Dad-

This is the greatest title I have ever achieved. Father is close, but to become a father of a child is a little easier than becoming a Dad. My Dad’s story is amazing – his life was far harder than mine. I guess that is what every father would want, to make life a little better for his kids than he had himself. If that is a measuring stick – my Dad was a huge success. He was born in 1915 to Walter Gates Champlin and Nell Nunheimer Champlin. Nell had some difficulties giving birth to my Dad and passed away a few days later. This put my grandfather in a difficult situation; he was in the military and now a father of an infant son. He took Nell back to her family for the funeral – and that’s where he met his next wife, Nell’s niece. This didn’t go over very well with the family and caused difficulties for my father for years to come. Basically this is why my dad lived in foster homes most of his childhood. These foster homes were always a short distance from where ever his father was stationed. Dad didn’t talk about those years very much – but every once in a while he would give us a story or two. But I believe this was a building block of why he became such a great dad. He is my greatest hero! I think that at one time or another most fathers are heroes to their son’s. This usually doesn’t happen in the teenage years. My dad wasn’t a big man physically, but I remember he was strong as an ox. I have never wrestled an ox – but I’m sure dad had, he did everything else. He use to wrestle three or four of us at once, he would put a couple of us in what he called a bear trap with his legs and then keep wrestling the others with his arms. I guess all ten of us could have taken him down – but that wasn’t the goal. When it came to discipline he was a fair but hard taskmaster. He was a judge for the city we lived in, and I’ve heard the story often when my oldest brother had to appear before him on a traffic violation. According to some in the room he pulled my brothers case from the pile and put it on top, then he asked the dreaded question – how do you plead? After my brother said guilt, my father nailed him to the wall. Not literally, he gave his the greatest penalty possible. Those waiting their turn were scared to death, if that’s what he had done to his son what is he going to do to them. If you look at it logically, what else could he do? I must have been quite small, but I remember trying to walk in his footsteps one day in the snow, I had to almost jump from print to print. I have been trying to walk in his footsteps ever since. The other day, thirteen years after his death the former chief of police told one of my friends how much he respected my dad and how he was the fairest judge he ever knew. At our house dad was always our greatest supporter and fan, he came to all of our activities and sporting events. Dad loved sports, good thing since that’s all his four sons seemed to do. Dad’s favorite spectator sport was boxing, I remember while I was still at home and attending college, I came home and dad was watching boxing on ESPN. His whole body would move with every punch as if he was in the ring. A couple of days later I came home about the same time to find dad in front of the T.V. watching boxing again. I watched with him for a minute and realized it was the same bout he had watched before, as I pointed it out he didn’t believe me until I predicted a knock down a few seconds before it happened. We laughed; he had no idea that they had reruns of sporting events. He was a hard worker, but always had time to talk to me when he was home. There are a lot of people that blame their parents for their problems or shortcomings. If I don’t measure up in life, it’s not because of my parents but my own stupid choices.