Weekend Contest in honor of dear old dad ended

Post in this thread one of your favorite memories of either your dad, or an uncle, or a grandfather.

Entries can be submitted through Monday morning at 8:00 am EST.

I'll select one winner for a Sunshine Rewards prize package.

:heart: my grandfather was a pilot (not a professional.....he just flew his own planes) and I remember he had a Skyote that he used to own when I was little.......he would take us up one by one (there was only 1 seat in the plane so we sat on his lap) and he'd fly us all over town and show up buildings and parks and our house from up in the air. :love: It was so amazing, back then most of my friends hadn't even been in a regular airplane, let alone a small personal byplane like this! He did a roll with us when I was 9 or 10.....mom said we weren't allowed to fly with him after that. :rotfl:

He's retired to FL now......still flies when he can.....80 yrs old.

Happy Father's Day Grandpa!

my grandfather was my hero. to him, i was always "donya khristi burton tallent paw-paw's girl", and as a little girl, i went places with him all the time, and was always prompted to tell everyone my "name". as i got older, and got married, he started calling me christopher, in place of my middle name (which i don't go by, but he could call me whatever he wanted), and eventually, for some reason that i will never know, added the word "jones", and i was, to him, "christopher jones", which became shortened to "jonesy". he always called me jonesy, and my daughter was his twinkletoes, which was promptly shortened to "twinks". where he got these names, i'll never know, but he died in 2003, and honestly, i would give everything i own to hear him call me "jonesy" one more time.

My father had Frank Sinatra blue eyes, and they twinkled whenever he teased me. He died 15 years ago, but my DD11 has his eyes. Everytime she is in a good mood instead of suffering from pre-teen angst, I see his smile in her eyes and I thank God that He gave those beautiful eyes to my daughter so I can still feel my father's love as well as my daughter's. :heart: I wish my kids could have met him - every silly bone in their bodies is thanks to their granddad! :)

I truly have the best father. When my sisters and I were young, he always had time for us. If he went somewhere and we wanted to come, we were always welcome. My favorite memory happened one evening when I was young. My sisters and I must have done something wrong and my mother sent us to bed. As she was stomping down the stairs, my dad (who clearly didn't think that we deserved it) was stomping up them and promptly released us from our rooms. When he let all 3 of us slide down the banister, I thought that she was going to kill him! Now he's a great- grandpa, slower as he gets around (both of my parents had strokes a month apart about 6 years ago) but I will always remember the way he made me feel wanted and important. I love him.

Back in the early 1960s, my dad was in a very popular regional DooWop band. One of their covers was "Blue Velvet." Whenever the group performed on a weekend afternoon, Mom would go watch the band and bring us kids along. On those special afternoons, I had a little blue velvet Polly Flinders dress that I would wear and would stand up on stage with Dad. When I got married many years later, I surprised Dad by finding a recording of his band's rendition of Blue Velvet for our father-daughter dance.

This may seem a little odd and twisted....but hey, it's my memory, right?! It involves my dad, my uncles and my grandfather. My dad's parents died within 7 hours of each other. No accident or anything. Grandpa died in the middle of the night, and came back 7 hours later to get Grandma. They were married for 65 years and did everything together. I was in college at the time and came home for the week. My dad and his brothers were a wreck, and I ended up making the funeral arrangements. Well, with one exception. We were all sitting with the funeral director, and he started talking about cost. The funeral director started talking about discounts depending on how soon you paid the balance in full. So my uncles started asking how much of a discount if they paid it in 10 days, or that day. Then my dad asked the ultimate question....since it was a funeral for both my grandparents....could they get it as a buy one get one free!!! Funny thing is, my grandfather..who never paid full price for anything, certainly was looking down on us smiling. love you grandpa!

My Dad died very young at 59 and I was 3 months pregnant with my only child at the time. It was hard, but eventually all the wonderful memories returned to enjoy. There is one memory that is still so vivid. My dad was the president of a bank that built a new building. They moved out of the mall they were in and into the new building. In the process of moving everything from one building to the other, the vault was one of the last things to be moved. It was done in the middle of the night, 3 AM. My dad had to be there and he took me with him. I will never forget that time with him. It seems like only yesterday.

