December 15, My Dear Father's Birthday

Father----December 15, 1915---December 25, 1998
Mother---March 25, 1918---June 6, 1969

We miss you, father, and mother too. You'd be happy to know, we're all doing quite well. You were a good man. And we all know, a good man is hard to find. We love you both always.

Opening verses about my family:

He was born 91 years ago,
His destiny to fulfill,
The son of Mamie and Vance always knew
He'd work in a lumber mill.

Growing up hunting and fishing, he walked
These beautiful Tennessee hills,
But nothing ever came close to the thrills
Of running that lumber mill.

He married a fair southern belle named Murl
And they started a fam-i-ly,
They wanted a son, for the work that'd be done
But the next thing they knew, they got me.

Still wanting an heir with the mill he could run,
They waited again.... until,
My sister arrived, and from her crib she decried
"I ain't never gonna run that lumber mill."

---Off the top of my head, part of an old forgotten poem I wrote for my father's 80th birthday celebration and later lost the copy.