Memories of Dave

Dads and Sons

   David was my firstborn son so he got my name, and I was determined to try and teach him all the things my Dad had tried to pass on to me. That was no easy chore, because my Dad was a pioneer born out of season. He should have been a companion of Daniel Boone or Davy Crockett, he loved fishing and hunting and anything that involved the outdoors. He knew every tree in the woods and he knew how to make a trail through the wilderness or paddle a boat through the swamp. He was born in the early 1900’s and he truly experienced a pace of life that has long since been left behind. Dad was never in the Boy Scouts, he was the original boy scout. He taught his boys all that Mother would allow him to, and I’m sure he showed us some things that she told him not to. As a result, my brothers and I knew how to cut a pole, bait a hook, catch a fish and fix it for supper. We dabbled at hunting, but none of us really felt the call or the need to be a great huntsman. He also bestowed a good appreciation of the various kinds of trees that we observed, he showed us the different types of Oaks, Gums, Maples, Pecans and Walnuts; over the years he handed me hundreds of leaves as he identified the species. He taught me more of nature than I could ever learn from reading or studying. He was the real deal; a walking, talking expert on everything to do with the outdoors. He also taught me integrity, faith, truthfulness, sharing and caring, charity, taking care of your own, and respect for others.

   It was this awesome knowledge that I was now burdened to pass on to my children but I simply did not have the time. Dad’s generation passed on these wisdoms as an act of necessity, if you didn’t procure your supper, you had nothing to eat. I was busy working a full time job and attending evening college to try and get ahead. When David was nine years old, I realized that I had not spent much time with him to pass on the family tradition. Then out of the blue, my good friend, James, asked me if I would like to join him and his son in a YMCA club for fathers and sons. I had never heard of Y-Indian Guides so he explained the slogan, aims and pledge as listed below:

Slogan

"PALS FOREVER"

Aims

1. To be clean in body and pure in heart
2. To be “Pals Forever” with my father/son
3. To love the sacred circle of my family
4. To be attentive while others speak
5. To love my neighbor as myself
6. To seek and preserve the beauty of the Great Spirit’s work in forest, field and stream .

Pledge

We, Father and son, through friendly service to each other, to our family, to this tribe, to our community, seek a world pleasing to the eye of the Great Spirit.”

   Then James explained that it was strictly a father and son club and it would force us to make time to be with our sons; in fact, one of their upcoming activities was a big “Pow-Wow” of the Indian Nation, camping out in tents. I was in. David and I joined and he was really excited, we chose Indian names and we got to wear real leather vests with award patches. We were in a tribe of about ten pairs of father/son braves and we attended faithfully for about a month before the big campout. It was scheduled at a private lake and campground which is near the Red River just east of Denison, TX and north of Bonham, TX.  David was excited because he was going to get an opportunity to find a coup stick and start earning his feathers for achievements. Every time we accomplished goals together, he would earn new feathers that would be strung on a leather string from his coup stick just like the real Native Americans used to do. The camping trip was a sure way to find a stick and gain new feathers.

   We all crammed into several vans and drove a hundred miles late on a Friday evening in the middle of Fall. It was cool but not cold and so camping was going to be perfect. At least it would have been if we had arrived before dark. Each father and son was given a tent kit with no instructions and told to go and set up quickly, because we were getting up at sunup for breakfast. David and I stumbled out into a clearing and I had him hold the flashlight while I struggled with erecting the tent. It was a nice tent and not too difficult so we were able to get it up and enclosed after about twenty minutes. We didn’t have air mattresses so we spent some time moving rocks and sticks from under our sleeping bags. I slept very little, spending most of the night moving and turning in every direction as I tried to get comfortable. It seemed that I was either uphill or downhill and when I tried the other direction it was very lumpy. David slept like an exhausted nine year old that was on his first camping trip. At sunrise I awoke to a clanging bell and a call to breakfast. Stiff and sore from a miserable night, I unzipped the tent and crawled out to check out our position. My eyes came wide awake as I realized that I had put up the tent over a road bed with deep ruts and on a noticeable slope. So much for putting up tents in the dark. But you know, in my son’s eyes, we had done something pretty neat.

   Breakfast was served in chow line style and we had everything you could want on a campout; bacon, sausage, eggs and toast. We gobbled up a healthy portion along with some coffee for me and some milk for him and then proceeded to our first activity. To gain feathers on your coup stick, you did an activity together like canoeing or hiking or fishing. We chose canoeing as our first venture. The camp was built around a hundred acre lake that had woods up next to the shore and a small island out in the middle. We put on a life jacket and then grabbed the first empty canoe we saw and I showed David how to paddle from alternating sides to keep his progress straight. We stayed close to the shoreline for a while and I thought I would show him how to tie off on a tree limb on the shore. We maneuvered up to a rather large limb and I reached to grab it with my hand when suddenly the limb started submerging and I was following close behind it. My arm was up to my armpit in the water before I was able to turn it loose and steady myself back into the canoe. “That’s not the way you do it” I told Dave, “First you make sure that it’s not a floating log and then you reach out and tie off on it”, I explained. He giggled as he put his hand over his mouth to keep from laughing out loud.

