Measure of a Man

What does it mean to be a man?
My two brothers and I were fortunate to grow up in a family with a Mom and Dad who loved and respected each other and who loved and cared for us. I don't recall my Mom and Dad encouraging us toward achieving greatness or making us feel that we had to bust out into the world and seek our individual fame and fortune. I think they had expectations for each of us that were higher than that. Our parents expected us to do things like respect our elders; obey the laws; drive safely; to not talk back to our teachers; to finish high school, and either go to college, get a job, or join the military. I'm confident they hoped we wouldn't get a girl pregnant out of wed lock, would stay away from drugs and alcohol, and for sure expected us to never do anything that would result in getting ourselves arrested. The bottom line is, they expected us to give a good effort toward the things that matter, treat people right, and be productive citizens. They didn't just hope for that--they expected it and we knew it.

Our Dad wasn't the kind of dad who sat us down all the time to share his philosophy on life. He didn't spend a lot of time lecturing us on what we should and should not do nor was he much on giving speeches at family gatherings. Our Dad taught my brothers and me how to be men through his actions more so than through his words. He taught us how a man acts through the visual example of showing us every day of the week what a man looks like and how a man behaves. He knew we were watching, and not knowing for sure what we would and would not remember, he must have realized early on that he had to set a good example all the time and not just on Sundays.
Although I was fortunate to have some other good men around me as I grew up and as a young adult, I learned most of the real critical stuff from my Dad. And I'm not just talking about how to swing a hammer, cut a board or make a jig (inside story). Among many other important things, my brothers and I learned from our Dad how a man is supposed to treat his wife as well as how to respect women. Let me explain:

In the fall of 1973, my then 16 year old brother Larry and I decided to go duck hunting at Bray's Lake. Bray's Lake was over a mile through the heavily forested woods behind our house. It was a long walk up and down those Missouri hills.
It was also deer season and Larry took along a few slugs for the old bolt action 12 gauage Dad traded off Paul Mesplay several years earlier-a guy Dad worked with for years at the Rolla post office.
As we neared Bray's, we walked up on 3 deer about 50 yards in front of us. The wind was blowing toward us and since we were walking very quietly on a well worn path, they didn't hear us. I'll fast forward in the interest of your time.....
After arriving home with the deer Larry shot (he had a tag to shoot a buck but he didn't have a doe tag) and after much frantic discussion (involving numerous phrases like "What were you thinking", "What the Sam Hill" and "Don't you ever do that again....", my older brother apparently thought he had received all the guidance he needed on the subject of whether or not he should ever do this again.
As Larry and Mom stood in the kitchen and Mom expressed one last time how she didn't want him to "ever do that again!", Larry shouted back at Mom "I WON'T!" at the exact time Dad walked around the corner and into the kitchen.
In less time that it takes a young cat to pounce on an old mouse, Dad grabbed my fully grown 6 foot tall 180 pound brother up off the ground, shoved him up against the kitchen cabinet (Dad never once mis-treated us or used unreasonable force-he also never bluffed when he said he was going to do something...not once) and said (in a voice that we had learned many years earlier left no room for mis-interpretation), "Don't you ever raise your voice to your Mother!"
The next thing my brother knew he was laid across my Dad's knee getting his 16 year old behind "tanned" in what would be the last butt tanning to ever take place in our Rural Route 1 household, as far as I know.
When Dad was done giving his now famous black leather belt one last workout, my brother stood up and Dad looked him square in the eye and said, "I don't care how old or how big you are, if you ever talk to your Mother like again I'll whip your behind...do you understand me?!"
Now, this 14 year old boy happened to be standing there in the living room doorway when this entire operation went down. I'll never forget the look on my brother's face. I remember the pause after Dad stopped talking. And I remember, thinking, "Larry, if you have even an ounce of judgement left after having shot a doe that we both were hoping would turn out to be a buck, don't say anything right now other than "I understand Dad", or something very close to that.
Well, my big brother's better judgement kicked in and he responded with something very close to that; which resulted in him being able to sit down reasonably well later that day to eat his 16th birthday cake (Dad told us years later that when he grabbed my brother to turn him over his knee, he thought to himself "Lord don't let this boy turn on me-he's big enough and strong enough now to whip my butt if he decides to!").
As I've looked back on that episode over the years, I realized something profound: there in our kitchen on that late fall day in 1973, our Dad explained to us on no uncertain terms, his expectation of how a young man is supposed to respect his mom under any and all circumstances; that it's a man's responsibility to always stand up for his wife; that actions speak much louder than words and that when circumstances arise that call for a man to act, you take action. He confirmed to his impressionable sons that being a man doesn't have nearly as much to do with what you say, as it does with what you do. It has nothing to do with fame or fortune or eloquent fire side speeches. It has everything to do with how you treat people-starting with your mother and your wife.
Thanks Dad for setting a good example all those years and teaching us what it is to be a man. You guessed right...we were watching.
Happy Fathers Day!