On remembering our fathers
And about that dream to own a book store
On the brink of Father’s Day, I read a lovely essay by Parker J. Palmer1 about his father, Max J. Palmer. I could almost hear Parker’s voice in this statement about his dad: “The measure of greatness in a businessman is the same as it is in anyone: it’s about living with integrity, doing what you can to give others a helping hand, and serving the common good.”
My own father wasn’t a businessman in the same sense as Max Palmer, but like Parker (father and son) he was about the business of living with integrity, doing what he could to give others a helping hand and serving the common good. The oldest daughter in a family of five children, I looked up to my dad as the ideal of everything a daughter could need or want in a father. He was industrious, kind, funny, hand-working, patient, creative….and so much more. Dad was and still is my hero.
Robert Harris Wilson was born in 1928 in Albion, Indiana. He lived in or around Albion all his life. In 2014, I wrote and published a little book about Dad titled “One Man’s Work”.2 The news outlet for which I once worked as a journalist serialized the book in one of their daily publications, making my father a minor celebrity in his hometown. Dad helped me write his stories as we sat at his kitchen table and I interviewed him, tape-recording our conversations. It was a joy for both of us to honor his memories and share his legacy.
Dad was a child during The Great Depression. He was a Boy Scout who also proudly served his country in the U.S. Air Force and served his community as a mail carrier and as Postmaster. Dad held many jobs around his hometown growing up. The book is full of stories about those jobs. Always curious and industrious, Dad loved to work and took pride in a job well-done. His favorite career was as an employee of the Town of Albion, where he proudly served as groundskeeper for Rose Hill Cemetery.
In 2018, Dad was honored by Boy Scouts of America for his lifelong support of the organization. On this Father’s Day weekend, I’d like to share an essay I wrote about Dad’s response to the honor. He passed just six months after this was written. I know there are many, like Palmer Parker and myself, remembering and honoring Fathers who left a legacy worthy of remembrance.
“It was the best time of my life.”
Dad’s nostalgia on a recent Friday evening carried him back through the 35 years he spent with Boy Scouts of America. Making it all the way to one badge short of Eagle Scout (a story he’ll tell with little prompting) set him up to spend over 20 years as a Scout leader. His loyalty and dedication earned him a pin, a certificate and a handshake from the district head of scouting before a gathering of family and friends.
The day after Dad's award ceremony, I read these words and thought of him:
“Godly contentment will keep us in a state of discontentment with the world around us. It will help us recognize temporary comforts such as a full stomach and a safe place in which to lay our heads are not the destination in our lives. Godly contentment makes pilgrims out of us.” Michelle Van Loon in Born to Wander: Recovering the Value of Our Pilgrim Identity
The author calls this state of wandering a "holy discontent".
In some ways, discontentment with his world today has taken my father by the hand and left him wandering through happier times, to spaces and places where his life had purpose -- "the best time of my life." Contentment for him has always been fed less by food on the table and a safe place to lay his head than by knowing he had a role to play: husband and father, soldier, scout leader, mail carrier, cemetery tender. No wonder his conversations with his children these days often begin with “Is this all there is?”
My father isn’t a spiritual man. He’s pragmatic. Keep your nose clean, work hard, help others and you’ll be seen as a good person. It’s worked for him, so it isn't likely he'd call his current state of discontentment "holy". The truth is, he's not looking for holy. Maybe the faith he and God settled on during his childhood in the Presbyterian church and adulthood in the Catholic church are his passage to eternity. I pray they are.
Because I want him to rediscover contentment. I want my father to know this isn't all there is — a reclining lift chair in a cramped nursing home room, meals with strangers, baths at the hands of another stranger. This isn't all there is, but maybe it's a path to all there is.
All his life, Dad has told stories, so many good ones that I've written a book full of them. Within those pages are tales of his years as a mailman, a soldier and a Boy Scout. Reflecting on his best days brings a measure of contentment, but the truth is it can't last. Because those roles aren't eternal. They aren't the destination.
Like most of us, Dad is wandering, a discontented pilgrim with a suitcase full of memories, in search of an eternal home.
About that dream to own a book store…
You may recall that in January I mentioned my collision with cancer and my dream to own a book store. An update: the cancer has been defeated and owning a bookshop has become more than a dream.
Chapters Bookshop opened on April 26 — National Independent Bookstore Day. I’ve rented space in the historic brick building I mentioned in downtown LaGrange. Our spot on the courthouse square also houses a coffee shop, a tattoo artist, a marketing business and an addictions recovery center. (We all get along just fine.)
I enjoy reading and writing. I love talking about and collecting about books. But, I’ve never run a business so this past month has provided quite a learning curve for me. I’m happy to say that my beautiful Amish-made bookshelves are stocked and people are finding Chapters. We’re currently in the middle of our first book club with six of us reading and discussing “A Girl of the Limberlost” by Gene Stratton-Porter. LaGrange is near Stratton-Porter’s Cabin at Wildflower Woods on Sylvan Lake in Rome City. The author loved northern Indiana and set several of her books in our region. At the height of her popularity in the late 18th and early 19th centuries she had 50 million readers from around the world. We are happy to keep her legacy alive and we’re thoroughly enjoying “A Girl of the Limberlost”. We expect to hold our last meet-up at Gene’s cabin.
Welcome to Chapters Bookshop
I’ve read most of Parker J. Palmer’s 10 books and never miss a podcast episode. I’m delighted to learn he has joined Substack, which is where this quote originates.
I sell (and sometimes give away) copies of this little book at Chapters Bookshop. I recently met with a small group of women of a certain age to encourage them to “capture and share” their life stories. Their legacy is a gift.