   “How would you like to go to that island out there in the middle?” I asked.

He just smiled because he trusted me, and whatever I said was OK with him.

We paddled around the lake for a bit and then I steered toward the island, letting him do most of the work, but helping when I needed to keep us straight.

He did a great job and he really seemed to enjoy it; I was having a wonderful time with my son. As we approached, I could see that the island was pretty small and looked a little foreboding. I suddenly had an inspiration that he would feel really proud if I dropped him off and then I paddled back and photographed him all alone on a deserted island. So I grounded the canoe and told him to hop off for a minute and I explained what I proposed to do. His face became very serious and he cast his eyes from side to side as he considered his options. Looking down he said “OK Dad, but please don’t leave me here very long”. I promised to get back quickly and then rowed out for about a hundred yards, so I could capture the whole island in my lens. I snapped a couple of pictures and then an unusual thing happened. A stiff Northerly breeze suddenly began blowing me away from the island. I dropped the camera into the canoe and began taking deep bites with my oars, but I was barely making any progress toward him. I began in renewed earnest and finally started making headway into the wind. After a hard ten minutes oaring, I ran the front of the canoe on to the gravel of the island. His worried look must have matched my own, as I was exhausted. I helped him back in the canoe and we had a fairly easy time scooting along with the breeze back to the lake shore. As we pulled up to the boat dock , he looked very seriously at me and said, “I don’t think I want to go back to that island anymore”. I assured him that he didn’t have to worry about that, neither did I.

   Our next venture was to follow a marked trail down to the Red River and to bring back a souvenir within a specified time limit. The trail was about a mile each way but we had to go through some woods and rough vegetation and down a steep embankment to get to the river. The trail was clearly marked and he had no difficulty in reading it, as he identified the markers and led me most of the way. When he wasn’t sure, I would help him and we actually made very good time on the way down. The Red River is just that, red with the boiling red clay and sand from Western Texas and Oklahoma as it winds it’s way to Lake Texhoma and eventually the Mississippi River. There truly is quicksand but we didn’t discover any. David picked up a small weathered stick from a sand bar where it had washed up and took it back for his souvenir and we headed back up the embankment. We made it back in plenty of time and he now had two feathers for his coup stick. When we were back into the wooded campground area, I helped him pick an oak limb that was just the right size and I showed him how to trim the limbs with a small hatchet and knife. He was very serious and very proud of all the things we had accomplished. I knew that I hadn’t been perfect and I certainly wasn’t like my Dad, but I think my son was proud of me too. We participated in some group inter-tribal activities and then packed up for the trip back. Dave had his coup stick and I had made an effort to pass on the family torch.

  The next major event was the Spring race car challenge. Each father/son was given a block of wood and some wheels and told to use their creativity to build a race car for the multi-lane track. I am quite possibly the least creative person on the planet and Dave was too young to come up with anything brilliant. As a matter of fact, I completely forgot about it until the day before the races, and so on Friday evening Dave and I begun work on the project. I remembered hearing some of the Dads telling their sons that they would use their power tools and power acrylic paint sprayers to put racing stripes and flames on their creations.

I looked Dave in the eye and told him we were going to whittle away some of the wood with my pocket knife and then we would use some sandpaper to smooth out the rough spots and try to make it run a little faster. He struggled with whittling the block, so I helped him and then we both spent considerable time in sanding down the rough spots. He didn’t feel comfortable with painting, so I got a water color paint set and began painting it blue. When we finished, it resembled a cross between a soap box derby racer and a 1930’s race car. There was a slot for a driver so I told Dave to get his Sesame Street finger puppets and see if one would fit into the slot. Ernie fit perfectly. We applied another coat of paint on Saturday morning and headed for the races around noon.

   David was a little timid in the throng of tribes from the entire nation. Dads walked around holding incredible racecars that looked as if the latest and greatest Italian Gran Prix winners had designed and manufactured them. High gloss acrylic paint jobs gleamed with ingenious pin stripping and the attention to detail was masterful. I was sure that one of them had probably gotten Andretti’s approval of his design. Dave didn’t seem to mind, but I was confident that this would be a very short afternoon.  We registered his car and the judges reviewed all the design flaws and the crummy paint job with amusement.

Dave found his slot track where he was to race and we lined up awaiting his turn. When the moment came, he placed his car in the slot and then stood back to watch for the six cars to be released. Ernie started out in the lead and was a full car length ahead at the finish line where he suddenly popped out of the drivers cockpit. A room full of little boys waved their arms and yelled “GO ERNIE!” as David went to pick up his hero. Ernie won four races before a car that I would swear had a Hemi in it, beat him out for the championship. Dave wasn’t going to get the trophy for the fastest car but he had a memory to last a lifetime. I can still hear those other boys cheering for his race car. We started to leave and they said that the judging for the best overall car was about to be announced. I waited to see if Mario’s creation would win. When the judge approached David and asked for his car, I couldn’t believe my ears as he announced “This year’s overall best car trophy goes to David and Dave Warbritton”. As the judge held his car up high for all to see, Dave grinned from ear to ear with a big toothy smile that came from deep down inside. I was about to burst as I heard the judge tell someone, “It shows a lot of kid work, that’s what we were looking for”.

