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Viewing 28 - 36 out of 47 Blogs.
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There's nothing as humbling to me as my children. I'll probably have trouble getting this out without getting all choked up with pride... I'll start off with my Daughter, Sarah, I'm convinced that she's an Angel that the Good Lord sent down here to this old Earth with a purpose in mind and she's now living it every day! It really does humble me to think that I had a part of getting her here... She was an awesome kid, straight A's & Honors student all the way through (big credit to her mom/my X). She started doing volunteer work of all kinds through her Church youth group at an early age and then started volunteering at both Mercy Hospital and the Shriner's Burn Center in Cincinnati while she was in high school... I had the unbelievable pleasure of attending a Scholarship awards ceremony at Mercy Hospital when she graduated from high school... There were 7 students from the city of Cincinnati that were chosen to get scholarship awards from Mercy that year and as the night went on going through each each student that was presented an award and congratulations for their extra curricular efforts, it sort of became apparent that the speaker had been saving my daughter for last... As he introduced her and started to talk, it was obvious that he was getting choked up just thinking about the story he was going to tell... that was it for me... the tears of pride just started rolling.... he proceeded to tell everyone how Sarah had, by choice, volunteered to work on the Oncology floor at Mercy and how she made it a point to know all the patients and hospital staff by name... he said her bright smile was the one thing that a lot of folks got to remember during their last days on earth and that they would thank her for it.... he went on to tell a story about how Sarah befriended a young Hispanic boy, at Shriner's, that had been severely burned in a fire... the little boy couldn't speak english, had no family in the US and had been living with family friends.... Sarah was a 3rd year Spanish student and could speak to the little boy in Spanish... the little boy would look forward to her every visit.... By the time the speaker was done, there wasn't a dry eye in the house.... and right after that, I got to go to her Honors night award ceremony... Sarah continued the course, went into pre-med on a Scholarship to UC, in college but based on career path testing & councelling in college, she changed her major and went into the UC college of Social Work... there's such a shortage of Social Workers, it's all they can do to get some bright young kids to go this route... She excelled at it and continued on graduating with honors... she did co-op her senior year with the Department of Children's Services and then worked for them for over a year after graduation helping with underpriveledged children in Cincinnati... She has since accepted a job as the lead Social Worker over 3 United Way funded Pediatric facilities in Cincinnati that work in partnership with Children's Hospital to take care of underpriveledged children in Cincinnati. She loves her job & takes it to the next level with writing grants to get good things like books for the kids and things to help the parents as well which in many cases are single moms. She has ran an adopt a family program the last 2 Christmas holidays and we adopted one of her families this past Chrismas. She also married a great guy & we love them both more than the sky is Big! Ok, enough of all the emotional stuff, here's Sarah & her great smile that rubs off on folks every where she goes!               That's a friend's child in the last picture, I'm not a grandpa just yet!  Ok, now for my son, Chris, as if Sarah wasn't enough joy in my life! Chris has given me a whole new experience of re-living and retelling my childhood experiences even though my current wife tells me that there's a bunch of my younger life that I'm not allowed to tell him about... LOL!!! Chris is also a straight A's Honors student all the way and has been a football fanatic since he was just a pup! Of course his mom is a past cheer leader and a sports fanatic as well so he's had lots of experience with sports lunacy in our house! Chris has been a real humbling experience for me to see how responsible and mature he has become at such a young age. He's totally dedicated to his school work & good grades (a big credit to his mom!). I laugh because I've teased him about skipping a day of school to go fishing or hunting and he's looked at me & said "Dad, I can't miss school" or "Dad, I can't miss football practice"... I can't even begin to describe what it's been like to go to all the honors night ceremonies & football awards banquets... Chris started out playing some little league T-ball & basketball and then graduated to football the summer after 2nd grade... I thought I was signing him up for flag football & when the guy handed me the papers & said show up on such date to pick up his helmet & pads, I said, this is for tackle?... I looked at Chris, all 57 lbs of him at the time, & said you ready to play tackle? He said Yeah! My wife about freaked when I got home & said he was signed up to play Division 1 Tackle ball & she freaked even worse when she saw her little boy out on the practice field with kids that went up to 115 lbs at the start of the season & we're allowed to get to 125 by the end... and then when a kid got his arm broken in the 1st full contact practice, I thought she was going to have a nervous breakdown... well, he's never looked back and just completed his 8th year of tackle football as the 1st string offensive center on the freshman team at his big high school! He's been a 1st center for the last 6 years and played on both sides of the ball doubling up as a defensive lineman, defensive end and linebacker on some of his teams up through 8th grade last year... He also loves to fish but hasn't graduated into a bunch of hunting yet... he doesn't like getting up early in the morning because he's up early for weight training & school all week... a typical weekday for him right now is at JV Football weight training at 5:30 am, home for a shower, then back to school by 7:30 am, out of school and to track practice by 2:30 pm & home by 5:30 pm... dedication... Chris was nominated for the Archie Griffin Award last year & was the only male athlete with a 4.0 grade point in his school... man was that a proud moment in my life... He's carrying a 4.058 this year as a freshman in high school... Ok, let's get to some pictures! What a memory his birth was! I knew he was a boy as soon as his face popped out!       He wasn't to sure about catfish with their spines!     Frog giggin!                 I truely consider myself blessed!
