Sometimes funny, sometimes serious and always honest, that's the way a good post should be. This post might be a little more serious than most but that's OK. I hope it's still funny because no matter what I go through in life I have to find humor in it. And in all things that happen, there's always a lesson to be learned.

I don't have a picture of my early softball days (you'll understand why shortly) but I did find some pictures of friends and me taken with a Polaroid Swinger and they're enough to make me cringe. There may not have been a burning bush in Wilson, but God was letting his presence be known in other ways back then because there weren't cell phones to take pictures of my awkward preteen and teenage fails in the 1960s and early 70s. Pity the poor kid in the picture below who is now embarassingly immortalized on the internet, thanks to a parent who was quick on the cell-phone-photography-draw.

Some men are born with the best the genetic spin of the wheel has to offer: classic good looks, strong intellect and perfect athletic abilities. Others get a shorter end of the stick with average looks, intellect in the middle of ye olde bell curve (which if we're truthful is most of us) and athletic abilities that make him the first out in dodge ball on the school playground. Every single damn time. And unless you’re at the bottom of the bell curve you know who the father and son are in this tale.

My father was a very good athlete and one might assume his son would also be a very good athlete. Wrong again, moose breath. Had he also been an observant person, which he was not (God divides in the most interesting ways), he would have seen it clearly when my mother forced him to go outside and play ball with his 4 year old son who couldn't catch the ball he was throwing (clue #1) which would usually make him throw it harder out of frustration (clue#2) which would hit his son so hard in the head it would knock the son over and make said son cry (clues #3, #4 and #5). Early on things weren't looking good for the next generation of Hackney star athletes.

Maybe he should have focused on other father/son pursuits, but he was nothing if not determined and he was determined he could make his son with two left feet, no throwing skills and 10 thumbs into the next Mickey Mantle.....or something. Dad didn’t know how or what but he was going to force me to play football and softball until he figured it out. That was probably not the best plan of action but it's the only one he knew. Being a member of Phi Beta Kappa didn't give him the necessary knowledge to figure out this problem.

Many years passed, and I was 8 or 9 and playing on a little league team at the Wilson Recreation Center, known as "The Rec". For most games, my parents were absent, traveling or otherwise busy, and not there to see me playing in the left field or swinging the bat missing every pitch lobbed my way. I didn't realize this game would be any different from the others. I was in the left field on that day and had Dad's "lucky glove" which had 'three fingers' in the mitt rather than four which was one more thing to be teased about. Somehow the good luck was used up on him many decades before because if the ball rolled to my feet, I may have been able to pick it up and lob it somewhere but there was no guarantee it would get to its intended location. I didn't have that kind of "arm". I'm not sure what kind of arm I had other than one that was easily broken (three times to be exact) by my other "athletic" antics-exploring, climbing over walls and falling out of trees – that’s where my 8 year old talents were.

Finally the other team made their requisite number of outs and our team was at bat. All of my teammates went up to hit and all did relatively well. As usual I was at the bottom of the list of batters and usually I didn't make it up to bat before our team was out. Or if I did, I struck out and the game went on. But on this particular day, the unexpected happened and with the bases loaded it was my turn at bat. With one run we could win the game but if I struck out, it was over and we lost. I knew what was going to happen. My teammates knew what was going to happen. The coach knew what was going to happen. Quiet oh, no's came first from my teammates and then got louder. Then, "Not him at bat! We're going to lose."

It was a sad Charlie Brown moment without the humor, without the cute parental trumpet sounds and without the colorful cartoons to lighten up the situation. As was more common in those days, the coach didn't offer support or encouragement to me nor did he quiet down the team-he just shook his head from side to side as if saying "no" and then put his head in his heads. I wish I could remember who that coach was because I'd find him today and beat the shit out of him. I'm a Christian-so do unto others, right? Maybe that's not what that one means. You know how this story ends and let's just say I was not carried out of the ball field as the lovable loser who won the day.

But I did learn a lesson.

Still, my father insisted I continue to play in Rec sports and I dutifully signed up as requested every season. Sometimes baseball. Other times football. Occasionally basketball but never as often because Dad was less interested so it was more easily avoided. And guess who continued being #1 at being the very best of the very worst on every single team? The last picked? The least likely to score? The one with two left feet? All thumbs? Never most improved? Uncoordinated-everything that could be put together wrong on one body in one kid?

And God said to my father. "Have you learned your lesson yet?" and I replied for my father, "Yep-I think I’ve learned enough.”

Finally in 7th grade it was time for flag football and Dad told me I had to go to the Rec to sign up. I refused. He insisted. I refused again. He got angry. I refused a third time. He bodily put me in the car (the heinous cheap-ass Chevy Biscayne which added insult to injury) and drove me to the Rec and dropped me out at the front of the building and told me not to come home until I had signed up for football or I would be severely punished. Then he shut the car door and drove off. I walked into the front door of the Rec, past the sign up room and out of the back door. I walked the block home and into the front door of our house, to the den where my mother was sitting. She looked up, surprised to see me back so soon and asked if I'd signed up for football as my father had asked.

