Father Figures and Mentors

 

 

Father Figures and Mentors

By Franklin T. Wike

 

The following article should be read twice, by every man that knows any child between the ages of 3 and 63 years of age.

We are now living in a society in which more than half of the young couples getting married are also getting divorced. Many young girls are getting pregnant and having children without the physical or financial support of a man; also there are even some women who want a baby without being with a man, so they choose to use artificial insemination to have their children.

This article is about the children, their needs and the positive influence others can have on these children. It is especially about one little boy who grew up without a father to help him, the men who helped to mold him and teach him how to become a man, and the effect that teaching had on others. That little boy was me and this is my story.

In preparation for writing this article, I went on the Internet to look for letters from other men, and to see what type of tributes and comments they had to offer about their own fathers. I was amazed to discover that out of 100 plus letters that I read from men under the age of 40, only 3 men had positive comments to make about their own fathers. This is partially a result of men growing up either without a father or with a father that was not a positive influence in their lives.

There was one 12 year old boy who was crying out for help because his body was going through some changes. He was developing physically, but he wasn’t sure if he was developing correctly and he wanted to talk to a man who could guide him.

One teacher informed me that in the inner city area where she worked, 85% of the children come from single family households. When she was working on a playground project building birdhouses, the young 2nd and 3rd grade boys were lined up, wanting her to show them how to use a hammer and nails because they had no man in their live to show them how to use tools.

One correction office informed me that 75% of the men behind the walls where he works, come from single parent families. There are children out there of all ages who are being deprived of the type of education that two parents can offer them. If we, as responsible adults, do not reach a hand out to help others, then we have no one else to blame when the drug users and convicts start reaching their hands into our homes.

There are three things that everyone has, and that others need. They are called, Time, Knowledge and Love. It will cost you nothing to give them, yet the rewards can be more valuable than all of the money in the world. I was lucky. I had several uncles and a grandfather who offered their time, knowledge and love to me. If they had not, I would not be writing this article right now. What type of accomplishments could the person you help achieve?
 

Exactly what is a Father’s day for? If we look at the media advertisements, we might think of Father’s Day as a time to buy tools, boats, fishing gear and all sorts of toys for the big boys. But Father’s day is about so much more than simply buying toys for the man in your life. It is a time when we should pay tribute to all the men who have had a positive influence in your life. You might notice that I said ALL of the men instead of simply one man. I said that for a reason. When I was an infant, my father left and I did not see him again until I was 18 years old. That comment, in and by itself, is nothing unusual, because now over half of the boys in this country are growing up without fathers: however, in the 1950’s, it was not that common.

Let me tell you a little bit about what life was like for a boy to grow up without a father during the 50’s. To grow up in a house with out a father, means that you are growing up in a house with a part time mother, because the mother has to work in order to keep a roof over your head. I love my mother very much and I know that she did the best she could to help me grow up, but there is only so much a woman can do by herself. During the 1950’s the job choices for women were very limited. My mother worked as a waitress. She worked very long hours, including nights, for very little money. I did not get to see my mother during the day, because I was in school. However when the other children would go home after school to their families and have a nice supper at their table, my life was different. My mother was still working, so I would go to the restaurant after the dinner crowd would leave, and eat my supper at a back booth in the restaurant. If it was a real slow night, she might be able to spend a few minutes talking with me, before another customer needed to place an order or needed a coffee refill.

When all of the other boys were learning how to play football, or baseball, use tools to build things, hunt or fish, I stayed at home, because I had no man in my life to teach me these things. There were a few things that I learned during those young years that I can attribute to various men, although my memory is clouded and I do not remember who the men where. One of the things I learned was that if I did not have anyone available to teach me directly, then I would have to learn things by simply watching and listening to others. Here is one example of using that technique. 

I have a brother that is two years older then I am. When I was real young, some man was teaching my bother to play chess. I was sitting close enough that I could watch every move and hear every comment, but I was not allowed to play the game. Twenty years later, I finally had a chance to play the game and ended up becoming the president of a local Chess Club, winning state tournaments, putting on exhibitions and teaching the game to other boys in schools as well as to my own son and step-sons.

