Outside Looking In

Father's Day still holds special meaning to me as a father of two beautiful daughters. It holds even more meaning when I think about my own father.
My father and I spent a lot of time together fishing, playing sports, watching games, and talking about life.
When I was first learning how to pitch a baseball, I threw the ball hard but it was never within 10 feet of my father's mitt. So, he got out of his crouching position time and time again to go and chase the ball. I busted our garage window twice, the handle off the outdoor water faucet twice, and a flower pot on my neighbor's patio. Not once did he complain and assured me that the more times I threw the ball, the better I would get. I never forgot that and eventually became a pitcher on the Tracy varsity team.
When I tossed a one-hit shutout against Morton, my father came up to me after the game and said "See?", knowing that I would understand what he meant from something he told me 10 years before.
He wasn't a typical father who disciplined a child for doing something wrong. He never spanked me, never sat me in a timeout and rarely yelled at me. Instead, he would sit me down and teach me why I was wrong for what I had done and what would happen to me and others if I continued that type of behavior.
I remember the first Twins game he took me to at former Met Stadium where the Mall of America now stands. The Twins were hosting the former Kansas City Athletics. I still have the scorebook from that game in my possession.
We went fly fishing every summer in Canada. We stood in the river with our hip waders on. Hanging off our fishing belts would be a wicker fish basket to put the rainbow trout in, a tin cup and a small box of flies that he made. The water was so clean and cool that you could dip the cup in the water and get a refreshing drink. We would catch a few trout and fry them up on shore. It was the greatest time of my life.
My father worked at the 7up Bottling Company in Tracy for over 30 years. I would work there during the summer months loading the trucks early in the morning. The men at the plant would call me "Little Thoma", which I still consider a compliment.
My dad was my Little League coach and when I was old enough to play VFW (now Junior Legion), he became the VFW coach in Tracy for 25 years. He wasn't all about winning; rather he wanted everyone to play and have fun. The players appreciated that and bought into that philosophy, playing hard for him. They were third in the state tournament one year.
During an American Legion game, the umpires didn't show up for the game. My dad umpired high school, college and amateur games for over 30 years, but he had never umpired a game that I was playing. They begged him to fill in as home plate umpire, which he finally agreed to do after getting the approval of the other team's coach.
With the score tied 3-3, I came to bat with the bases loaded and two outs in the last of the sixth inning. The count went to 3-and-2, so I figured I would let the next pitch go by, figuring my father would call it a ball and we would take the lead heading into the final inning.
When I heard him bark "Strike three", I turned around quickly in mock astonishment. He slowly removed his mask, looked me in the eye and asked me where I thought the pitch was. When I admitted it was right down the middle, he smiled and put his mask back on. Through the years, I grew to appreciate his fairness that day.
My mother was a stay-at-home mom who passed away from a brain tumor at 64. My father was devastated and lost without her. He didn't know how to cook, wasn't good at doing the laundry, hated grocery shopping, anything else associated with household chores he wasn't used to doing. When he would get hungry, he would toss a pork chop in a frying pan, crank the heat up to high and scorch each side of the chop before the middle got a chance to lose its pink color. Then he complained of a stomach ache after he ate, blaming it on the meat.
I learned how to do all those household duties from my mom, so after she passed away, I would drive to Tracy from my home in Willmar as often as I could and bring him food that I had prepared and frozen for him to eat later. I also showed him several easy dishes to prepare. He soon began to enjoy cooking and even started watching cooking shows. I had always thought the remote was stuck on sports and western channels before that.
My father came to visit me on Aug. 5, 2005, the day after I got out of the hospital following surgery for my Crohn's disease. He bought my oldest daughter a piece of furniture for her college apartment and then made sure to spend the same amount on my youngest daughter. He was always giving and fair.
The next morning, a Tracy police officer phoned to inform me that my father suffered a heart attack in his yard and passed away.
Ever since that, I go into a dark place mentally on Aug. 6 each year. The summer after his passing, I traveled alone to Canada, stood in the river with my hip waders on, caught a trout and fried it on shore. I made a small wooden plaque with three of his homemade flies attached and nailed it to a tree along the shore.
I have a shadow box on my home office wall with a photo of my father in his umpire uniform, along with a ball-and-strike indicator that is set on three balls, two strikes and two outs. I give it a light pat every time I walk into my office.
Remember and respect your father; not just on Father's Day, but as often as you can. I miss my father every single day, but I respected and admired him and he knew that.
He was my father, my coach, my mentor, my fishing partner, my counselor, and my hero. But more than that, he was my best friend.