Gary Chamberlain, Folksville USA, looks to his father and gives thanks in this Father’s Day tribute

Sedona AZ (June 15, 2013) – My Father is not perfect and most fathers aren’t, myself included. My Father was a valuable role model in many respects and for that I am thankful. Too many children are missing good parents and role models.

Though I will use the phrases “My Father” and “My Mother” and “My parents” this story is to thank my Father for what he contributed to my life.

My Father signed his high school year book with this slogan, “Give me an inch and I’ll take a mile.” Messages from my Father to his six children included, “I may not always be right but I’m never wrong” and “Do as I say not as I do.”

My Father and Mother (my Mother is now deceased) provided many day-to-day, low cost, common sense learning opportunities for their children. My Father provided the income for the family and my Mother provided the life style that insured stability and security in our home.

My parents were parents! They were not nor did they promote being “our buddy or our friend.” They were our parents and they, not we, were in charge! My five siblings and I gave our parents every opportunity to hone parenting skills.

My Father and Mother were there to prepare us for life and the challenges life brings. They would not have ever endorsed “Everyone is a winner” for that’s not life in the real world. Both of my parents were competitive in their own way, they both liked winning. They taught us to be good losers and to learn from our losses and mistakes.

My parents, as am I, are shocked at what some parents, school boards, teachers and school administrators allow students to get away with now! My parents taught their children how to properly behave – and there were consequences for not doing so. Discipline and consequences were tools my parents used and, I admit, we gave them many opportunities to demonstrate both which they did without hesitation. My parents realized that parents and teachers teach, and expensive school buildings are overrated burdens in many respects.

Joe Chamberlain and son, Gary, hiking in Prescott

My Father taught me that you should not expect to get paid for everything you do. Hard work does not guarantee success but lack of trying does guarantee failure or mediocrity!

My parents also taught their children that personal appearance does matter.

My parents demonstrated the power of determination and persistence through their own ups and downs. My parents made tough decisions and sacrifices for the benefit of their family.

My Father never required his children to do anything that he had not or would not do himself. He taught his children that there is no “free lunch” and that there is a cost for everything, including laziness.

He taught us that freedom is not free and the price of freedom has been paid for with the blood of our forefathers. He taught us that freedom will continually need to be defended in the home, in these United States, and throughout the world.

As for me, I was born in Vancouver, Washington, in November 1946. Our family moved from Vancouver to Nyssa, Oregon, in 1952. Nyssa was a farm community of about 600 residents.

Nyssa provided many learning opportunities associated with being raised among other farmers and ranchers who were teaching their own children about being responsible for crops and livestock. These families would, often times, share farm equipment and help each other harvest crops.

My Father had been raised on a farm and ranching environment and that gave him adult responsibilities at a very young age. Many of the lessons my Father learned he learned from his Father – and he taught those lessons to his six children.

My first father to son business lesson taught me that milking a cow for 5 cents would have yielded $3 per month instead of $1.50 if I had remembered that a cow is milked twice per day and not once. My Father held me to the $1.50 I had requested and the lesson learned was that a verbal agreement and a hand shake was a contract to be honored.

In Nyssa I did some boxing, played tackle football, and learned to play the trombone. Life in Nyssa was an adventure for me with lots of out-your-door hunting, fishing and adventurous experiences, but for my Father, making a living in Nyssa with a stay-at-home Mother was more than a full-time job.

Most folks in Nyssa were poor or had low incomes but, since everyone was in the same circumstance, as kids we thought nothing of it. At one time five of us shared one bike. As children, we were often outside and occupied our time using our imaginations. My parents would say, “You kids go outside and play or we’ll find something for you to do” and, with that choice, we were gone in a flash.

We had horses, sheep, goats and caring for those animals gave us many life-long lessons about responsibility.

In 1960, we moved from Nyssa, Oregon, to Tigard, Oregon, where track, cross country, wrestling and playing the trombone kept me busy but not always out of trouble. In my last year in junior high, I was invited by the high school to wrestle in the 98 pound weight division at our three-year high school. This experience was exciting and frightening at the same time, those high school wrestlers were big, old and a bit intimidating to me.

My Father taught me another lesson by not allowing me to wrestle during my junior year in high school due to poor grades. By missing my junior year, I missed an opportunity to be the first, four-year letterman in a single sport at a three year high school.

As a senior in high school in 1965, I was honored to be the Team Captain for the wrestling team and my grades were still poor.

After not much success at a junior college in 1966, I was drafted into the Army. I went to Basic Training at Fort Lewis Washington, Advanced Infantry Training at Fort Polk Louisiana, more training at Fort Carson Colorado, and finally to Fort Hood Texas. I went to Vietnam in 1967 with the First Armored Division on a ship named the USS General Nelson M. Walker.

The First Armored Division was the first tank unit in Vietnam when we arrived in Chu Lai, Vietnam. I was wounded on October 27, 1967 in Vietnam after three months in country and was air lifted from the battlefield by a helicopter with my best friend. I will never forget that evacuation helicopter ride. I was pumped full of morphine and feel’n good! My combat injury turned out to be my ticket home. I spent my 21st birthday in Japan while in the hospital and watching Bonanza in Japanese.

My father served in the Navy in WWII, 2nd Class Petty Officer and Radio Specialist.

After Vietnam I got married (then divorced) and have three wonderful children who grew up to be self reliant and independent. Todd, a PhD in Education, works in South Carolina, Amy teaches in Oregon, and Beau is a successful artist and businessman in New York.

Life has been an adventure full of failures and successes.

I have had two businesses that did not mature and one that did. My Father has always been willing to consider giving a helping hand to those deserving and needing a little help to achieve their personal goals for he had a helping hand from others when he started his first business. As did my Father before me, I now do by connecting youth groups with businesses willing to provide funding if they get involved in Adopt-A-Highway activities that restore the beauty to “America the Beautiful.”

My wife, Karen, and I rode a tandem bike from Portland, Oregon, to Seattle, Washington, then to Bar Harbor, Maine, in 2002. My wife and I lived in the mountains of western North Carolina before moving to Cornville, Arizona, in 2008. Cornville reminds me of the rural living in Nyssa, Oregon.

When he came to Cornville, my 88 year-young Father and I shared two different expressions with each other. His expression “Illegitimi non carborundum” means “Don’t let the bastards grind you down.” This expression is one that was used by Barry Goldwater, WWII British Army Intelligence, and now U.S. Speaker of the House John Boehner. I like his expression! My expression is “Animo et fide” that means “Courage and faith” and comes from the Army 1833 “Black Hawk” campaigns. It has served me well these past few years.

Thank you, Dad, for being someone who taught me, empowered me, allowed me to put your lessons to the test and to fail on occasion.

Failures insure success.

This information will also be in a letter to my father on Father’s Day 2013.

Dad, Happy Fathers Day!

Your son, Gary

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