Editor’s note: I wrote this post 15 years ago for father’s day and I thought it was perfect. He passed away a couple of days ago and in rereading, I realized there were a few important things that I had left out — namely, the last three points I added at the end of the post…

…and every day I am reminded that ‘I am my father’s son’. As I get older, I am more and more aware of the positive impact he has had on my life…

Recently, I attended Mass with my parents and there he was again — reading the Epistle at Church [photo above]. It gave me pause to think about his influence on my life. Here are just a few of the many of the things he taught me:

A Lohenry’s place is at the front of the room.

I don’t mean this in a vain way. In a world where most people would rather die or have a root canal than speak in public (Seinfeld reference), my dad modeled public speaking as a way of life for me. My earliest public memories of him are like this — reading at church, leading the worship team, etc. Because of his example, I became a consultant, a teacher and a public speaker who thrives on being in the front of the room. I am my father’s son…

It’s ok to have a big vocabulary — words have meaning and it’s good to know what those meanings are and be able to use them effectively.

I remember sitting around the dinner table and my father would bring up a ‘word of the day’ — some new word that had interested him recently. Sometimes, it would be a joke with a fractured pun with a punchline like ‘people who live in grass houses shouldn’t stow thrones’. He passed on a love of language and wordplay that has become my passion and my craft. In my academic career, I studied German, French, Russian, Croatian, Norwegian and Italian and my mastery of English vocabulary is well-known — I can only trace this love of language and communication to his influence. I am my father’s son…

Technology is fun and awesomely powerful.

When I was in college, I was a German major and my father was a systems analyst working with mainframe computers in the ‘glass house’. Every time I wanted to understand more about his passion, he’d sit down and start drawing diagrams to explain computers at the machine level and it would go nowhere. Later still, I used one of my electives to take a FORTRAN programming class back in the day of punch cards and mainframes because I wanted to better understand his world. I gave him the final project for that class on Father’s Day 31 years ago and told him ‘I don’t ever want to have anything to do with computers ever again’. Well, it would seem that he had the last laugh on that one! These days, among other things I am a website developer and I just launched his new site yesterday. The business blogging that I do is the perfect marriage of communication and technology — again, I am my father’s son…

Adoption is a loving option.

My father met and married my mom and me when I was around three years old and he adopted me at the age of five. There was nothing in his life that prepared him for this situation but he stepped up to the challenge. I still remember going before the judge and having him ask if I wanted this man to be my father. I don’t know if it would’ve made much difference if I said no but I do know that saying yes has made all the difference in my life. Not only did my yes open the door to a lifelong relationship with a man who always did his best to be a dad but later in life when I fell in love with a beautiful single-parent much like my mom I did not think twice about whether I could adopt her son. We have formed a family of eight people who would not exist without his example. I am my father’s son…

Here are the three things I left out of the original post…

Readers are leaders.

In the early days, my dad read to me much more often than did my mother. My favorites? If I Ran the Circus by Dr. Seuss and T. S. Eliott’s ‘Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats’ and in particular Macavity: the Mystery Cat.

Later on, when he had his first traumatic brain injury, I read those books back to him in the intensive care unit to test his faculties.

My parents read a lot of political thrillers like Exodus by Leon Uris. I would pick up the books when they finished them and I read way over my head but I learned an awful lot about the world from them. I am my father’s son…

Music is life.

I spent a great deal of time when I was younger sitting around the hi-fi with my dad. I don’t know where he picked up his love of music, but he was the one who passed it on to me. His favorite genre was jazz and ironically, modern jazz might be my least favorite but every now and again, I will listen to a little Dave Brubeck Time Out when I want to feel close to him again…

I still remember riding around in the car with him while he was listening to FM Jazz and tapping to the beat with his wedding ring on the roof of the car. I couldn’t wait until I got a ring and my arm was long enough to tap on the roof. I am my father’s son…

Sometimes you have to laugh.

It makes me sad to hear about the fall of Bill Cosby because when I was young, my dad really loved his sense of humor along with Bob Newhart and Vaughn Meader. We spent hours around the Hi-Fi listening to Bill Cosby’s classic take on Noah and the Ark and once in awhile, there was an appropriate time to say “Voompa, voompa, voompa” and laugh hysterically…

Vaughn Meader you say? He was a comedian who made a great living spoofing the Kennedy family. Unfortunately, his career came to an abrupt end on November 22, 1963.

Hanging with him gave me a great appreciation for good humor which I still have today. I am my father’s son…

Never give up.

Talking with my mom recently, I realized something else: my father had an incredible spark and a constant drive to keep moving forward. When a stroke in 1963 left him without a job, he didn’t quit; he went door-to-door as a Fuller Brush salesman and eventually worked his way up to leading a company. Years later I could relate when I spent three years pushing carts and packing groceries at Costco to rebuild my own future. He showed me that no job is beneath you if you have character and that you can always start over as long as you keep trying.

Finally, real men cry.

That’s all, real men cry and it gives me great pleasure to know that he’s crying as he reads this just as I am crying while I write it…

I could go on and I will at some point I’m sure, but as I reread this before clicking the publish button, I’m reminded of the song ‘Leader of the Band’ — perhaps one of the world’s greatest musical testimonies to fatherhood…

I may not play guitar like Dan Fogelberg, but my ‘instrument’ is my words — spoken and written — combined with my computer skills. ‘I’m just a living legacy’ and I AM my father’s son…