![\"\"](\"https:\/\/feedingandrew.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/barbecue-ribs.jpg\" "\\"barbecue")
<\/a>\n\tOven "Barbecued" Pork Ribs<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
We owe so much of who we are to our parents.\u00a0 For better or for worse, we are our parents\u2019 children.\u00a0 I\u2019ll never forget the experience of hearing Andrew, not long after he came to live with me, hit me with a sarcastic response to a question he thought had an obvious answer.\u00a0 The kid could barely read and still spoke with a strong accent, yet suddenly he was Jay Leno doing a perfect impression of me!\u00a0 Parenting does matter.<\/p>\n
My father did not grow up in the generation of \u201cwearing your emotions on your sleeve\u201d as many my age or younger did.\u00a0 However, my father found a way to express his deep love and passion for his family.\u00a0 Early in our childhood, my father started to write a yearly Christmas story that he then read out loud to us on Christmas Eve.\u00a0\u00a0 As we sat around the tree in anticipation of the first gift, we prepared ourselves for\u00a0 these stories that were sometimes funny and fantastical and other times quite serious.\u00a0 No matter what the genre, he always managed to include every member of the family and a way to honor us and say, \u201cI love you.\u201d\u00a0 Each year as he finished the story, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, wife, and kids would wipe away the tears and jump into the rest of the festivities knowing how deeply my dad cared for us.\u00a0\u00a0 These stories have become an important part of my brother\u2019s, sister\u2019s and my DNA, providing us with unseen guidance and strength as we make our way through adulthood.<\/p>\n
My father also wrote letters.\u00a0 Not many; but when you got one of \u201cDad\u2019s letters\u201d you had to brace yourself.\u00a0\u00a0 His letters were a mix of advice and love.\u00a0 They were not chatty or informative about family or current events.\u00a0 They were an outpouring of concern and love. The message was always: \u201cYou are loved.\u00a0 No matter what, you are loved.\u201d<\/p>\n
Having a dad who writes has been one of my greatest joys.\u00a0 I often go back and read his letters and Christmas stories.\u00a0 They can make meaning in my life, when no meaning seems to exist.\u00a0 I know that Andrew is the next beneficiary of my dad\u2019s gift and I hope my stories will be the same source of strength, hope, and joy.\u00a0 I hope they carry the same message deep into his heart that: \u201cHe is loved.\u00a0 No matter what, he is loved.\u201d<\/p>\n
None of my Father\u2019s stories has meant more to our family (or been the cause of more tears) than the one I share today. \u00a0If you are a dog lover, best get a box of tissue. \u00a0 I am fortunate to have grown up with two loving and dedicated parents to whom I owe a great debt of gratitude, but today is Father\u2019s Day and I offer this post as a way to honor the unique gifts my father gave to me.<\/p>\n
Happy Father\u2019s Day, Dad.\u00a0 I love you.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
BORN TO RUN<\/p>\n
PROUD FRIEND TO THE END<\/p>\n
By<\/p>\n
Glen D. Wilson<\/p>\n
<\/strong><\/p>\n I have been running since 1969.\u00a0 Sometimes I like to run by myself, but it is much more pleasant to run with someone with whom you enjoy passing the day.\u00a0 I have also traveled much in my career and when jogging from a motel or hotel have joined up with many a jogger who was quite interesting.\u00a0 The conversation always starts out by asking how long you\u2019ve been running, do you run races, and then it drifts into the health benefits and why a person started, etc.\u00a0 But, while having run with many interesting people, I never enjoyed the company of anyone as much as I did our family dog, Ranger.<\/p>\n Our family moved to the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains outside of Auburn, California, in 1977.\u00a0 We had four or five cats, a couple of dogs and then one day in 1979 my wife, Carol, brought home this little gray fur ball of a pup.\u00a0 He was half Husky and half Shepherd and our daughter, Nancy, named him Ranger.\u00a0 Carol immediately began to obedience train him, and he became a walking companion with us in those beautiful evenings that were so numerous.