I finally purchased myself a new ladder this week. I took Dad with me to pick it out, always appreciative of his sage advice and his time. Dad and I talked as we rode along, just shooting the breeze. Soon we had arrived at the store, a much different store than the small hardware stores he took me to when I was young. I still remember when he bought me my first hammer and miter box. As we tried to walk through the crowded front area to our destination, I realized he was falling behind. I slowed down to let him catch up and reminded myself to slow down. It took a while to realize that his gait is much slower than it used to be. As I waited for him to make his way slowly around a cart of lumber, I thought that this must be the same way he waited on me years ago as I once followed behind him.

After we walked over to the section of the store we had been heading for, at least 100 yards from our entry point, we looked over the products on the shelves. Not one wooden ladder could be found anywhere, a fact I found surprising. He gave me a wooden ladder several years ago and I still have it. Everything now is made of aluminum or fiberglass. After we looked through the ladders on display, I noticed that the cheapest ones only allow for a load capacity of 200 pounds. However, they best fit my budget amount. "You don't want to buy something just because it's cheaper," he reminded me. "Get a good one and buy it once, instead of getting a cheap one and having to buy it again later." I knew he was right. If I got one that only allowed a 200 pound weight limit, I would be over the limit as soon as I got on the ladder. Not to mention the fact that I am usually carrying tools and work materials up and down. Although I figured that the weight limit was more symbolic that completely accurate, I also figured it would be less-than-smart to be 20 feet in the air with a tool belt and a load of shingles when I found out if I was right or not.

I selected one with a 300 pound load capacity that is only six feet long when fully closed — about the right size to easily put in my pickup bed.

I had planned on buying more than just a ladder, but that one purchase pretty well ended my shopping. I used a few gift certificates that my family gave me for my birthday to help soften the blow, but I still had to spend about $100 more. I bemoaned that fact as we walked toward the checkout. My father, being his usual self, offered to help pay for the ladder. As usual, I smiled and declined his offer, thankful that he had made it like so many times before.

On the way back, we took a less-direct route. He told me that he could recall when one of the side streets we took on the way was the main road. "That was about 50 years ago," he said. Pointing to the road that leads to the old homeplace, he noted, "Your grandpa helped get that road paved." He told me that the road was just dirt, without even the amenity of gravel, until my grandfather took up a petition to get it redone. Dad said he got the local cab drivers to sign the petition. He drove a taxi for a little while in the mid-1950s. Pictures of him in those days show a rough man with hard eyes, a much different man from the big, kind-eyed man I know now. Most of the men on the Tiger Death March that he lived through in Korea didn't come back home. He doesn't really like to talk about it, but when he does talk, I listen. He related the names of some of the Korean cities he visited, including the enemy capital of P'yongyang, a place not many American soldiers can say they saw and lived to tell about it. He was one of the first ones in the country, since he was part of the occupying force in Japan. He told me about other places and names, but many I can't recall and don't know how to spell.

As we drove along the road, now paved road like so many others, I thought about how things change. The creek runs neatly down one side in the channel engineers made for it years ago and the old house where my grandmother lived is gone entirely. "There used to be holes in the road the size of a wheelbarrow when it rained," he remembered. The creek ran a zig-zag path all through the hollow then. I bet it held trout back then.

I realize that I have been blessed with a father that I can admire — a man who has gone through much and seen much, but still remains simple, quiet and inwardly reflective about life. He's one of the most humble men I know. In fact, I used to find myself wishing he were less humble and more aggressive in dealing with things. At the time I wanted him to be more like me. Now I am beginning to realize that I should have been trying to be more like him.

His way to deal with problems is not through force, but through prayer. His big hands are more likely to be folded together quietly in a room alone than doing the farm work I can remember as a young boy. Perhaps as time goes on I will find myself more like him, walking a little slower and knowing a little more. As for now, I feel blessed to have such a man to emulate as I rush through this life.

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