A Letter to Dad - October 6, 1938 - June 5, 2004 UPDATED (scroll down)

Dad, Debbie, Adam & Sara - 1995

Dear Dad....it's hard to believe that it's already been seven years since you've "gone Home". It seems like it was just yesterday that we were hanging out at Dale's Company BBQ. All those people there and it was just you and me talking father to son. While you are no longer here to lend your wisdom to me in person, I hear you speaking to me in my heart all the time. The advice is much needed and much welcomed.

Although I am now 54 years old, I understand that I am always gonna be the 8lb 12 oz bundle of "goofball" that you were so proud of in 1956. And, Dad, I am still proud of you and honored to be your son. I didn't tell you this enough when you were alive, but you were a good Dad and a good man.

I miss the Sunday drives we used to take to where ever the wind took us...places like Tintop, Lake Benbrook, Lake Worth or to the Fort Worth Zoo to catch catfish or slide down that big ass hill on a piece of cardboard. I miss watching you work on the cars and have them running like new in just a little while. I also enjoyed the stories you'd tell me when I was a kid about where your run was for this time. Dad, after you being on the road for over 40 years, those stories are fresh in my mind today and I've tried to make those same runs over the years and I've done pretty damn good at it, too.

I guess I'd better close for now, Dad, but before I go, do you remember when you, Grandpa and I used to go trolling for anything that would hit a yellow and black HellBender? Those are times seared in my memory, never-to-be forgotten. Good times. Dads and sons times. Best of times.

I miss you, Dad. And I love you. Adios til next time.

UPDATE: My Dad loved old cars. When I went outside a while ago there was a Frakkin' Cherry '65 Chevy Pick  Up in the parking lot. It just happened to be there. Dad, I know you liked seeing that.I did, too. :)

Texas Tidbits: Dad, Me, The Cantaloupe and the Salt Shaker

I don't know much about Pecos, but I feel like I have been there a hundred times. As many of you know, my Dad was a trucker and he's the reason that, as a child, that I even knew Pecos existed. At the time, the company that Dad worked for only delivered in Texas and Pecos was the crown jewel of all the trips. We lived in Irving at the, so Dad drove out of the Dallas terminal, making Pecos the longest and best-paying trip Merchants (the company) had. I remember Dad saying 1000's of times, "I wish I could get a Pecos tonight". To me, a kid of 6 or 7, Pecos was in another world. It was 427 miles from Dallas! 427 miles!In West Texas! Wow! I had never been to West Texas at that time, so it sounded like a whole other planet. I knew East Texas very well by the time I was 6 or 7, Tyler, Gilmer, Betty, Thomas, Gladewater, Lindale and so on. But West Texas was in the desert! I imagined Pecos as the kind of place John Wayne would live. Cowboys, saloons, cattle, bad guys waiting for The Duke to come kick their asses or meet their Fate at the end of a rope. That is how I "knew" Pecos. For some odd reason, I also knew that Pecos was home to the World's 1st Rodeo . Why? Don't ask me. It's probably something I learned from Dad. Oh, yeah! Cantaloupes! Pecos was famous for cantaloupes! I learned that from Dad, too - probably over a Pecos cantaloupe split in half and a salt shaker, neither of us looking up from that melon while, carrying on a conversation about race cars or something similar. My Dad lived in Pecos for a while after my parent split up when I was about 10 or 11 years old. I remember him telling me of going to Mexico for what I guess now was a little "cultural exchange". He never did say, and I never asked. I started writing this post with the intention of sharing some history and general info about Pecos, but after I typed the first sentence, the memories of my Dad and his stories came to me in a flood of yesterdays. You know, I'm glad I wrote that first sentence. I have a big ass cantaloupe in the kitchen, I think I'll split it in half, grab a salt shaker and share the melon and some stories of my life with my little girl. Oh....and Dad, I'll tell her about you, me, the cantaloupe and the salt shaker.

Fathers' Day 2010 : A Tribute to Dad

My Dad died June 5, 2004, just before Fathers' Day that year. At age 47, I became a man. Suddenly realizing that I was the Patriarch of the Family. Talk about being hit with a clue by four! Needless to say, it was a tough Fathers' Day that first year without Dad there. Subsequent Fathers' Days have been a mixture of celebrating my role as a Dad and missing the man who was my "Dad Role Model". Cecil Earl Shoemaker, Sr. was a truck driver for over 40 years and he fit the bill perfectly - 5'10", 200+ pounds (due mainly to a watermelon-sized belly), short hair and a Country Boy from Troup, Texas. Like most, if not all, truckers of the day, Dad was not an educated man, but he damn sure wasn't stupid. He may have sucked at algebra, but the man could build a small block Chevy engine blindfolded, in his sleep with one hand tied behind his back. I've seen him do it and it was amazing - well..not the blindfolded, one hand stuff, but the man could put some serious hurt on a car motor. The Old Man loved hot rods and customized older cars, especially '57 Chevys. To this day I can not see an old car that's all gussied up without cracking a big smile and thinking of Dad. It's warm feeling. Come to think of it, the world would be a much better place if it was populated by guys like my Dad who loved old cars. I believe we'd have more warm memories and much less conflict - except on the quarter mile drag strip.
As I have mentioned in other forums, my Dad started a new family as he entered his 50's. First came Adam in 1989. Sara, the new apple of Dad's eye, followed  five years later. Think about it. Here's a man who, after literally millions of miles in an 18 wheeler, should've been thinking about buying a lake lot somewhere and fishin' til the Good Lord called him Home. Not surprisingly, Dad cherished a second family and the chance to become a better Man and Dad. And he did. The lake lot would have to wait. Sadly, it never came.
I'll never forget the morning I found out that he'd died. I was getting ready for work when I saw my sister Cheryl pull up in my driveway. At first glance that doesn't seem so odd. But. It. Was. She was coming in from Arlington. Unannounced. The alarms in my head went off like a World War II air raid siren and I instinctively knew that he was gone. Dad had been in the hospital for a few days for some routine tests. But when Cheryl pulled up and I saw the look on her face, my worst fears were confirmed...before we ever spoke a word to each other. Dad was gone. Not like we had planned just the day before he went in for the tests. The Fishin' Trip That Never Was. If the dude didn't want to go fishin', he could've just called ! (See what I did there, Dad?)
Six Fathers' Days without my Dad and I still feel like the little boy he took fishin' or showed how to precisely put head gaskets on a 300 horse 327 on this day. That, in short, is how I remember my father. I thank God every day that I carry his name, passed it on to his first Grand son and only hope to be half the man Cecil Earl Shoemaker, Sr. was. I'm tryin', Dad. I think you'd be proud. I love you.