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Cleaning the spings

February 28, 2013

I remember when I was about 7 years old, Dad said he needed to go and clean the 5 springs that provided water to our house.  We lived outside Round Mountain, California where we raised Arabian horses.  We had 75 acres with about 60 of it being hilly and mountainous country.  Our springs fed a creek that ran behind our house and the furthest one was about 2 miles from the house.  My dad had stepped on a nail and it had become very infected, very swollen and I remember the pain in his face as we trudged up themountain to clean the springs.  On top of that, it was winter and had about 6 inches of snow.  Well, we got to the 3rd or 4th spring and Dad found a repair that needed to be made and he didn't have the piece needed with him.  So he described the piece to me and asked me to go back get it for him.  I took off and brought the part back to him.  He then explained that he needed me to clean the rest of the springs, what to do and how to do it.  I took off and cleaned up the remaining sprins, then came back and helped him back down off the mountain.  Now you may wonder how I remember all this.  Truth is, I didn't.  But my Dad did, and twenty some years later while I was at Ft. Benning, Georgia going through Airborne School, he wrote me a letter telling me about this incident and how proud he was of me, even back then. For some reason, since he wrote me that letter, that story has always stuck with me.  There is a lesson to this:  No matter how trivial a job may seem, often forgotten, the people that love you most, hold you close remember the small things as well as the "great" things.  My Dad was my hero then, and knowing what I know about him now, has grown larger than life in my eyes, my memories.

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