Since Father’s Day falls in the month of June, I thought I would share my thoughts about my own father and what it’s like being a father.
According to Wikipedia, there are 74 million fathers in the U.S. There are an astonishing 1.5 billion fathers in the world. The idea of Father’s Day was conceived a little over 100 years ago by Sonora Dodd of Spokane, Washington, while she listened to a Mother’s Day sermon in 1909. Dodd wanted a special day to honor her father, William Smart, a widowed Civil War veteran who was left to raise his six children on a farm.
The first presidential proclamation honoring fathers was issued in 1966, when President Lyndon Johnson designated the third Sunday in June as Father’s Day. Father’s Day has been celebrated annually since 1972, when President Richard Nixon signed the public law that made it permanent.
Now that we have set the record of when Father’s Day started, I am now going to delve into the subject of my own father, Floyd M. Wilson. It’s going on eight years now since Dad left this world. We buried Dad on the anniversary of the day I got sober, 28 years prior, which was kind of ironic.
Dad was quite the character. He, like me, grew up here in Murfreesboro. He would always tell stories of hard times growing up during the depression era of the 1930s and ’40s. He was educated here and graduated from Kittrell High School in the late ’40s.
He was a basketball player and he used to tell the story about Coach Jarrett, who would call Wilson in from the bench to go in the game. Then, when Coach Jarrett would call my father to take him out of the game, he would say “Wilson, you’re not worth a damn . . . wait just a minute, Wilson, you’re not worth a half a damn!” And the way he told the story cracked us all up.
Dad was full of stories. When my older brother Mitch was born, Dad was stationed down at Patrick Air Force Base in Cocoa Beach, Florida. Mother was back here in Murfreesboro fixing to have a new baby. For some reason, he hitchhiked from the middle of Florida to Murfreesboro to be there for the birth of Mitchell.
Mother tells a story of how, when money was tight, she and Dad would offer to take veterans to a hospital in New York City. Dad had been in the Air Force during the Korean conflict. So Mom and Dad drove a veteran from Nashville to New York City. They make it to downtown New York and Dad had to go into a business to ask somebody for directions, leaving my poor little mother in the car with this stranger, who may have just gotten in from Korea. She told me this veteran would take a puff of a cigarette, somehow put the entire thing in his mouth and then pop the cigarette back out and it was still smoking.
My father was very generous. I remember him going around to make sure people had enough food. He would sometimes buy groceries and deliver them to folks’ houses.
He was one of the first State Farm agents here in Murfreesboro and remained one for 52 years before he retired in 2013. He loved people and the people loved him back. He was a county commissioner and the chairman of the county commission in the late ’70s and early ’80s, so naturally, my brother David and I would be running around the courthouse while they were in their county commission meetings. I’ve been told the county commission meeting would sometimes have to be stopped so Floyd could call Carolyn to come get the Wilson boys.
During my rebellious stage, sometimes I would have car trouble. I can remember one night in particular I was at The Boro Bar and Grill on Greenland Drive. This particular car was a yellow Oldsmobile Cutlass that would not always go into drive. So my dad, like he did countless times, came to the rescue and drove this yellow Cutlass in reverse from The Boro Bar through the streets of the MTSU campus all the way to their house on Bradyville Pike.
I remember Dad’s love for anything with four wheels. He was a car collector of sorts. When Byrn Motor Company closed its doors, Dad bought the 1910 Buick Muskrat that sat in the Byrn Motor Company showroom, located on Broad Street where Hooters is today. I remember him taking my younger brother David and myself for rides in the Muskrat, which wouldn’t go over 30 miles an hour. But we thought we were so cool going up and down Bradyville Road, waving to neighbors and cars passing by. Daddy sold that car several months later to his cousin George from California.
One other story about my dad later in life, when we were all a little concerned about his driving: He was driving down Bradyville Pike, like he had done thousands of times on his way home, and he must’ve been tailgating this car. He got a little too close and ran this car into a ditch. Being a good citizen, he put his flashers on and walked over to the car in the ditch. He opened up the door to make sure everybody in the car was okay. He knew the driver, which was Mom and Dad’s neighbor from across the street. Dad said “Amanda, are you okay? Do you need me to call your insurance agent?” Amanda replied “Mr. Wilson, you are my insurance agent!”
My father was a great father who loved the Lord and his family. He was an elder at his church. He took us on many trips all over the place. He made sure we all were in church and he taught us right from wrong (even though I didn’t always do right). I can tell you he was always there for me and for Mom and my siblings whenever we needed him.
I’m very grateful for the time I got to spend with my father. I know he’s in a much better place in Heaven, probably telling one of his stories, which he was great at! My father taught me to be kind to people, to work hard and trust the Lord, knowing that good days were ahead.
My dad used to say to me “Son, wait till you have your own son and you will know what I’m talking about.” Thank God for William, my 22-year-old son, and thank God for my Dad. I guess one thing I taught my father was patience and tolerance, which William has passed onto me.
Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there! Hug your father, whomever that is. Now go out and do something nice for somebody!
