“When my elementary teachers needed a bus driver for field trips, my dad volunteered. He’d worked as a bus driver in high school, but that was before a Commercial Driver’s License was required in our state. When I was 8 years old, my dad, then 38, studied road manuals for weeks in preparation for his CDL test. He passed it and spent the next three years driving my classmates and me all over South Carolina anytime we had a field trip, including some overnights. I loved going with him to pick up the buses in the morning, and I always felt so cool being the driver’s kid.”
— Joey H. in Durham, North Carolina
“I grew up in the 1960s on a small island in north Florida. My dad was the editor, publisher, photographer, and reporter for the weekly newspaper. He was widely admired for his dedication to the community and for his integrity. I was a teenage daughter, and he raised me alone. I’m sure that was quite the challenge. There is one memory I have thought about a lot. In gym class, we were told to ask our mothers to embroider our names on the pocket of the white shirt given to us along with the regulation blue shorts. All the other girls’ names were beautifully embroidered, but mine was special. Daddy had carefully stitched my name with blue thread in a staccato connection of short in-and-out stitches—each done with love and perseverance.”
— Candy D. in Maitland, Florida
“When I was about 4 years old, we went to the airport to see my uncle, who had been visiting, leave by airplane. We walked around watching planes flying and landing. After my uncle’s plane departed, we walked back to the car. My dad laughed when he let go of my hand. There was a puddle of sweat in his hand. That was because he’d never let go of my hand the whole time.”
— Peg L. in Wells, Maine
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