A tribute to Dad! My dad taught me that being out hunting and fishing was the one thing that I’d always be able to rely on for enjoyment and I always have and will thanks to Dad! Here’s a little stroll down memory lane. Dad would always head up North once a year to go deer hunt back when red & black plaid was considered as camo blaze orange. My one regret was that he never took me deer hunting but kids weren’t considered welcome in the old deer camps, due in part to the amount of libations that were consumed during the week, I’m sure… also of note, when I was a kid, there wasn’t any significant population of deer in Ohio which is why he’d always head North. It was funny also because later in his life, I got to guide him on some deer hunts in Ohio where he saw more deer than he’d ever seen up North! LOL!!! I also take pride in the fact that I’ve harvested more deer in my life than he ever even dreamed of harvesting! LOL!!! Dad took me hunting for small game, upland birds & taught me all about trout fishing in places from up North in the U.P. all the way South to Tennessee. He sent me to an Orvis school on fly fishing and fly tying so he could make me his personal slave for tying flies! LOL!!! I enjoy tying flies to! We would go on annual bird hunting & fishing excursions where we’d have a blast. He taught me how to train bird dogs & how much enjoyment I could get from hunting with dogs. He taught me to be a good wild game cook and he instilled the cook what you kill rule in me a long time ago. Even when I started hunting on my own or with my friends as a kid, I was never allowed to have more than a 2 day limit of anything in the freezer before I had to cook! My mom loved the fact that I would cook & I started cooking way before any of my sisters because I wanted to go catch more fish & shoot more small game! 
And he wasn’t afraid to push a wagon to the limit in the U.P.! LOL!!! 
He only had one brother, my Uncle Frank (Rod to his friends), his older brother and he saved Dad’s life when they were kids. Dad had a kid crash into him while sledding & an old style sled runner punctured him down through his throat and into his lung. Frank scooped him up and ran with him all the way home, almost a mile away so that my grandpa could get him to the hospital, where the doctors said his brother saved his life… Uncle Frank, Hot Rod to his team mates, played football for St. Xavier high school in Cincinnati and at Notre Dame in College. He was on the 1949 National Championship team. Dad was a ND graduate as well & a member of the 50 year alumni club. Dad wasn't near as big as his brother & I was always thankful that I got my height & hair from my mom's side! LOL!!!
Uncle Frank:
 Number 61 on the front row. 
Here’s some more fun/old time deer camp pictures: 
And my Daughter with Dad at her rehersal dinner (I just like this picture): 
Dad passed in April of 2006 & I’ll miss him but all that he taught me, lives on!
One time, a long, long time ago, when I was just a young boy, I decided to go squirrel hunting one day after school with a friend. We followed the creek behind my house until we came to a big woods that was about 3 miles away from my house. The woods was full of hundred year old beech trees that were so tall it looked like a rain forest. We walked way up a big hill back deep into the woods and found a good spot to sit and wait on some squirrels. Squirrels were jumping around in the trees all over the place and we totally lost track of what time it was. After we had shot 4 squirrels a piece and realized it was beginning to get dark, we decided we better start heading for home. Before we had gone a hundred yards, it had gotten so dark that we could barely see where we were going. That was when we heard the first scream. It was the most blood curdling scream we had ever heard and it just echoed through the woods. The scream came from about a hundred yards back in the woods where we had just been. We immediately picked up the pace heading for the edge of the woods as fast as we could move in the dark but then we heard the second and third screams. Now they were coming from about 50 yards away in the direction we were heading. This scared us so bad that we both started shooting our guns blindly into the dark woods in the direction the screams came from. We fired about 5 times each and then stood quietly listening for any sound at all. After a few minutes of quiet, without any more screams, we quickly continued on our way home, more frightened than we had ever been in our lives. Upon reaching home, we quickly retold the story to my father, he laughed and said, it was only a Screech Owl. Neither of us believed this explanation and made it a point to never get caught out in the woods after dark until about 5 years later when we actually saw a Screech Owl that was screaming.
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