HONORING FATHERS SHOULDN'T BE LIMITED TO ONE DAY A YEAR

Father's Day, a Hallmark event most often associated with tacky ties and golfing shirts, is one of those holidays that should be observed more often than annually.

I don't mean that dads need more tacky ties. What I'm getting at is that fathers, particularly good ones, too often are taken for granted.

Now that I'm a father myself (my oldest, Levi, is 2 and Elisha is 9 months), I hope to build the kind of relationship with my boys that goes beyond polite acknowledgements on birthdays and holidays.

The joy of fatherhood far exceeds a novice writer's ability to adequately describe in a 20-inch newspaper column, so I won't even attempt it. Rather than describe my relatively limited experience as a father, I'd like to go back to another time and world, to the humble beginnings of a man I admire as much as any on Earth.

Like many born in the heart of the Great Depression, this man's introduction into the world was harsh. From the beginning, life was anything but easy.

Raised in a small, country home with nine siblings, he watched his father work slavishly as a miner in the nearly depleted southwest Wisconsin lead digs.

Christmas each year was marked by the unabashed joy of receiving a new handkerchief and half of a Baby Ruth bar. It wasn't much by today's standards, but it was something given freely a gift that didn't first have to be earned.

Despite the enduring hardships, life didn't lack happiness. Far from it. Children tend to be oblivious to their parents' concerns over finances and bill-paying. As long as there was food on the table and a roof overhead, all else was to be peripheral.

As this boy matured into a young man he had high aspirations relative to his poor, backwoods upbringing. Educated through the eighth grade in a one-room country school, this 14-year-old wanted to go on to high school.

No other in the family had yet received any schooling beyond that modest one-room academy. His father told him that if an eighth-grade education was good enough for him, it ought to be good enough for any of his kids.

But this young man insisted on going to high school with a doggedness that essentially earned him an early independence. He was thrown out of the house.

Undaunted, he took up a farming partnership with his 16-year-old brother with intentions of enrolling in the local high school the following year. True to his dream, the next fall he enrolled as a 15-year-old freshman, older than his classmates, but different also in many other ways.

While school mates rushed to band practice or football practice, or just to the local soda joint after school, he instead hurried to an area farm where he was employed full-time for room, board and high school tuition. For spending money, he worked odd jobs at other farms in the area.

He was an excellent student, but college was not a serious consideration. After putting himself through high school, he wasn't particularly excited with the prospect of four more years of similar work to get a degree.

Actually, this man's dream far exceeded the higher education aspirations of many of his peers: He wanted more than anything to have the best farm in Grant County Wisconsin.

After a stint as a mechanic, and national service in Korea, he met the daughter of the neighboring county's sheriff. She was a popular young woman with a vastly different background. But the two were obviously happy as they were married and began the dream spawned six years earlier upon high school graduation.

But the farm needed work. Long hours, tight budgets, and sweat and blood did little in the first few years to transform the small tract of land into a dream spread. A family was easier to build than was his small Jersey cow herd, and, unfortunately, the larger the family became the more this proud man was able to see that his long-time dream would never materialize.

He took a job as an electrician in a small town in a neighboring state and, always the pragmatist, discarded his former dream and worked to make a life for his family of four.

Though serious and a strict disciplinarian, this man, along with his wife, encouraged the four children to think independently. It didn't matter if their opinions weren't popular, "peer pressure" would be foreign to his children as they went through the trying times of adolescence.

Thus reared, heated discussions often erupted around the dining room table. The free-thinking children, particularly the three sons, all saw their father as a hard-headed, unreasonable sap living somewhere between the stone age and Goldwater's last presidential bid.

But an amazing metamorphosis occurred as the sons became young men. They saw their father now as a thoughtful man whose keen analytical skills and practical "horse sense" revealed a wisdom greater than any the hallowed halls of academia could ever produce.

Today, the joys of grandparenting seem to have softened some of the hard edges to this man. He smiles and laughs freely now, something that was rare when he was burdened with the responsibilities of providing for a family of six and rearing four, sometimes unruly children.

He has the contented look of a man who, if given the chance to go back and change things, would change nothing.

It's probably no surprise that the man I've described is my own father. But he's more than that. He also was the best man in my wedding seven years ago. I could think of no better choice.

No human will ever have more of an effect on my values, my view of the world, my life, than has my father. You did all right, Pop. Thanks. I only hope that I can do as well with your grandchildren.