Birthday

Today is my father's birthday. If he were still with us he would be 85 today. Unfortunately a life of cigarette smoking and the resulting lung cancer took him from us during the Spring of 1999. Many people remember the date their father died. I choose not to. I have seen it from time to time but the date I want to remember and celebrate is the day he was born. You can wonder about if the thing that determines who we are is heredity or environment. I don't. Half my genetic makeup was through him. half from my mother. It is a constant battle waged between her stoic New England influences and my father's midwestern tell it like it is attitude. The other thing is environment. We never wondered if he loved us. It was shown every day without question. Life was different on the farm. Dad didn't leave to go somewhere to work. He was there. We were there. We saw him all the time. We worked for him and beside him. He taught us how to work and how to be a man.

Here we are at home sometime in 1958. Jeff, David, Anna, John Jay and Dad John G Sutor.

This is Dad later in life showing off one of the fish he caught. He loved to fish. The old saying is give a man a fish and you will feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you will feed him for a lifetime. The truth is more like teach a man to fish and he will by a boat, motor, trailer, cabin near a lake, fishing tackle, rods, reels, lures, and a hundred other things. He enjoyed it so it was money well spent.

Miss you Dad.