Dad's Day

Happy Father's Day to all the Dads in my life: my Dads, my kids Dad and my son who is an great daddy to Wyatt.  I have two Dads as do many kids in today's world.  I never have thought of them as "real" Dad, "birth" Dad, or "step" Dad.  If anything they have been California Dad and Oregon Dad.  Oregon Dad was Utah Dad for awhile.



Harry Richard Lee Jr. is my Dad.  I was named  Stephanie Jeanne Lee because they liked the name and then they used "S" names from there.  If I were a boy I would have been Brian Scott.  Jeanne is my mom's middle name.  I had a teacher at college comment on how pretty that name was and how well it went together 9 letters, then 6, then 3.  Each name having 2 e's.  There are four of us kids with this dad.  Me, Sandra Maur Lee, Stephan Richard Lee and Suci Jeanne Lee.  When he remarried he got two kids with the deal and then he and Elsie had four more.  His oldest son was killed in an accident at age 23.  Losing a brother is awful but losing a son is so much worse I'm sure.

This is my other Dad, Antone Venard Pedro.  He's been my dad since I was 7.  He already had three kids in his home and he agreed to take on four more.  Then he and mom had two together.  Being a parent myself now I see what a big decision that was.  He's done a great job raising 9 kids.  His oldest son was killed at age 23.  I can't even imagine the hurt and loss.

 We learned good old fashioned hard work from him.  I'm a farm kid and I had chores.  He also "hired" us to swath hay, buck bales, move sprinkler pipe, and build pivot systems.  We raised animals and had pigs to show at stock show.  He is a hard worker himself.  He will also help anyone that needs him and his expertise.  We sure needed him to get our shop built.

 We spent part of our summer vacations with Dad in Porterville, CA.  He would drive up and get us or Mom and Dad dropped us off.  We would go boating, swimming, camping and to the theme parks.  Disneyland is a special place to me because we went there with him so many times.  As I have had my kids we continued to go to see him and go to Disneyland.  We went to work with him some days.  We hung out in the hot California sun and waited for the ice cream truck to come around.

 Always working on something.  He's a neat man and I'm glad he's one of my dads.

 Many memories in the making.  I'm glad he stayed my Dad.