By the time I was about to become a teenager, my mother, brother and I moved 600 miles from our home in Pennsylvania to Indiana so we could be closer to my mother’s parents and brothers. That is when my life began to change. I would finally have some men around me. 

I have several uncles that have had an influence on my life, but the one that stands out the most was my Uncle Don Hostetter. He owns a nursery and landscaping business in Indiana and as a teenager, I used to work for him. One day when it was raining and we could not work outside, he took me to Chicago to see my first and only major league baseball game. I was never much of a baseball fan, but spending those hours alone with my uncle, on the drive to and from Chicago, plus feeling privileged enough to be at a public event with a man by my side, made me feel very special. The fact that my uncle choose to share his time with ME, made me feel wanted and very proud. I do not remember who won that game or who was even playing, but I know the biggest winner of the day was me, because one man took a young fatherless boy and spent the entire day with him. 

That one day had a very positive effect on my life and I have spent many days during my life trying to give that same feeling of being special to my own son, my step-sons, cub scouts, chess students, and many other young people that I have come in contact with.

One Special Man...A Grand Father Figure

There was one special man that influenced my life more then any other man. His name was Warren David Hostetter and he was my grandfather. Most of his close friends called him “Stubby” because he was not a very big man physically. He only stood around 5’5 in height, but he was a giant of a man when it came to principles, honor and kindness. This is my tribute to him and comments on the types of things a teenage boy can learn from a father figure, mentor or grandfather.

TOOLS
My grandparents had a nice house in South Bend, Indiana. The house belonged to both grandparents, but the garage was my grandfathers domain. My grandfather seemed to have a special fondness for tools. I am not sure if he simply respected them, loved them, or both, but I do know that he took very good care of them. The walls inside his garage were covered with his tools and each one was always cleaned and returned to it’s proper place after he used it. He even had a special trademark paint scheme to mark all of his yard tools, such as shovels, hoes, rakes, etc. He painted the handles green, except for a 4 inch area on the end of the handle that was painted red. He even made sure the handles were clean, and the paint was fresh. I never saw him buy any replacement tools, but then I never saw any tools that were broken and needed replacement. The only time I saw him add to his tool collection would be when we were driving down the road and he would suddenly pull of the road for no apparent reason, get out of his truck and rescue a wrench, screwdriver or some other type of tool that was laying in the road. How he could recognize those spots in the road as orphaned tools always amazed me.

His fondness for tools rubbed off on me. He gave me my first tool box. It was a wooden tray with a dowel rod handle that he made. Then he gave me some of his orphaned tools that he had picked up along some road, to put into it. As the years passed, my fondness for tools grew and when my own son was old enough to learn how to use tools properly, he saw me paint and identify my own tools, including my yard tools, and place every tool in a designated place on the wall of my garage. I wonder if he will pass the same family tradition along to his son or some other child in the future.

Trimming Shrubs

The first time I saw my grandfather trimming any shrubs was when a new house had been built across the alley from my grandparents house. The neighbor planted a hedge between the side of his house and the alley. After the hedge got tall enough to trim, my grandfather went over and ran a string the appropriate height, from one end of the hedge to the other end. Then he took a pair of hand hedge trimmers and cut that hedge as straight and even as an arrow. That didn’t look like such a difficult job to perform and I did not think too much about it, until a couple of years later when I went to work for my uncle who owned the nursery and landscaping business.

I was on my way to a job site in a very exclusive part of town, when I noticed a house that had these very beautiful pyramid shaped evergreen trees in their front yard and a hedge that reminded me of a loose rope that would be fastened to several posts and sagging in between the posts. Starting at the driveway, the hedge was around 4 foot tall and shaped like a rectangular brick or concrete pillar. Then it dipped down into a perfect arc until it was only around 2 feet in height and then climbed back up in height to 4 feet again like it was another concrete pillar. It held the same shape around the entire house. As I looked closer, I noticed that some man was out there trimming those hedges. I thought to myself, “Now that guy is a real talented artist” As I looked closer at the man trimming the shrubs, I discovered that it was MY GRANDFATHER!! That is when I found out that he was the one that actually started the Nursery my uncle owned and taught my uncle the landscaping business.