I am pretty sure that I am in the running for the person with the "World's Greatest Dad".

My parents took us (me, my younger brother and sister) to WDW four times as children. When I grew up, I rekindled my love of Disney and wanted to plan my own trip as an adult. I started saving for it and finally saved up enough to take myself and my boyfriend. Well, we decided that it would be fun to drive so we invited my mom and dad to come along. We ended up spending 7 nights in a 2BR at OKW (at RACK RATE:eek:, because I didn't know any better back then:cry:) and had a ball. In fact, my "boyfriend" and I got engaged on that trip and returned a year later (2002) for our honeymoon:love:.

Ok, back to the part about my dad...

He enjoyed himself so much on his first stay at OKW, that right then and there, he decided that he wanted to come back and share it with the WHOLE family. So, he said that in 2012, he is taking our entire family (3 kids, 3 kids-in-law and 6, maybe 7, grandkids) to WDW for a week. Yup, count 'em....14 people! He told us that he is paying for our airfare, a week at OKW, our park passes and our food.

We were never spoiled as children. In fact, mom and dad led a very simple, frugal lifestyle. We ate out once a month as a special treat. We participated in a lot of sports and dad even coached a few of our teams. As kids, we always thought that we were being "deprived" because we didn't get the latest clothing or the coolest gadgets. We were brought up in a very budget-minded family. Which is why this whole Disney trip is SO generous of my dad. He NEVER would have spent this kind of money on "just a vacation" in the past. He is 62 years old so he still had a lot of living left to do. He told us that he wants to enjoy his retirement and treat us to this trip while he is still physically and financially in a position to enjoy it. So, it really isn't a great "memory" of my dad, but it still shows what a great dad I have:love:. I can't wait until June 2012! :party:

I have many wonderful memories of my day. To be honest, we are more like brother and sister. We joke together, we laugh together. My fondest memery of my dad would have to be when I moved 2 hours away from him. We figured out a way to still stay in touch. So every Monday we would "speakerphone" each other and watch our favorite show, 24, together.
Now that they show is now over, we are going to re-watch the season all over again and will do it on Mondays as we had done in the past.

My mom's oldest brother passed away three years ago at 60. Since my parents and her brother and his family had a fight starting before I was born, I didn't really meet him until I was 10. I didn't really get to know him all that well, but the story goes that he used to tell my mom that he became a pediatrician so he could give little babies shots. After he died, my mom waned to make a quilt in his honor for my aunt. My aunt said he used to collect snails, so she and her online quilting friends and I made snail blocks. I think she's made 3 quilts so far, including one that now hangs in his former practice. The story behind the snails is this: A while back, the other doctors decided to see how many patients they could see. My uncle was slow, like a snail, because he took his time with each patient. This was truly reflected when he died--my dad said he thought the number of patients there was insane.

When I was little, I won a lot of contests. I would win everything from gift certificates to gallons of paint to clothes, etc. They built a McDonald's here when I was about 10 and they had a grand opening (in November) with a 1-seater go cart right in front of the cash registers. It was shiny red and pretty. I registered for it and told my parents I was going to have that go cart. Well, little did I know that when they drew the name for the go cart about 5 days before Christmas and called that house, they got my dad on the phone. He was a little torn on what to do at that point. He was so proud that I had won a go cart!! That was a big ticket item way back then!! Then again, he had been having to work a lot in the evenings in the last couple months, which wasn't unusual except that it was alot and usually his working over was a little more sporatic.

On Christmas morning, we got up to find two shiny red go carts under the Christmas tree! One was a shiny red 1-seater and one was a shiny red 2-seater. Later, I would find out that the 1-seater was the one I had won from McDonald's (they had to tell me 'cause MCD wanted promo pictures!:D) and the other one was a used one my Dad had bought used and had been going over to his friends house at night to redo it. He hadn't had enough money to buy a new one but wanted us to have one. You could not tell it was ever used!! He had done such a good job on it!! It was a 2-seater so we could share. He made us a race track on part of the land and we had a blast! We would race around on those go carts and had that track dug out about a foot deep! I always liked driving the 2-seater best because it was not as fast and crazy, but DB 5 years younger couldn't drive the 1-seater much because he got caught missing the end of the track and went across the highway on it! :eek: Almost gave DDad a heart attack!! We rode those things for years out there, well into my teens. Lots of good memories there!

