THREE MEN TELL HOW FATHERS HELPED PAVE THEIR WAY

Unlike the child in Harry Chapin's "Cat's Cradle," some boys grow up just like their fathers, and they like it that way. This is a brief look at three such men in Cape Girardeau.

If it weren't for a girlfriend, Al Spradling III might be a banker instead of mayor of Cape Girardeau.

"When I was in college, I had more of an inclination toward banking, not law," Spradling says. "I had been around law all my life."

So had his father. The first Al Spradling is remembered in old newspaper clippings as "one of the rising young attorneys of the county" when he moved his practice from Jackson to Cape Girardeau in the early 1920s. This obviously influenced Al Spradling II, who took his legal education a step further and parlayed it into a 25-year career in politics in the Missouri Senate.

Spradling III gives credit to his college girlfriend for staking his future in the study of law, but whatever momentary magic made him choose law in college, a lifetime of observing his father shaped his career, he says.

At least, he observed his father when he could. A life of politics didn't allow Spradling II many days at home. When he first became a state senator in 1952, he would be in the capital for nearly half a year every other year, Spradling III says. When the legislature began meeting annually in the 1960s, time away doubled.

"And he still had to practice law, since the money paid to state senators was so little," Spradling III says.

This is one reason the mayor vows he will never seek political office beyond the municipal level.

One of the earliest political lessons Spradling III learned from his father came during the 1964 Democratic primary election when he worked in his father's campaign.

"It was a hard-fought senate race," he remembers. "You saw a lot of things, whether you liked them or not. There was a lot of machinery in place that you had to deal with when it came to politics."

This introduction to mudslinging was low-level compared to much of the modern politicking, but how Spradling II responded to campaign posters being nailed over or ripped off trees by opponents impressed his son. Dad didn't get mad, he got even, Spradling III says.

Spradling III is sorry he didn't start practicing what his father showed him until he made his second run at mayor in 1994.

"I didn't really practice his philosophy as much as I got mad," he says, explaining this as part of the reason he lost his first campaign for mayor in 1990 to incumbent Gene Rhodes.

He made the most of his second chance by actively seeking campaign advice from his father, something he ignored the first time he ran for mayor. Learning better how to raise funds, target voters and create consensus from his father allowed him to win, Spradling III says.

"I was stubborn about his advice as a young man," he says. "I guess when you reach your 40s you can still be as bullheaded."

Along with sharing political insights, Spradling III still practices law with his father, just as he has since 1974.

"I think it is every child's dream to work with his father or mother at some time," he says. "I feel very fortunate."

Cliff Ford's father taught him how to turn tragedy into trust, time after time, 24 hours a day.

"I have always observed the fulfillment he has gotten out of his work," says Ford, whose grandfather started Ford Funeral Home, now Ford & Sons, 51 years ago. "It is just part of his life to help people out at tough times."

As a student in high school, Cliff Ford thought he'd prefer teaching or coaching to handling funeral arrangements.

"It was plain that he would have liked me to follow in his footsteps, but he never made that an issue," Cliff Ford says.

The younger Ford recalls how little he saw of his father growing up. When he was a boy, funeral homes operated their own ambulance services as well, so his father had to be ready for business 24 hours a day.

Over the past 20 years since he began full-time work with his father, 42-year-old Cliff Ford has seen much more of him, but that doesn't mean they've seen eye to eye.

When they started working together, Walter Joe Ford chafed at various improvements his son instituted. Cliff Ford had grown up with each phone call from a grieving client being answered personally. But that left family members trapped at home. So Cliff Ford introduced his dad to pagers and answering machines.

"At first he wasn't comfortable with that at all," Cliff Ford says, "but he has changed a little bit, just as I have changed a little bit by working together."

Now, along with his brother Kevin, Cliff Ford says they share a positive working relationship within their family.

Cliff Ford doesn't have any sons to follow after him, but he does have three daughters. The oldest is 12.

"Their ideas about jobs change every week," he says.

As a teen-ager, Dan Green had no desire to work with his earthly father, Hal Green, or his heavenly father. He has since come to work for both.

"Growing up, being a pastor was the last thing I wanted to do," says Dan Green, who pastors Cape Bible Chapel together with his father.

Although his father's line of work embarrassed him, Dan Green says he lived an example that was impossible to disrespect.

"The credibility of his life Monday through Saturday matched with what he did and said on Sundays," Dan Green says.

His most vivid childhood recollections of his father are the hours he spent involving himself in others' lives. He would go to the hospitals or homes of those who called regardless of the time.

"It wasn't like an interruption in his life, it was an opportunity," Dan Green says.

After rebelling from the church and leaving home in the early 1970s, Dan Green says he came home to Cape Girardeau when he was 23. Now 46, he has spent 21 years ministering from the same church with his father.

"I've talked with other pastors when I've gone to conferences who have said they could never work like that with their fathers," he says.

Over time, the two have changed roles. The son has become senior pastor, and the father has moved into a more home-based, visitation ministry.

"A lot of decisions have to be made in a growing church about its development, and we don't always agree," Dan Green says, "but counting my early years, we really have made up for lost time. And that's God at work."