Now that my grandfather is gone, I can not help but wonder what he is thinking as he looked down from heaven and watched me years later as I was the one tying the string across the top of some hedges, while I was teaching my own son how to trim the intricate spiral or pyramid shapes on various shrubs, when I owned my own landscaping business.

The Farm

Although my grandparents lived in town, they also owned a small truck patch type farm about 10 miles away from their house. As a young boy, when school was out for the summer, I would spend my time working with my grandfather on the farm. The work was hard and the hours were long, but it was worth every minute I spent in the hot sun, because I learned not only how to work with my hands, and my head, but by watching him deal with other people, I learned that people respect a person because of who he is.

One day my grandfather allowed me to accompany him on his pickup truck as he took a load of corn to the grain elevator. When we arrived at the elevator, he pulled under a canopy to park and went inside the building while I stayed in the truck. After he unloaded his corn, he parked under this canopy again and this time I decided that I wanted t o join him inside the building. He told me I had to stay in the truck until he motioned for me to join him. He explained that since I was in the truck when they weighed the truck in with a full load of corn, I had to also be in the truck when they weighed it empty. He told me that it was important to always be honest with everyone, especially in business dealings.

My grandparents grew many of the regular garden type vegetables such as yellow wax beans, green beans, peas, cucumbers, potatoes, pumpkin, cantaloupe, watermelon, corn, plus strawberries and blackberries, but their biggest crop was their blueberries. They must have had over 100 blueberry bushes. I don’t remember the exact number, but I do know that for several summers, I would get up every morning at 5:00 am, leave the house with my grandfather and the two of us would pick blueberries until 5:00pm. We would not take any breaks except for a 1/2 hours lunch break, then we would go back to work. No matter how fast I tried to work, my grandfather could always fill 2 five gallon buckets of blueberries, to my one bucket. I don’t remember how many days it would take us to get through the blueberry patch one time, but I do remember that by the time we got from one end of the patch to the other, it was time to start all over again, until all of the berries were picked for the entire season. There was a part of me that Really DID NOT LIKE HAVING TO SPEND MY SUMMERS working in the hot sun, yet when we would take our lunch break and I got to spend that half hour uninterrupted, talking about life with my grandfather, it made it all worthwhile. For that one short period of time each day, he was mine. I could ask any type of childish inquisitive question I wanted to and he would always answer me.

Maybe I did not have a father, but during those summer lunch breaks, I did have a man in my life who cared about me and took the time to make me feel special. There is however at least one question that I wish I would have asked him. I never did find out how he could stand to work in the hot sun, in 90 to 100 degree temperatures, and always wear a heavy long sleeve shirt. In all the years I spent around my grandfather, I never once saw him in a short sleeve shirt.

My grandfather also showed me that I was allowed to have fun in life. Once we got the blueberries picked for the season, the rest of the work was not as demanding on our time and he would let me be a kid sometimes. I remember the first time he put a saddle on his horse. It was a golden palomino named Trigger and he let me go for a ride. Actually it was more like a fast walk around the barnyard, when I suddenly went flying through the air and landed plum smack in the middle of an 8 foot high pile of manure. I was more scared than hurt, and I sure was thankful for the cushioning effect of the manure pile. I do not ever recall seeing my grandfather laugh as hard as he did that day, unless it was the day he “fixed” my mashed potatoes.

My grandfather had a great sense of humor and liked to play practical jokes. One time during supper I had to excuse myself to go to the washroom. Upon returning to the table, I proceeded to take a big bite of my grandmothers homemade mashed potatoes, when all of a sudden, I had the hottest burning sensation in my mouth that I had ever experienced.. 

It turned out my grandfather had mixed some “hot” horseradish in with my mashed potatoes while I was away from the table. As I sat there with my eyes burning and trying to inhale an entire glass of water in one gulp, I was shocked but very pleased that he would do something like that to me.

For years, I had watched as my grandfather and my mother would play tricks on each other. I suddenly realized that this prank was his way of telling me that I had been accepted within that close inner circle of special people he enjoyed being with and that I was truly family.

One other thing my grandfather helped to teach me was manners. I am not sure he even knew he was doing this. Many times while we were eating supper, he would get finished eating before I would. Then he would get up from the living room and simply stand by the front door for a minute, like he was looking out the window, then he would return to the kitchen table and talk with my grandmother until I was finished eating. I didn’t understand why he would always go look out the window until years later when my mother informed me that he had a problem with gas, and would go into the other room until his attack was over.