There are may stories I could share about my dad. However, this being a board of Disney fans, I might as well share this story:
While I was studying abroad in Mexico, my dad had begun snowbirding it up in St. Petersburg, FL. So when my brother and DSIL said they were going to be at Universal Orlando, he decided to get a FL resident pass and head over to join them.

My dad was pretty excited about this-he greatly enjoyed theme parks, and Universal held special meaning for him as he’d been to the one in California with his late brother several years earlier (it was at his insistence that we took the da there in 1996). Now, as soon as he joined up with my brother, DSIL, her sister and her DH with an Express Pass, he was ready to get going.

They started off at the Mummy, where my brother learned the humor of a trip through a queue with Dad-he would loudly announce that he had every disease the safety signs warned about (He did!). He ended up riding the Mummy four times, and he got soaked on the Jurassic Park ride (My DSIL was able to convince him not to go on Dr. Doom’s Fear Fall, a picture of him is on a test seat was on the Christmas tree we put at his grave every year). Even the mobility issues he was having due to an inner ear infection did not stop him.

About one week after the weekend, he returned to Massachusetts (he and my mother were coming to visit me). However, it was discovered that the “inner ear infection” was a brain tumor. He passed away less than two months later.

I learned a lot from my dad, and I miss him when at Disney and Universal. If nothing else, I want you to consider the idea of going to Universal less than two months after you’d pass away as your lesson for today, or your point to ponder.

My dad was a country farmer who seldom traveled out of North Carolina. He ran a dairy farm for a man old enough to be his father. That man's only child and five grand children moved to Florida, he went to visit and everyone went to Disney World the first year it opened. When he came back, he told my dad that it was the most wonderful place -- fun, clean, safe. My dad decided we should go. He went to a travel agent and got a package for the three of us. I was a freshman in college. We stayed offsite and went to MK two days. I mostly remember the dark rides. Even my mother, who is a nervous ninnie enjoyed them. Everyone was talking about Space Mountain, though, which had just opened. My dad decided we should ride that, too. My mother read the warnings and decided against it, but my dad was ready to go. He had never been on a roller coaster before and expected Pirates of the Carribean with a space theme. It was not what he expected. :rotfl: When he got off, he said that he decided if he got off of there alive he would never do anything like that again! It's been 35 years, but he still asks anyone whose been to WDW if they rode Space Mountain and proudly tells them he did.

I can still picture my grandfather sitting in his backyard with his red plaid wool coat on smoking those stinky cigars and listening to the RedSox game on the radio. He loved the RedSox and listened to all the games. He was my paternal grandfather and lost his only child, a son (my father) to an auto accident when my father was in his twenties and I was only 4 years old...He walked me down the isle at my wedding 40 years ago this coming September, he was so proud and I miss him so much :cry:.....so many memories of both him and my grandmother. :love:

My best memory was participating in an annual play put on by the alumni association of my dad’s high school. The play was “The Sound of Music” and my father having 5 children at the time was a natural to play Captain Von Trapp and my 2 brothers and my sister and I were cast as Von Trapp children. We live in Pittsburgh and it happens Don Brockett (Chef Brockett from Mister Rogers) was an alumni from the same school and was the musical conductor that evening. I remember thinking that the slip I was wearing under my dress was so beautiful. During the performance, I kept lifting my dress so everyone in the audience could see this great slip and I remember Chef Brockett desperately waving his hands for me to drop my dress. But most of all, I could see my dad laughing. Afterwards, although I was warned to never do that again, I still remember my dad’s laugh.

My father died suddenly at age 37 from a brain aneurysm. I was 11 years old with 3 older siblings and 2 younger siblings. Although we only had him a short time, my dad was great! He had the best sense of humor, and I remember laughing a great deal. My dad did not graduate from college until my younger brother was born so my parents were very creative in providing in all ways for 6 kids. I’m just very glad that I remember so much laughter during a time that had to be very stressful for my parents. My dad was taken from us too soon. I wish my nieces and nephews could have known him.