<\/p>\n As Ranger grew into adulthood, he started running with me, all 90 to 100 pounds of him.\u00a0 When he was a pup, a dog jumped him and tore off half of one ear, so he was a rather awesome looking sight.\u00a0 He already looked like a gray wolf, but with half an ear, he looked like a big mean gray wolf.\u00a0 Ranger, though, was about as docile as any dog that I have ever seen.\u00a0 He was a constant companion to Nancy who was six years old at the time and, as well as being my running partner, he was also Carol\u2019s running and walking partner and he also put in many a mile with our son, Don, when he came home from college.\u00a0 When you figure that I averaged about 1200 to 1500 miles a year, Carol about 800 miles a year, and the miles that Don ran when he was home, coupled with our evening walks, Ranger put in one heck of a lot of miles.<\/p>\n I often wondered what would motivate a dog to run without being coaxed the slightest bit.\u00a0 Yet, day after day, when he saw me put on my jogging shoes, it was all I could do to get them laced while he was trying to coax me out the door.<\/p>\n The beginning of our run was usually a little frenzied, but soon Ranger\u2019s initial burst of energy would slow to a gate that I could keep up with. You have to know what it is like to run through the woods and on the back roads of Auburn early in the morning, or just before dark, to understand the enjoyment and euphoria that we both shared.\u00a0 Auburn\u2019s winters were generally very mild with some cold days and occasional snow, but the Sierra foothills was a much better place to be than down in the Sacramento Valley where the fog laid in for weeks at a time.\u00a0 Where we ran, the fog could often be seen like the top of a cloud several hundred feet below us.\u00a0 In the spring, it was as pretty a place can get with the wild flowers and fresh green grass covering every inch of those hills.\u00a0 Summer brought an intense dry heat that left you feeling drained, but exhilarated, after a long run. My favorite time of the year, however, was autumn with the leaves changing colors and rustling of the leaves in the cool breezes that gently blew the summer away. Every season had its blessings as well as its curses, but, it seemed liked that dog didn\u2019t care about the weather as long as we were running together.\u00a0 For that matter, neither did I.<\/p>\n During those years, I had a very high-pressured job and our company was going through much turmoil, which made these runs virtually life saving for me.\u00a0 While we ran together, I would tell all of my troubles to Ranger and would ask him for his advice.\u00a0 The looks that I would get back reassured me that everything would be all right as long as we had each other to share this time.\u00a0 There is no way to describe how much this friend meant to my family, but especially to me.<\/p>\n Ranger was so well disciplined as a runner that he didn\u2019t need a leash; he always stayed right by my left side.\u00a0 Sometimes he and I would run to the top of a hill and sit there side by side while he listened to me talk.\u00a0 The looks that I would get said it all.\u00a0 I know that dog understood what I was saying, but he pretended to be undisturbed about the whole thing.\u00a0 Once in a while, we would stop for a long cool drink which he always enjoyed, but I\u2019m sure he wouldn\u2019t have complained had we run across the Sahara Desert.\u00a0 Most evenings, at the end of our run, we would sit on the back deck of our home and look out across a beautiful valley: a perfect end to another perfect day.<\/p>\n Nothing is permanent in life.\u00a0 In 1984, my company said, \u201cWe need you in San Francisco.\u201d\u00a0 We sold our beautiful place in the country and moved.\u00a0 As my workload increased, I left for work very early in the morning and often didn\u2019t get home until very late; our runs became less frequent, usually only on the weekends.\u00a0 I even began running on my lunch hour so poor old Ranger was not having much fun anymore.\u00a0 In the late evenings as I tried to regain my equilibrium from the day, he would give me long sad looks as if to say, \u201cWhen are we going to get back on schedule?