Father’s Day 2009

Today is Father’s Day, and I would like to pay tribute to my father, James Vernon Bennett, Jr., now deceased. It’s been a little over two years since Dad died in April 2007. The morning after we buried him, I went out to the woods behind their house to spend some time alone. I found an acceptable stump and sat down. It was cold spring morning in Arkansas, and I shifted my body so that my back caught the fullest effect of the sunlight to keep me warm, and remembered it was something my Dad had taught me to do as we worked outside in the cold together.

A father teaches his son many things. Among the things my Dad taught me by example more than words was the value of hard work and honesty in business dealings, and the importance of a man taking his family to church on a weekly basis.

I took this picture of Dad about a year or two before he died. It was autumn, and I had taken him for a ride in his truck, and we walked out to an overlook over the Little Red River just outside Heber Springs. It is my favorite picture of Dad.

Here’s to you, Dad. I hope all readers have had as wonderful a Father’s Day as I did.