This will be my first father's day without my father. He died of a ruptured aneurysm 8 days after father's day last year. I have so memories of him. My daughter giving him the nick name Papa Claus when she was 2, because of his full white beard.

But my favorite memory is also my last memory I have of him. Monday, June 22, the day after Father’s Day, my daughter had spent several days with her Papa Claus and Nana. I went to pick up my daughter. I met dad and my daughter in the parking lot of a restaurant. When they arrived dad parked his car in the space right next to mine. We got out of our cars. He leaned against his, I leaned against mine and we talked. I gave him a hard time for letting my daughter ride in the front seat of his car. He then went on about being concerned about his retirement and the future. He wanted to retire and move to Texas but didn’t know when. Then the topic changed. He wanted to tell me what a good kid my daughter was. He told me how she liked to push her limits like every other kid. He said, “don’t be so hard on her.” He was giving me advice for the future about how to raise my daughter. It was the kind of conversation we had never had before. We talked much longer that day then we normally would have. My daughter gave him a hug and brushed his beard only to get a reaction from her “papa claus.” I reached over, opened my arms, and wrapped them around him; instantly there was that voice . “Enjoy it, he may be gone soon.” I knew the voice that spoke. It was the same voice that you hear when you are in your quiet place with God. That hug was extra long as I studied the deep-set wrinkles at the corner of his eyes and his leathery sun worn skin. When I released his embrace the words I wanted to say would not come out. In my head was I trying to say…Dad go to the doctor, something is wrong. Why wouldn’t those words come out of my mouth? In my head I was screaming those words but they wouldn’t come out of my mouth. Instead I kissed his cheek, got into my car and we waved goodbye. This was the last conversation I had with my dad. He died exactly 7 days later.

My dad has always been huge in my life. He has always been there for me. I think my most fond memory however is when my sister and I got to take him to WDW after he had cancer last time. It felt so good to know that he was all better. Now we are doing it all over again and am hoping to do the same thing this time.

My Dad passed on almost 11 years ago, but when I think of him, I remember all the "road trips" we took with him leading us in song. He had an extensive repertoire of silly songs that delighted all of us while on the road. He always kept us laughing. Just writing about this brings a smile to my face. :D

When I was 8, my Mother left my Father with 3 kids to raise. My 2 brothers were 4 and 5 months. She didn't want to be a wife or mom anymore. My Dad did the best he could for us, along with alot of help from his parents. He worked in a plastic factory making components for things like car breaks. He married 4 times in his life, always looking for a "mommy" for us kids. He was never truly happy until he met his current wife, Martha. A few months ago, after countless conversations with countless people, he finally went to the doctor. He had been having a hard time breathing and taking falls. The ER admitted him with 3 almost totally blocked arteries. They tried to do the procedure with a catheter to break the blockages up but it failed. He needed a triple bypass. The surgery was a success. He is really mad because he can't do what he enjoys doing yet like he used to. In the last 18 months, both of my brothers took job transfers for their jobs and they went to Kansas City and Atlanta. Dad is having a tough time missing his boys. I booked airfare for Me, Daddy, and my youngest brother for a 5 day trip to Kansas City. Using saved change, savings from coupons, lunch savings because I brown-bagged it, and SR money I was able to come up with $1200 to pay our way. Daddy is super excited! The 4 of us will be together. My step-mom doesn't want to go because of a bad experience flying last year and wants it to be Dad and the kids. My Dad has a very slow-progressing lung cancer from working with plastic components for over 20 years and it decided to rear it's ugly head right after his bypass. I might not have him for Father's Day next year so I want our trip to be the best. I have a ton of memories, warm, fuzzy feelings, and lessons learned from him. I'm hoping our best are yet to come in Kansas City on my brother's back porch in August.

I have psted my favorite dad memory before from my childhood, but I have a recent one to share.

As background, my father is an old, pessimistic, unemotional, French Canadian (not that there's anything wrong with that). He rarely shows any emotion except to yell about the next consipiracy that he envisions going on. :)

Recently, my dd's school held a "grandfriends" day to invite granparents and family friends in to spend part of the day. My dd is very close with my parents, but for some reason, my mother always gets asked, and often my father does not...I think everyone thinks he is not interested in that sort of "stuff." Well, dd asked both of them to go, and he was so excited...now you have to understand that my dd attends a Christian School an my father is a self-proclaimed athiest (I think more agnostic)...