"No I didn't." She could see a different, more determined look in my eye that she was accustomed to seeing. "And if Dad wants to punish me he's going to have to do what he has to do because I'll never sign up for football again. Ever." And she looked at me a little dumbfounded and didn't say much other than, "I'll take care of this". And then she got 'that look' on her face. I recognized it but couldn't exactly define it at my age, but I knew it well later. My father knew it too and was going to see it again shortly, in spades.

I walked back to my bedroom, scared that day would be my last on the planet Earth. I was going to be murdered by my father for not signing up for flag football. As far as I knew that wasn't illegal in the south, especially for not signing up for football. I went into my room and waited. And that's where I stayed until my father came home from work that evening.

When he walked in the door the first thing I could hear him ask my mother was, "Did Tom sign up for football?"

"No he didn't. And if you so much as go back there and lay one single finger on that boy I'll walk out of this house with all the children, divorce you tomorrow and never come back. He doesn't want to play football and has had enough. Leave him alone." I could hear ice harshly clinking in his highball glass as he prepared his nightly bourbon and water. I was still fearful of what might happen next but honestly, I don't remember any details from the rest of that night which means nothing terrible happened. I do know he never mentioned football or any other sport to me for a long time after that. Clearly I wasn't murdered so that was a positive.

The balance of our relationship changed on the fulcrum of that moment. He did not bully me as he had for most of my life up to that point. To be fair, he would not have defined it as bullying, but he would have defined it as making a man of his son. It was how many fathers treated their sons in those days and probably how his father treated him. In addition to sports, he thought the army was the key to being like him and he would often say, "Act more like you're in the army. Be more disciplined. Cut your hair short. Wear brogans. Follow orders. Get up early." Blah. Blah. Blah. And that advise may have worked for another son but it was never very effective with me.

The Joys of Puberty made our relationship even more trying as he retreated and I pushed forward full force. Finally I was sent off to boarding school to improve my education and to keep peace in our family. Honestly, it was the best for both of us. Being apart helped us reach a peaceful truce that lasted until his death but I can't forget those difficult early years nor do I regret them because they made me the person I am today.

I wasn't born with the wonderful gene pool my father was lucky enough to have been blessed with but I was born with a gentler spirit and some ambition - not the worst combination in the world. I had a higher mountain to climb in many respects than my father. But I climbed the mountain and now that I’m almost 60, the view from the top is sweeter because I had to work harder to get to the same place he got to faster and easier, or so it seems to me.

As he aged, he became a kinder, gentler person and I often wondered what happened to the man who was the difficult father to his young son because he changed so much as time moved forward - almost 180 degrees - but we never discussed it. He wasn't the type of man to look back and reflect on things as opposed to his son who looks back and obsesses and reflects on everything. Funny how that works, huh?

I’ve watched with keen interest as more than a few popular, handsome and athletic high school and college friends have struggled to understand their children who are quiet or studious or artistic or plain and I see God working in strange and mysterious ways in their families as well. They have lessons to be learned that I understand all too well. When I have the opportunity to talk to their children I try to connect in a deeper, more meaningful way. I try and give them a sign - a tighter handshake or a firmer hug because I understand how difficult the journey can be when a parent and child are diametrically opposed and I want them to know I understand and care. They might not understand what I’m trying to convey-but maybe they do.

I know they can and will have a wonderful life just as I have. They may be the parents of a beautiful and bright child. Or maybe not. The truth is, it doesn't really matter. What matters is that each parent helps their child be the best that they can be with the gifts they've been given. What matters is that every parent finds what makes their child special and unique given their inherent ability and true talent. Then the child can capitalize on that ability as they go out into the world and be the very best they can be as the person they are. It's so simple. We just have to help our children be the best they can be as the people they are.

My father loved sports and he loved the military and he talked about them incessantly. During the last decade of his long life, he was especially focused on the military and one day at lunch he was telling yet another World War II story that I'd heard many, many times before. I stopped him midsentence and asked, "Dad why are you so obsessed with World War II? It's all you talk about."

"Well, Tom, when you spend four years doing something that important, it stays with you for the rest of your life and you want to talk about and revisit it often."

And I looked at him and asked simply, "Dad, you spent 18 years raising me. What can you tell me about those years?" I was curious to hear what his response might be since I had 12 years on his military experience.

He paused, looked around and thought about it for a minute and then said, "Tom, please let me finish my World War II story...."

I'm not certain he loved the process of being a father like I did. I wasn't a great athlete nor was I remotely interested in the military but I really loved being a father to my two children. Still do. And honestly, I learned a lot about being a good father by not repeating the mistakes made by my father from when I was a young boy. If at the end of my life someone wanted to say I did one thing really well, they could simply say, "he was a good father" and that would be enough for me to consider my life a huge success. But you'd have to ask my children if that statement is true or not.

Here I am during my college years after I've figured out a few things-not a lot-although I still couldn't play basketball or football. There were still many, many mountains to climb but I was getting ready...and the Winston Churchill look was long gone (I think).