passed down from my parents has provided the greatest impact on my personal and professional life. This chapter is about the lessons passed down from a man I love, who I am named after, and whom I respect greatly. He is gone now, but his lessons have stayed with me like glue. Growing up, I did not have a close relationship with my father. He was a hardworking man with a no-nonsense approach and one who did not show physical signs of affection, had little patience, and could be curt with his responses to both young and old. To be straightforward, I did not like my dad at all growing up as I resisted him constantly, didn’t want to be around him, and disliked his presence. He was also a strict disciplinarian, a military veteran who had served our country proudly in the Korean War. My father was born in 1929 on a small farm in rural Arkansas (Casscoe). He was a child of the Depression and World War II, born into the age of “Jim Crow” and definitely a man of his era. My dad was raised hard—lock, stock, and barrel—during a time of blackand-white lines with little areas of gray and dealing with forces that were strong-willed, unyielding, and unbending. Despite his demeanor, many sought out his advice and boy was Dad smart. His relatives, coworkers, and people in the neighborhood, as all respected what “Frank” or “Franklin,” as they called him, had to say and what he was thinking about. People sought out my father because he was a man of very few words and not one to get caught up emotionally or be overtly expressive. He was someone who did not beat around the bush and always went straight to the point. My dad was also brutally honest and spoke without a filter. I can still remember how his words of honesty would often hit you like a freight train or the left hook of an elite boxer if you were not ready for the delivery. When he spoke, people took notice and immediately knew it was time to listen because he would say it only once. He rarely repeated himself because repeating himself and reiterating a point after he took the effort to tell you once was never on his menu. If you ordered up some sage advice from Frank and missed it, well, too bad because that would now be your problem as you should have been listening. My father would often say, “I’ll say it once, tell it straight, be done, and no more talk when I’m finished talking.” This was his motto. However, truth be told, I didn’t appreciate his forthrightness or candor when I was a young man. Still, the older I became, the more fond I grew of my father’s “straight to the point” talk. This philosophy, which was second nature to my dad, as he gave me a model to work toward by doing all I could to adopt and adhere to this philosophy in my own life, which continues to be a work in progress, as my dad set a high bar for me. Despite my father’s frankness, truthfulness, and tell-it-like-it-is manner, he was not a perfect man. My dad, like everyone, had his faults and personal challenges. But what I can attest to in describing what he was with certainty, my dad was a man who, when he interacted with you, was always present in the moment and gave you his full attention. Now, this is a man who worked two jobs, raised nine children, and had his issues, but always more than anything, even with these commitments, my father found time to be present in our lives. His commitment to being present was unquestionably evident in how he partnered with my mother for sixty-one years to raise nine children successfully. When he engaged you in a discussion, I admired his ability to home in, focus on his message, and deliver it precisely. I admired his ability to say something in ten words where most people would use forty. Simply put, the man did not believe in wasting time or, more importantly, not wasting words. Often when my dad needed to tell me something of importance,
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