<div dir="ltr"><font face="georgia, serif">Greetings:</font><div><font face="georgia, serif">Happy Father's Day to all of you out there. That includes men who have had father roles as mentors, coaches, etc.</font></div><div><font face="georgia, serif">I'm interested to know what kind of relationships you had with your fathers. </font></div><div><font face="georgia, serif">If you would rather listen than read, my radio commentary for KRFP is attached. This long version will be published in Pocatello's Idaho State Journal tomorrow.</font></div><div><font face="georgia, serif">Go Daddy, Go!</font></div><div><font face="georgia, serif">Nick</font></div><div><p class="gmail-Standard" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:115%;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><b><span style="font-size:11pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif">I Like Being Like My Dad: </span></b></p>
<p class="gmail-Standard" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:115%;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><b><span style="font-size:11pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif">The “Plagiarism of Inheritance”</span></b></p>
<p class="gmail-Standard" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:115%;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif;font-size:11pt"> </span><br></p>
<p class="gmail-Standard" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:115%;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><i><span style="font-size:11pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif">Take care of your actions because they will become
habits. </span></i></p>
<p class="gmail-Standard" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:115%;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><i><span style="font-size:11pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif">Take care of your habits because they will form your
character. </span></i></p>
<p class="gmail-Standard" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:115%;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><i><span style="font-size:11pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif">Take care of your character because it will form
your destiny.</span></i></p>
<p class="gmail-Standard" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:115%;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span style="font-size:11pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif">—The Dalai Lama </span></p>
<p class="gmail-Standard" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:115%;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span style="font-size:11pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif"> </span></p>
<p class="gmail-Standard" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:115%;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><i><span style="font-size:11pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif">Isn’t it about becoming one’s parents, about taking</span></i></p>
<p class="gmail-Standard" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:115%;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><i><span style="font-size:11pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif">on their very habits, whether you want to or not?</span></i><span style="font-size:11pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif"></span></p>
<p class="gmail-Standard" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:115%;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span style="font-size:11pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif">— Lydia Davis, “How Shall I Mourn Them”?</span></p>
<p class="gmail-Standard" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:115%;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span style="font-size:11pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif"> </span></p>
<p class="gmail-Standard" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:115%;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><i><span style="font-size:11pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif">Because you are, I am</span></i><span style="font-size:11pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif">.</span></p>
<p class="gmail-Standard" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:115%;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span style="font-size:11pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif">—South African Maxim</span></p>
<p class="gmail-Standard" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:115%;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span style="font-size:11pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif"> </span></p>
<p class="gmail-Standard" style="text-indent:35.45pt;line-height:115%;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span style="font-size:11pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif">It is
said that people do not appreciate the fullness of their parents’ love until
they have children of their own. That is
certainly true in my case. In my teenage and early adult years, I rebelled
against my parents. I developed my
liberal views quite early, and I became a student leader against the Vietnam
War at Oregon State University. </span></p>
<p class="gmail-Standard" style="text-indent:35.45pt;line-height:115%;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><b><span style="font-size:11pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif">My
Parents Voted for Wallace!</span></b></p>
<p class="gmail-Standard" style="text-indent:35.45pt;line-height:115%;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span style="font-size:11pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif">My father
was a staunch Democrat most of his adult life, but the dramatic changes of the 1960s
were deeply unsettling for him, just as they were for many in his
generation. My mother worked on the
Barry Goldwater campaign of 1964, but my dad still voted for LBJ. I was in a state of shock when they both
voted for George Wallace in 1968. </span></p>
<p class="gmail-Standard" style="text-indent:35.45pt;line-height:115%;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span style="font-size:11pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif">Instead
of trying to understand my parents, I wrote nasty letter after nasty letter chastising
them for what I perceived to be their political ignorance. No matter how strong
my criticisms, however, my parents always expressed their love for me. It
seemed that the more I rebelled, the more they accepted me. That didn’t make
any sense. I felt that I didn’t deserve
their love. I certainly did not want to be like them. </span></p>
<p class="gmail-Standard" style="text-indent:35.45pt;line-height:115%;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><b><span style="font-size:11pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif">Much Like
My Father After All</span></b></p>
<p class="gmail-Standard" style="text-indent:35.45pt;line-height:115%;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span style="font-size:11pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif">Over the
years I gradually reconciled with my parents, especially after I married and
had a child of my own. I’ve now made the same discovery that Harvard Professor James
Wood did: I am actually more like my dad than I ever thought. In an essay in <i>The Atlantic</i> (1/16/13) entitled “Becoming
Them: Our Parents, Our Selves,” Wood was surprised to find that he had fallen
into some of the same habits as his father.</span></p>
<p class="gmail-Standard" style="text-indent:35.45pt;line-height:115%;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span style="font-size:11pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif">Sober and
serious just like my dad, I now enjoy my evenings sitting in my easy chair
reading newspapers, journals, and magazines.
