Family Ties

This entry is a departure from my usual general audience type blog entry. This entry is targeted at a single person. The rest of you are welcome to read it, but it is the most meaningful to the person to whom it is addressed.

Happy Birthday, Dad!

I wanted to take an opportunity on your birthday to talk about the things you have given me and the things that I am because of you. You instilled in me a love of travel. The family vacations driving from Miami to Minnesota were some of my favorite times when growing-up and pretty-much explain the reason I still love hopping in the car and driving across country.

Your sense of humour and style of writing, as if you were talking to an old friend are also a part of me. I know that I can never live-up to the casual wit that you display but I try none the less. I hope that these entries are more entertaining to the general public because you have instilled in me the love of communicating to people the things that I think.

I am also saddled with some of your quirks. I will never forget the very moment I realized that I was turning into you. I was on a camping trip twelve years ago with the Boy Scout troop that I had volunteered with back in Memphis. It was an early morning and the sun was about to rise when I started preparing the Leadership Patrol's breakfast. Being your son, of course I had the coffee made before I started anything else. One of the boys came out and asked if he could have coffee. As Tommy was one of the sons of the other leaders and I knew his father let him have coffee, I said "Sure... Help yourself."

Tommy seemed to take an awfully long time getting the coffee ready and I turned-around to make sure that he was awake enough to get his coffee ready. I watched him put six tablespoons of sugar into a cup that looked as if it contained more milk than coffee. He was making what you used to call a caffeine milk shake. "Son," I said - without a moment's hesitation, "If you can't drink that coffee with less than a pint of milk and a pound of sugar, you don't need the coffee!" I immediately looked around to see where your voice had just issued forth from!

Dad, I love you. Thank you for giving me the start on being the person I am today! Happy birthday!

Don Bergquist - 26, May, 2005 - Lakewood, Colorado