who I am as a result and the more important things about him in relation to my life. ...
Bob Wickizer
Isaiah 1:10-20
When my father passed away in 1989, my siblings and I went through the usual ritual of sorting through all of Dad's stuff. You know what I mean. The old WWII Army officer's hat, uniform, captain's bars, Lt. Col. Leaves, etc. It always seems like a task that will never end. Box after box. At one point we were down at the family cabin by the river still sorting. I took some old, yellowed engineering drawings and put them in the box of stuff to go on the burn pile. My oldest brother angrily retrieved those drawings from the pile, rolled them out for me and showed how they were drawings of airplanes that Dad had done as a teenager. Drafted to perfection presaging his eventual life's work as a civil engineer.
Later on, my brother sold all of Dad's surveying equipment including an exquisite transit. I had used that equipment countless summers in high school and college. To this day, I recall that the equipment meant nothing to him and he sold it. I still get angry about it every time I have to rent or borrow a transit. Obviously what has great meaning and importance for one person may be the opposite for someone else.
The surveying equipment held deep connections for me of working with the surveying crew in the summers. Lots of toil under the hot sun. Learning from Dad about all kinds of things. Being outdoors. Working with all kinds of people. The meaning of that equipment for me had everything to do with the time I spent and the things I learned from my father. The fact that I could actually use them for my own projects laying out vineyards and surveying my own property was only secondary. There was a deep connection between my father and me in that wooden box with a precision, German optics transit in it.
So today, with that transit gone forever, I can still talk to you about my father, what I learned, who I am as a result and the more important things about him in relation to my life. ...
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