   We attended meetings and had a lot of fun, we went to a baseball game and the whole tribe bonded in their own way. I could tell that some of the Dads were just doing this because their wives made them or because it made them look better, but most of the Dads found some common ground and an opportunity to share some of their precious time with their sons. Unlike the dads who just did everything for their boys, I think the ones who allowed their sons to participate at a high level benefited most. Summer passed and then we began planning the big Fall camp out again. We were going to the same campground, but this time, the entire tribe was staying in a large rock bunkhouse at the park.

   Upon arrival, we unloaded everything into the bunkhouse and everybody picked an upper or lower bunk bed to sleep on. This time it was morning so there was no second guessing in the dark. The activities included a football toss and a fishing tournament for the whole nation. Dave had been practicing his throwing so he was pumped up for the competition. I had volunteered to administer the contest, so I was busy picking out a good location and setting up the tape measures that would be used by the judges. I found things for Dave to do and eventually, we were ready to start the competition. Each boy got a single toss to see how accurate and how far he could throw a football. We taped the length of the throw and then measured how many feet it was off center from the straight line we had placed in the middle of the field. Each boy’s toss was recorded and then the distance off center was subtracted from the length of the pass. Dave wore thick black-rimmed glasses but that didn’t stop him from making an excellent attempt that wasn’t far off center. I told him how proud I was even though there were bigger boys making better throws, and he didn’t win any prizes.

   We attended a big campfire cookout that evening and we all shared a good laugh about our experiences with our sons. As we retired to the bunkhouse, one of the dad’s who I felt really didn’t want to be there, said “Let’s put the boys to bed and then we can all play poker.” Which they did, and then one of them opened up an ice cooler and pulled out a beer. Cigars were next and then they began playing in earnest. They were loud and even occasionally cursed their luck as they played. James and I stayed inside the bunkhouse with the boys and settled several of them down as their Dad’s made fools of themselves. Eventually the beer ran out and someone must have captured all the money for the game stopped and they dragged in one at a time to sleep next to their kids.

I remember thinking how selfish they were and what poor examples they made for their sons but mostly I thought “What a rare opportunity you have missed to share with your son, to have some quality time with him and share a part of your life with him.” I felt sorry for them. At six-thirty the next morning, I heard a sound that I used to hear back on the farm when a cow would stop over a large flat rock to relieve her bladder. I stumbled out of the bunkhouse and through a misty fog viewed one of the poker playing Dads standing on the edge of the embankment where our bunkhouse was in nothing but his BVDs, a cowboy hat and a pair of cowboy boots. The sound came as he arched a perfect golden stream over the edge onto a rock some five feet below his perch. The morning was quite cool but the beer seemed to have insulated him from the cold. It was a memorable sight, but fortunately all the kids were still asleep.

   After breakfast we attended the big event of the day, a fishing contest between the tribes. Three of the nights revelers were unaccustomed to anything to do with fishing, so they excused themselves and left their sons with James and I and our 2 boys. We showed all of them how to cut a limb and make a pole; how to attach the line, tie on the hook and how to bait the hook. Then we took them all to a long dock that had been built at the lake’s edge and watched them carefully while they fished and patiently waited for something to make their cork disappear. Everyone got nibbles and then one of the other little boys giggled with delight as he pulled in a small perch about eight inches long and we helped him get it off the hook. We praised him, but I thought he would probably have really liked for his Dad to have seen him catch that fish. A couple of hours later the errant Dads showed up and laughed at the little boy’s catch. I turned it in anyway for it was the only fish our tribe caught all day. At the awards presentations that evening, our tribe won the award for the most fish caught and the largest fish caught. It was, in fact, the only catch of the day.

  

 As the proud father accompanied his son to collect his ribbons, I heard him say, “My boy just learned how to fish today” and I thought, “And you still don’t know how to fish”. But I was happy for his little boy and felt gratified that my efforts had not been for naught. 

   The Y-Indian Guides are a wonderful organization and though there are a few Dads that aren’t there for the right reason, most are. For Dave and me, it was a good thing, because I was able to spend some quality time with him and I actually managed to pass some of the family traditions on to him. I also taught him integrity, faith, truthfulness, sharing and caring, charity, taking care of your own, and respect for others. My Dad would have done a much better job of teaching him all of the woodsman talents, but I’d like to think that I took the opportunity and helped make him a better person and better prepared for life, just like my Dad did for me. We shared a world of experiences that are still valuable to both of us today and I tried to teach him all the things my Dad had tried to pass on to me. Dave didn’t have children of his own for a long time, but as a youth minister in a church, he worked in a labor of love to help many kids without Dads learn valuable life lessons. Dave probably doesn’t remember much about those times, but he spent several summers as a camp counselor at church camps and he built some memories of his own to cherish. I know that I will always hold on to the ones we shared.

Written expressly for the Warbritton family by David Warbritton