The reading material is of course different: his was <i>Field and Stream</i>,
<i>Guns and Ammo</i>, and <i>U.S. News and World Report</i>; mine is <i>The
Economist</i>, <i>The New York Review of Books</i>, <i>The Atlantic</i>, <i>The
Nation</i>, and <i>The New Republic</i>.</span></p>
<p class="gmail-Standard" style="text-indent:35.45pt;line-height:115%;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><b><span style="font-size:11pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif">The Gier Diet
and Metabolism</span></b></p>
<p class="gmail-Standard" style="text-indent:35.45pt;line-height:115%;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span style="font-size:11pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif">My dad had oatmeal, fruit, toast and jam every
morning, and so do I. He had meat slices, cheese, and fruit for lunch, and I have
tofurkey instead. His standard dinner was meat, potatoes, and veggies, and mine
is the same except fish as my only meat.</span><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif;font-size:11pt;text-indent:35.45pt">My daughter has reverted to her grandfather’s meat
diet, and perpetuates the Gier metabolism: three square meals, and if they are late,
the Giers gets crabby. James Wood calls this the “plagiarism of inheritance.”</span></p>
<p class="gmail-Standard" style="text-indent:35.45pt;line-height:115%;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><b><span style="font-size:11pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif">The Well Dressed Radical (at least for a
while)</span></b><span style="font-size:11pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif"></span></p>
<p class="gmail-Standard" style="text-indent:35.45pt;line-height:115%;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span style="font-size:11pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif">By karma and imitation, much of our lives are
written for us. Even in my rebellion I was much like dad, who was always well
dressed. As a war protester I always wore a sport jacket and tie. There he was:
Nick Gier, Jr., the Well Dressed Radical. After I had applied for a job at Yale
Divinity School, my dad’s first comment was: “Now you will have to wear a suit,
son.” After growing a beard and wearing my hair long, that is when I stopped
being like him. Sorry, Dad.</span></p>
<p class="gmail-Standard" style="text-indent:35.45pt;line-height:115%;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><b><span style="font-size:11pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif">We Could Not Tell a Joke</span></b></p>
<p class="gmail-Standard" style="text-indent:35.45pt;line-height:115%;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span style="font-size:11pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif">My dad could not tell a joke, and I inherited that
disability from him. He wouldn’t even try, but I always embarrass myself when I
fumble one. (I once had a friend coach me, but it didn’t help.) The only joke
that seems to work for me is when I tell people that I’m funny about twice a
month and that is usually by accident.</span></p>
<p class="gmail-Standard" style="text-indent:35.45pt;line-height:115%;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span style="font-size:11pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif">I once made a ham and cheese sandwich for a lovely
meat-eating lady who insisted that I call her Mom#2. I didn’t tell her that it
was tofu ham and non-diary cheese, and she said it was the best sandwich she
had ever eaten. When I told her what it was, she never trusted me about food
again. My father would never have played a practical joke like this. He would
have been afraid of hurting someone’s feelings. </span></p>
<p class="gmail-Standard" style="text-indent:35.45pt;line-height:115%;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><b><span style="font-size:11pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif">Beat Him Up, Daddy!</span></b></p>
<p class="gmail-Standard" style="text-indent:35.45pt;line-height:115%;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span style="font-size:11pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif">Our
live-in maternal grandmother had apartments, and my father helped her when her
tenants didn’t pay their rent. I’ll never forget one summer evening in the
1950s when my dad came back to the car empty-handed and frustrated about a deadbeat
tenant. From the backseat my brother and
I offered our advice in unison: “Why don't you go beat him up?”</span></p>
<p class="gmail-Standard" style="line-height:115%;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span style="font-size:11pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif"> We
were devastated by his response: “Sons, I could not beat my way out of wet
paper bag.” Little did I know that in
the depths of my initial disappointment the seeds planted by this humane and
sensitive man would come to fruition. A little more than a decade later I would
be chanting “Make Love not War,” would be studying Asian religions, would be senior
fellow at my university’s peace institute, and would write a book on Gandhi.</span></p>
