Learing (and teaching) life's lessons

It's odd  how life's little lessons come to us.  I  am lucky that so many of those lessons were taught to my brother Craig and I by our father.  Our "Old Man" worked in a factory his entire adult life, never got a university education, but he had plenty of lessons about life, politics, music, etc, and he did his very best to see that Craig and I learned them the best we could.  

I may be giving away my secrets now, since I kind of stole Dad's style to use on my own kids, but Dad usually taught by talking out loud.  Not "teaching"-- It usually didn't appear as though he was talking to us at all.  What he did was comment out loud, almost as if he was thinking out loud, on a situation he saw (and he knew we saw too).  He assumed we would absorb the lesson without knowing it was a "lesson".  It worked.

My favorite lesson, (he had to comment on it several times over the years to make sure we understood), was usually taught while some marginally talented musician was on TV.  My personal favorite excuse for this lesson was during the TV show "Hee Haw", which was very popular in the late 60's and throughout the '70s.  Buck Owens, the star of the show, has a marginally talented son named Buddy Allen, as I recall.  Old Buck would let Buddy Allen sing on the show from time to time, and the backup band would always be Buck's band, "The Buckaroos", who were among the best musicians in the industry.   

While Buddy was wailing away and trying to be a country star, my our Dad would always point out, out loud and very clearly, that, Heck, even HE would sound OK with the Buckaroos backing him up.  Then Dad would just wait to see if there was a spark of interest from Craig or I on the topic.  Even a tiny head movement or smile would elicit the follow up.....didn't take much.  Once prompted for the follow up, Dad would explain  that if you surround yourself with the best available people, especially with geniuses if you were lucky enough (like Don Rich from the Buckaroos), you will get the job done alot better.

I will always remember that lesson, and countless others.  If dad had tried to make us listen, tried to make us recite what we had learned, tried to use a more traditional style, we would have ignored many important lessons about life.  Our Old Man had the wisdom to reach us, and teach us, in a way that would make sense, a way that we would absorb.  We still thought most of those "lessons" were "corny" at the time, to be sure.  But I bet my Brother remembers all the same lessons.

Little lessons, but important ones.  Taught in Dad's unique style.  We learned them.  (Well most of them anyway).  Thanks Dad.