\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 Carol had also returned to full-time employment so even Ranger\u2019s walks with her were curtailed. Runners who run with their dogs will understand the guilt I felt as I watched Ranger lose muscle and become \u201cdeconditioned.\u201d It wasn\u2019t too many years later when Ranger was eleven years old that we had to put him on medication for arthritic pain.\u00a0\u00a0 Even though his legs would get stiff and it would be hard for him to get up and down, just the sight of a running shoe would get him excited about going on a walk or run he could no longer endure.<\/p>\n Christmas of 1989 turned out to be Ranger\u2019s last Christmas and a very sad one in the lives of our whole family.\u00a0 There just wasn\u2019t any way that we could let Ranger continue to suffer with so much pain.\u00a0 I knew I had to be the one to take this last step with him.<\/p>\n This was the hardest moment of my life.\u00a0 I felt like a murderer, but I knew that it should be done rather than letting him suffer any longer.<\/p>\n I was going to borrow a friend\u2019s truck to give Ranger a ride to the vet\u2019s office when it suddenly dawned on me that Ranger would like to go for a run.\u00a0 I put on my jogging shoes and saw the old sparkle in his eyes as he leapt up as if to say, \u201cDon\u2019t worry about my pain, I\u2019m ready to go.\u201d\u00a0 It was three miles to the vet\u2019s office and we took off walking.\u00a0 It was a beautiful day and as we walked, Ranger seemed to loosen up and let me know it by the proud way he perked up his one and half ears.\u00a0 I said, \u201cDo you want to run a bit, fella?\u201d and, you know the answer.\u00a0 We ran.\u00a0 He was running so well that I started to think that maybe he wasn\u2019t so bad after all.\u00a0 I was really having second thoughts about this task.\u00a0 Could it be that he was trying to tell me something? I almost talked myself into returning home with him, but I knew by evening, his pain would be so much that he wouldn\u2019t be able to move.\u00a0 On the other hand, if we followed through with the task at hand, he would be resting in peace with all pain gone from his body.<\/p>\n As we approached the vet\u2019s office, I became very sick inside and had to stop and walk.\u00a0 To this day I believe that he understood what was happening.\u00a0 When we arrived at the vet\u2019s, I decided to just sit outside with him on the curb and talk like we used to.\u00a0 I thought to myself, \u201cIf you look at me with those beautiful doggy eyes as you have in the last eleven years, I will just die.\u201d\u00a0 Oddly enough, he just sat there and looked straight ahead, proud, with his tongue hanging out as he often used to do when we would finish a 10 or 15 mile run.\u00a0 I know that he was trying to make it easy for me and he did, for which I will be eternally grateful.<\/p>\n Finally, I knew that I couldn\u2019t sit there all day, so we slowly made our way into the vet\u2019s office.\u00a0 Now something amazing happened.\u00a0 Always from the day that he was a pup, he would start shaking when going into the vet\u2019s office.\u00a0 On this day, he walked into the office as if it were his second home.\u00a0 I asked the young woman who received him to give him a drink, which she did.\u00a0 He was as calm as I had ever seen him.\u00a0 He just stood there looking straight ahead as if this were an everyday occurrence.\u00a0 I knew that I had to get out of there fast because I didn\u2019t want everybody in the place see a grown 55-year-old man cry like a baby.\u00a0 I said, \u201cGoodbye old friend,\u201d and turned and walked out as fast as I could.<\/p>\n I made it to the telephone booth on the corner, flung myself inside it and cried violently.\u00a0 Eventually, I called Carol and told her to come pick me up.\u00a0 By the time she arrived, I had outwardly recovered. Inwardly, I felt a loss that would last for years. I can still feel that sadness when I think of my old friend, but then I can\u2019t help but smile because I\u2019m remembering one of the most pleasant experiences of my life, RUNNING WITH MY PAL RANGER.<\/p>\n Even today, whenever I see other joggers with their dogs, my heart does a little flip, and I look up to the sky to see if I might see him romping across the heavens because I know he is up there just waiting to take me on another run.<\/p>\n