<p class="gmail-Standard" style="text-indent:35.45pt;line-height:115%;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><b><span style="font-size:11pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif">Gier Boys
Run from their Father</span></b></p>
<p class="gmail-Standard" style="text-indent:35.45pt;line-height:115%;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span style="font-size:11pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif">When my
brother and I were born, my dad was a train master on the Union Pacific. He would be out on assignment for a week at a
time. When he came home, we would run
away from him. We did not know who this strange man was. This broke his heart, and he decided to give up
a very good job and an even better pension for his sons. </span></p>
<p class="gmail-Standard" style="text-indent:35.45pt;line-height:115%;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span style="font-size:11pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif">My
parents sold everything that they could not pack in a 1947 Mercury Coupe and
moved to Eagle Point, Oregon, where my father bought a dairy farm. Just our luck, milk prices tanked and within
a year and half we moved to Medford, where my brother and I received excellent
educations and my father made a good living selling cars.</span></p>
<p class="gmail-Standard" style="text-indent:35.45pt;line-height:115%;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><b><span style="font-size:11pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif">The Man
Who Couldn’t Whip</span></b></p>
<p class="gmail-Standard" style="text-indent:35.45pt;line-height:115%;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span style="font-size:11pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif">My mother
was a strict disciplinarian and the refrigerator calendar was covered with
daily demerit marks. She warned us that
if we ever reached a certain number of those black marks, our dad would give us
a whipping. My mother often raised her
voice, but she never raised her hand against us. </span></p>
<p class="gmail-Standard" style="text-indent:35.45pt;line-height:115%;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span style="font-size:11pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif">One day
our demerits had increased so much that, when our father came home that
evening, my mom told him that his sons had to be punished. I can still remember my dad standing over us
with his belt: he simply couldn't do it, and it certainly didn't help that my
brother and I were laughing at him. He was still not credible as a “real” man.</span></p>
<p class="gmail-Standard" style="text-indent:35.45pt;line-height:115%;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><b><span style="font-size:11pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif">My
Father: A Truly Good Man</span></b></p>
<p class="gmail-Standard" style="text-indent:35.45pt;line-height:115%;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span style="font-size:11pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif">At my father’s memorial, my daughter began with the
declaration “my grandfather was a truly good man.” There is a direct line of
goodness from grandfather to granddaughter. This could not be said of me
because there is too much of my mother in me. Not evil, mind you, but a feisty
streak that often got both of us in trouble.</span></p>
<p class="gmail-Standard" style="text-indent:35.45pt;line-height:115%;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span style="font-size:11pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif">Nick Gier
of Moscow taught religion and philosophy for 31 years at the University of
Idaho. Read “Riding the Rails with my Dad” at <a href="http://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/ngier/DadRR.htm" style="color:blue">www.webpages.uidaho.edu/ngier/DadRR.htm</a>.
More on my mother at <a href="http://www.tomandrodna.com/nick%1f_gier/mothertribute.pdf." style="color:blue">www.tomandrodna.com/nick_gier/mothertribute.pdf.</a>
Email him at <a href="mailto:ngier006@gmail.com">ngier006@gmail.com</a>.</span></p>
<p class="gmail-Standard" style="text-indent:35.45pt;line-height:115%;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"><span style="font-size:11pt;line-height:115%;font-family:Georgia,serif"> </span></p></div><div><div><span style="font-size:13.3333px">A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in. </span><br></div><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><font size="2"><span style="font-size:10pt"><div><span style="font-size:13.3333330154419px">-Greek proverb</span></div><div>“Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity.
Immaturity is the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance
from another. This immaturity is self- imposed when its cause lies not
in lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it
without guidance from another. Sapere Aude! ‘Have courage to use your
own understand-ing!—that is the motto of enlightenment.<br>
--Immanuel Kant<br>
<br><br></div></span></font></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>