[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 82 (Thursday, June 12, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H3722-H3723]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               FATHERHOOD

  (Mr. ISTOOK asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. ISTOOK. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank all the fathers who do it 
right. A good father should first be a good husband and show his 
children by example the love and respect that their mother should 
receive. A father is one who is there, who quietly and faithfully sees 
needs and fills them. From diapers to bicycles to homework to growing 
to adulthood, fathers must be powerful forces of leading by quiet 
example.
  Fathers keep things strong and solid, but they keep it simple. My 
father set an example for hard work. He came home for dinner. He stayed 
with the family in the evening, but he had his own business to build 
and he went back to work late and would work until midnight and then be 
back home. He set an example.
  My father helped me through college, the first to my knowledge in my 
whole family tree, to get a college degree.
  When I married, my wife's father took it on himself to stock our 
kitchen and our pantry with its first set of food and supplies for us. 
Simple but significant.

                              {time}  1015

  I hope and pray that I will be as good a father to my five children 
as my father has been to his five children and

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someday my two sons will be to theirs. Fathers like it simple. So to 
mine and all of ours, I simply say, thanks, Dad.

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