[The regular reader will recognize much of this material from two pieces written six and seven years ago. I’ve joined them and added a bit of new material, not because I am lazy but because I am happy with them. While I apologize for this entry being a slightly improved portmanteau of earlier work, I assure you that it all comes from the heart, and that the feelings are as fresh as the day I set them to words.]

My earliest memories of him are as indelible as carvings in stone, but far more vivid. Each time I look at one of the old, faded, Polaroid pictures he took of me when I was very small, I can still remember the moment it was taken. I remember the way he smelled, the thick white starched uniform shirts he used to wear, and the Old Spice. I remember the way he talked, the way he pronounced certain words, and the no-nonsense answers he always seemed to have to my everyday problems. I remember his flat-top haircuts, his clip-on sunglasses, his sense of humor.

Clarence Kennith Johnson was born in 1932 to a widowed mother in the southwest Virginia mining town of Richlands. His mom called him “Buddy” then, and continued to until the day she died. Ocie Mae Johnson suffered from Alzheimer’s which grew more and more severe throughout my childhood, so I never really got to know her. I remember her as a sweet old woman with a strong will, and I know my father loved her. The only time I ever saw him cry was at her funeral.

My father enjoyed music and was quite talented, though he seldom played. While in high school, he played a Sousaphone in the band. He always encouraged me to pursue music, but was especially happy when I chose choir rather than band in my own high school years. “What are you going to do with a Sousaphone later in life?” he’d ask. “You’ll always have your voice. It’s the best instrument there is.” He was a great motivator. I remember one of his best friends, Oscar Dibble, teaching him to play electric guitar in our living room, and he in turn encouraging me to learn. I never mastered the guitar, despite learning a few chords.

He was a lanky, spindly teenager, but as he got older, he began to look, and even sound, a lot like TV star Andy Griffith. The small town in which he grew up was very much like Mayberry. He shared the same fairness, the same easy-going southern personality, and the same innate wisdom that folks admire in Sheriff Taylor in endless reruns, every day. Every time I see an episode of that old show, or even an episode of “Matlock,” I get a little reminder of him.

He started out doing what all young men did in that area, working in the mines. It wasn’t easy for a man who stood 6’4″ by age 16. Too tall to work in the tunnels, he repaired mine motors (little locomotives) and other electrics, with which he seemed to have a talent. He played around with electronics constantly; he even once had a pirate radio transmitter in his bedroom until a strange looking truck drove into the neighborhood one day with a directional antenna on top, scaring him so badly that he took his transmitter and jumped out the window, burying the evidence in a nearby shale pit.

His experiences with radio eventually led him to a part-time job as a radio announcer at WRIC-AM in Richlands, Virginia. He was technically proficient but shy; he didn’t enjoy having to talk on the air, so sometimes he’d just go directly from one music recording to another; his co-workers dubbed him “Segue Ken.” He was the master of the live broadcast, though, setting up local and visiting musicians and bands in the tiny studio and miking their performances for the best sound he could obtain with 1940s technology.

Life dealt him a blow as we reached his twenties: Tuberculosis. At the time, there were special hospitals which dealt specifically with TB, where patients could be made comfortable and kept in isolation. These were called sanatoriums. My dad was admitted to Catawba Sanatorium near Roanoke, Virginia, where he spent several years. Against the odds, he recovered completely, retaining nearly full pulmonary function. He also met a nice, friendly nurse with a big heart whom he would soon marry. Desperate for work after his convalescence, he heard that retail giant Sears, Roebuck and Co. was hiring electronics technicians, and would offer paid training. That sounded great, and he jumped at the chance. After training in Atlanta, Dad was sent to a city where a new service center was being built. Settling in Charlottesville, Virginia, he married, worked, built a new life, and in 1963, started a family.

He was the most respectable man I have ever known. People often say that, but when I say it, I mean that I never once, during my first nineteen years, saw him step out of line, break a promise, or treat anyone badly. When I was a cub scout, he was appointed Cubmaster of my pack. When I became a Boy Scout, he became Scoutmaster of my troop within a year or so. It was a job made for him … every boy in the troop was treated with fairness, given the opportunity to excel, and provided with fatherly guidance. He always referred to them as “his kids,” and they were.

He made mistakes. I recently (2021) found out about one of them, and it broke my heart until a therapist helped me understand it a bit better. I was angry and upset but eventually came to terms with it.

Every good thing that I see in myself, I owe to him. Almost every bad thing I see in myself is the result of not listening to him when I should have. He taught me what it is to be a father, which is a tall order for a man who’d never had one. He redefined the role. He didn’t make a man out of me, but through gentle guidance and a few kicks in the pants, he saw to it that I became one. He didn’t stop me from making mistakes, but he picked me up, dusted me off, and made sure that I learned something from each one. We had a million long talks, about electronics, about computers at a time when they still filled rooms, about work and life and death and honesty and values, and women, and education, and anything else that was on my mind.