Something else I learned during those evening meals around the supper table was communication. Eating supper at the table with my grandparents was quite a bit different from eating a hamburger in a restaurant. Since I had helped plant the seeds, pull the weeds and harvest the crop, and the fact that my grandmother was such a great cook, that food tasted much better, (with the exception of the horseradish in my mashed potatoes). It was the conversation and communication that took place at that table, that made me feel like a vital and important part of the family. That feeling of being included, helps to build self worth in a child.

There are many other things my grandfather taught me by allowing me to help him paint the house every other year and letting me ride in his truck, so I could watch him shift gears over and over, until I could tell by the sound of the engine when it was time to shift, or taking me with him to auctions and rodeos and the county fairs. He was also the one who allowed me to buy my first pocket knife, and then showed me how to sharpen it on a wet stone and take care of it.

As a young boy, I can remember looking up to him and wanting to become just like him when I grow up. My one regret is that if I live to be 100 years old, I will never be half as big a man as that grand father figure called stubby. One of the last times I saw my grandfather, was when he was celebrating his 50th wedding anniversary. As I reflect back on that day and I remember him as he held my grandmother’s hand and kissed her, I can only hope that someday I can tell him how much I loved him and how much I appreciate everything he did for me and how big an influence he was in helping me to become a man. His influence was far greater then he ever realized. Even some of the things I learned from my uncles and my mother were a result of my grandfathers teachings, because he is the one that helped teach them how to share their time and attention with others.

I am now 48 years old. By society standards, I am now a man, yet deep inside me, there still lives a little boy who cries when he sees little boys playing games and interacting with their fathers. I still feel the pain and sorrow when I think about the things I missed as a child. It also pains me to see other couples get divorced and to watch other boys have to grow up without their fathers or grandfathers. How can boys learn how to become decent men and fathers, if some adult male does not take them under their wing and teach them?

There were many times while writing this article that tears came into my eyes. Sometimes it was because of the things I missed, other times it was because I am so grateful for the time I got to spend with my grandfather and uncles. The end result is that many men have had an impact on my life, some because of NOT being there and others because they were there for me.

I never learned to hunt, fish or play sports as a boy, but thanks to ALL of the men that choose to spend time with me, I did learn how to become an honest, hard working person who takes pride in whatever job I set out to accomplish. I also learned to respect and take care of my tools or the equipment I use to perform a job, to always be honest and tell the truth, not only to others but to also be honest and respect myself. For if a person does not respect themselves, how can they expect others to respect them? 

The greatest lesson of all is the lesson I learned about how much of a difference one person can make in the life of another, by simply taking the time to be with them, by talking with them, and by caring about them. My one remaining goal in this life is to be able to take some of the positive lessons I have learned from watching and listening to all of these men and pass them along to others. That is one of the reasons I wrote this tribute. You can be sure that anytime I run into anyone else that is willing to watch, listen and learn, I will be willing to take the time to talk, teach and write. For every time that I offer to share a bit of who I am with another person, I am also sharing a part of my grandfather, uncles and others father figures that have come into my life.

How about you? When was the last time you shared some of your wisdom and knowledge about life with another? 

©Copyright, 1998-2025 Franklin T. Wike, Jr. All rights reserved.

 

NOTE: This article was originally written as an Editorial for the American Legacies Magazine. However the one fact that I failed to mention is how important it is for boys and girls to have GOOD Men, involved in their lives.

Finding Quality male figures, is not always easy. As new information has been revealed in recent decades pertaining to certain priests and other men in leadership positions, we as a society need to learn to trust but verify. So, I strongly encourage individuals to search for positive male role models and mentors, for the children, but also protect the children by having a witness, camera or other form of security involved.

So, if you are a Christian, I encourage you to find male Sunday school teachers and Christian men, in order to install positive values in the children, but also remember the worst criminal in the world can be a great caring father, while the most respectable looking person that does lots of good deeds, just like the characters Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, could have a dark side.

 

So, I encourage you to pray for guidance, but also keep a watchful eye.

Just My Thoughts

FTW