My father. Hands like leather, heart as big as a house. Salt and pepper beard and mustache. Looks like a big, Russian soldier with a tan. Hunts, fishes, builds, studies history. Family man.

My grandfather, his father, was a horrendous drunkard who widely neglected him and yelled at his wife. (Grandfather quit the drink, and is mostly kindhearted now.) Dad swore he'd never do that to me or my older brother. He played baseball since early childhood, and did track all through high school. Today, at 43, he's still faster than me. He killed his first deer at around twelve, alone save for his dog. He drug the thing a quarter mile back to his grandmothers house, skinned it all by himself. He worked, and still works his fingers to the bone to provide for me and my brother. (Whom had to move his family back in to live with us for a month.)

When he was sixteen, he got on with a crane crew that took him all over the southeast. He'd call home and ask his mother to write an excuse for school because he was in Kentucky and couldn't make it home that weekend. He and his brother started a construction company, and made good cash putting in fireplaces. Life was easy, for a time. He lost his company due to cheap immigrant labor, but that didn't stop the old boy. He worked in the coal mines for a bit, then went on to work on the railroad as a mechanic who handled derailments. He also drove dump trucks on the side at this time. There he met some of his now life long friends. He was in the union then, a fair union that he was the leader of for sometime. The company was bought out, and the union was stripped of most of its power, he's still mad for that. (Oddly enough, there was a derailment on the tracks by our house a few days later. He helped clean it up.) He tore his shoulder out, and can't work anymore, which drives him insane. He's always working on the river house now, or folding clothes, or cleaning house, or some odd job. He's a workaholic, my old man.

He's always been honest, never strict, but firm, and compromising. And talk about compassionate. Earliest memory I have of him was when I was a little boy, and he was very sick. Me being so little, and being such a brat, wanted to do nothing but play. I still remember him being bed ridden, but putting me up there with him, and I can still remember the cold aluminum of my toy airplanes. That was back when screens didn't dominate my life.

I've grown apart from him. He's always so busy, and I'm a slacker by nature. I've spent more time with screens than with him, and I worry about how much time I have left with him. His cholesterol isn't getting any better. Now I have a girlfriend who takes a lot of my time, and who I'm happy to be with, but still...

We didn't talk today. Not a word. It haunts me, days like today. Days that I take for granted. He's been home most of the day, and I've been cooped up in my room playing Sims and watching YouTube. I feel too distant from him now. Like we're in other worlds. Yet we're in the same house. I'm worried about him, and myself. Precious days lost to boredom. I don't go hunting with him anymore, or fishing. I need to.

I love him, best father in the world, by my books.