I have many memories to comfort me. Once, during my junior year in high school, I auditioned to participate in an all-state honors chorus. Hundreds of students from every school in Virginia traveled to Richmond to audition, and I was one of only 50 who made the cut. My father was ecstatic, and became even more so when I was selected for a solo. I will never forget how he beamed, after the concert. I still have a photo that my mother took of the two of us, standing in front of the Virginia Beach Pavilion where the concert was held. His smile was incandescent. I’d made him proud, and that’s the kind of moment I can treasure.

I also remember the first radio program I ever produced myself. I had just started in radio, and through a Junior Achievement program, I got the chance to do a half-hour show on the area’s “BIG” station, WCHV-AM in Charlottesville. It was a half-hour tribute to an artist whose music I knew well at the time, Olivia Newton-John. I planned it so carefully, timing everything down to the second, nailing every intro, measuring every word, and doing the best a 15-year-old could do to impress a former disc jockey like my dad. Apparently I did all right. The night it aired, he pronounced it the most impressive thing I’d ever done, and thereafter encouraged me even more strongly to pursue my interest in radio.

These were great moments, but there are so many other milestones I wish I could have shared with my father. I sure wish I’d had his wisdom to guide me when I made some of my most appalling mistakes. I wish I’d had his encouragement at the times when I felt hopeless and inadequate. I wish I’d had his discipline, what Dan Fogelberg so eloquently called “a thundering, velvet hand”, at the times when I was a total screwup. Maybe that’s why I can’t hear “Leader of the Band” without getting teary-eyed. It hits too close to home.

It’s been 28 years now, but not a day goes by that I don’t miss Dad. He was taken away so young that he never got to know me, really, not the real me. He got to know the undisciplined, recalcitrant teenager who knew exactly what life was all about and what he wanted from it. Then he knew the impulsive young adult I became in my next phase. All the while, he’d prepared me with all the tools I needed. He’d imparted to me all the knowledge that it would take to graduate from my larval stage and become a man. He loved me, and he knew — not hoped, but KNEW –” that I’d make him proud someday. Then he was gone.

When I was 19 years old, I stood beside a bed in the University of Virginia hospital ICU, having been told that I was probably speaking to my father for the last time. His body had been ravaged, and his major blood vessels weakened over the years, by a hereditary disorder known as Marfan Syndrome. Now, a huge dissecting aneurysm in his aorta threatened to burst and take his life at any moment. I can remember the frailty of his body, lying there, pale and wan in the harsh light. I had never seen him this way. My composure was like thin, cracked ice, and I was going to have to walk across that ice to get through this visit.

I remember struggling with what to say. Which words would be right: which words should I say, what did I want to hear from my father the last time I talked to him? As I entered the room, he spoke in a weak voice, just a thin remnant of his former booming tone. I couldn’t hear what he’d said, so I moved closer, hoping he couldn’t see the tears I was struggling to hold back. He was asking to have his feet rubbed.

That’s when I realized that over the years, my father and I had shared endless conversations. He knew, better than I did, that I didn’t need one more, to take away as a parting gift, nor did he need that. I rubbed his feet. He mumbled something about not getting all emotional on him, and then he drifted off. Walking out of that room was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life.

A few hours later, the surgeon reappeared in the waiting room with the news that no one wanted. I completely collapsed in a heap of grief. Dr. Roy S. Thomas, pastor of a local church and one of the finest men of God I have ever known, was there. I don’t remember what he said to me, and I don’t remember how he got me out to his car, but he drove me home, knowing I was in no condition to drive. Everything between that moment and the memorial service is a blur. Fellow scout leader Sam Walkup, eulogizing his friend and looking for words to describe the way he had lived his life, turned to the Scout Law: Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean, and Reverent. We all aim for most of those qualities. Dad nailed them all.

I didn’t appreciate my father as much as I should have, then. I didn’t know what I had until it was gone. Today, here and now, I would sell my soul for five more minutes with my father. I’d give my right arm just to hear his voice again. They say that time heals all wounds, but almost three decades of it have done nothing to fill this void. All I can do is try to live the best life I can, and hope he’d be proud.

Every year, about this time, the thoughts come flooding back, and I am filled with uncertainty. I am not the world’s most devout Christian, but I do believe that the soul endures long after the body has turned to dust. I wonder if he is looking down on me, seeing what I’ve made of my life. I know he’d be disappointed in a lot of my decisions, but I hope there are a few things I’ve done that would make him smile and be proud of the way he gave me my start. Mostly I hope he can see how much I still love and miss him.

If he were reading this, he’d probably scold me for exaggerating. He was not a proud man. Sorry, Dad, but the floor is mine now, and I’ll praise you as much as I want. Saturday’s your birthday, your 79th, the number of the scout troop you loved and which loved you back. Sunday is Father’s Day. This weekend shall be in your honor and your memory. I’m posting this a couple of days early so that my family, my friends, and anyone else reading this will understand where my thoughts are. They’ll be with you.

I love you, Dad. And I’m not crying, as far as you know.