Anyway during the day's festivities, my dd had the opportunity to recite he speech meet piece, which was the poem "The Highwayman." Now, it is a moving poem and all, but my mother told me that by the end of the poem, my father was sitting in his seat crying! He was very oved by my dd's interpretation and her ability to present the poem, and he hadn't gotten the opportunity to experience that sort of thing before. Anyway, I just thought that was so sweet! He had a great time that day, and came home talking about what a great time he had with all the kids and with dd's friends, and how welcome he felt!

My grandfather,Luigi,(known as Nini to us) is by far the best grandfather and father. He grew up in a little town called Esperia in a very poor part of Italy. He married my grandmother and had 2 children. When my dad was 2 my grandmother died of pnuemonia. My grandfather with the help of my great aunt raised my dad and aunt. World War 2 was fought in his hometown and he ended up a prisoner of war. After the war he had an opportunity to bring the family to the USA. They came over on the Andrea Adora(the last successful trip before she sunk).

Through the years Nini helped to raise me and all the grandchildren. There isn't 1 memorable moment that stands out. It is the many small daily things he did to show his love to us. He was a kind and gentle person who would spend his time singing Italian folk songs to us, making items from wood such as flutes and a doll for my aunt when she was a young girl. (He never had much money and couldn't afford to buy her a doll so he made one out of wood). He was very artistic and had the best garden in the neighborhood. At 90 he took up painting and I have several of his pictures hanging up.

One funny memory was after my cousin's wedding there was a small group of us watching WW Wrestling which Nini loved to watch. He was yelling at the tv and other people were too noisy that the hotel security came to his room and asked them to quiet down. This still makes me laugh even when I am so saddened by his death this past Thursday.

My family and I will say our final farewells to him on Tuesday. He is the last of that generation to die. I keep thinking of one of my favorite song lines which fits Nini's life. Some of it's tragic,some of it's magic but I had a good life all the way.

He will be missed but never forgotten. I'm blessed to have had him in my life for so long. He was 100 years,4 months and 1 day old.

My daddy has been gone for 34 yrs, so he never got to see any of his 6 grandchildren or the 3 greats (soon to be 5). So many times I have wished my girls could have known him. He was my best friend, biggest supporter, made life fun and held me when I cried.

At Christmas, he would tell my sister and I not to come down stairs until 7a. Then, at 6a, he would be banging on the piano asking why we weren't up. When I smashed my thumb in my new car door, he let me sit on his lap, all night, crying. He finally convinced me to go to the ER and have my thumb drilled. Afterwards, he stuck his out for the doc to drill, said I had squeezed his too hard. He nearly always was full of patience, rarely yelled at us. Joked alot.

When I was 21, he had cancer. It was the 2nd time, and since he had overcome it the yr before, my sister and I thought he would this time, also. He wanted to tell us the truth, but my mom wanted to protect us. We learned the truth about a month before he died. But, I had figured it out. He spent the last month, in the hospital. I was between colleges, so I stayed with him, alot, while my mom worked. We talked alot. During one conversation, he told me he wanted my mom to re-marry and us to be supportive. (His brother didn't support my grandmother's decision to re-marry). We talked about it, quite a bit. At one point we discussed who she could marry. There was a man, at church, Daddy thought he would be great for my mom. We laughed, that man never been married. Nearly one year to the day that my daddy died, my mom married that man, Everette.

Everette died 12 yrs later. He was a quiet man, but just as wonderful as my dad, and had a big heart. After he died, I told my mom the story about Daddy wanting her to marry Everette.

Both of them are gone, but I still have so many memories of them that in some ways it is like the are still around. Happy Father's Day!

Such great posts here....but only one can win. The winner was picked by random.org, not by the story. There is no way anyone could pick just one of them.

The winner is post #17.....Lorisnuts.

Congrats....open up TT and include your full name and address so I can send you your prize.

Congratulations

Congrats! I enjoyed reading everyone's stories.

Congrats!