Growing up my heroes were John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Charles Bronson and the ultimate in cool Steve McQueen. Overriding them all was my Dad. He was a health and fitness freak, a cyclist and a distance runner a good decade before it became the "thing" to do, he also was an avid hiker and backpacker. He hiked across the breadth of the Scottish highlands in eight days and seven nights, in an event called the Ultimate Challenge on nine occasions, he left me a stack of certificates of the plethora of races he ran along about four pounds of medals. He maintained this until he developed hip problems in his sixties, eventually he had a hip replaced but, he still yet retained a fitness routine until cancer eventually broke him down and took him from us at, what should have been, for him, the young age of 81.
He was not a particularly religious man, he rather frowned on organized religion as full of hokum and hucksters and although he did not receive much in the way of formal education he possessed a keen mind, curiosity and a ,sometimes crude, wit and wisdom that defied his slow hillbilly drawl. He believed a man ought to walk like Jesus not just yak about him. He grew up during the great depression raised by a sweet loving mother and an angry young father who spared neither rod nor Bible in the old time Hellfire Methodist tradition which no longer exists. In spite of this, according to his peers, he retained an effervescence of spirit that was contagious and infected all who knew him. He was my protector while I was growing up, in that when in his presence, my mother played the role of dutiful wife and loving mother, while she may have been the former, she was far from the latter. I shall speak no more of her other than to say she is receiving her reward in the slow crumbling of her sick mind under the stewardship of my elder brother 3500 miles and an ocean away from me. I did my part juggling her psychoses for two and a half years after my father died. Enough said.
In short, I give God the glory for my joy but, it's root is found in the man who, I'm convinced is a giant in Heaven, gave me his unconditional love my Pop. AFC Harold D Helton, USAF Korea Veteran. F86 jet engine mechanic, who once told me "a surefire cure for a hangover is to sit in the cockpit of a F86 and breathe pure oxygen for ten minutes". My Dad was never near the combat zone but, worked on many an engine that did and if you ask any pilot they will tell you it was their ground crews that got them there and back. Our Government may be involved some downright Godless endeavors but the lives they put in harms way are our sons and daughters and need all the prayers we can send them.
He was not a particularly religious man, he rather frowned on organized religion as full of hokum and hucksters and although he did not receive much in the way of formal education he possessed a keen mind, curiosity and a ,sometimes crude, wit and wisdom that defied his slow hillbilly drawl. He believed a man ought to walk like Jesus not just yak about him. He grew up during the great depression raised by a sweet loving mother and an angry young father who spared neither rod nor Bible in the old time Hellfire Methodist tradition which no longer exists. In spite of this, according to his peers, he retained an effervescence of spirit that was contagious and infected all who knew him. He was my protector while I was growing up, in that when in his presence, my mother played the role of dutiful wife and loving mother, while she may have been the former, she was far from the latter. I shall speak no more of her other than to say she is receiving her reward in the slow crumbling of her sick mind under the stewardship of my elder brother 3500 miles and an ocean away from me. I did my part juggling her psychoses for two and a half years after my father died. Enough said.
In short, I give God the glory for my joy but, it's root is found in the man who, I'm convinced is a giant in Heaven, gave me his unconditional love my Pop. AFC Harold D Helton, USAF Korea Veteran. F86 jet engine mechanic, who once told me "a surefire cure for a hangover is to sit in the cockpit of a F86 and breathe pure oxygen for ten minutes". My Dad was never near the combat zone but, worked on many an engine that did and if you ask any pilot they will tell you it was their ground crews that got them there and back. Our Government may be involved some downright Godless endeavors but the lives they put in harms way are our sons and daughters and need all the prayers we can send them.
