[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 80 (Thursday, June 16, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6716-S6717]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              FATHER'S DAY

  Mr. BYRD. Madam President, on Sunday, June 19, the Nation will honor 
fathers with the celebration of Father's Day. Fathers certainly deserve 
a day to relax and to put aside for a time the heavy burden of work and 
worries that they carry. Most fathers are, I believe, great worriers. 
They feel the pressure to perform. They feel the pressure daily to go 
forth and to battle in conditions over which they have little control. 
Yet they feel that they must present to their families a facade of 
mastery. That is, after all, part of the ``dad mystique''--the desire 
of fathers everywhere to be seen as the unvanquished protector of the 
family, the benevolent provider of all good things, the safe harbor 
against all harm and all fears.

  Today's economic conditions worry most fathers, no matter what their 
current earning prowess. If they are looking for work or to find a 
better job, recently reported economic indicators keep them awake at 
night. Housing prices continue to climb. Hiring is weak. Outsourcing 
and the offshore movement of jobs create heartburn. News that Chinese 
automobiles may soon be competing for sales in the United States will 
create a few ulcers, too, I am sure, as hard-working fathers

[[Page S6717]]

wonder how they can compete against Chinese workers making only $2 an 
hour.
  Fathers at the upper end of the pay scale are not immune from such 
nightmares either. They must still worry about corporate scandals that 
could rob them overnight of their pensions, stock options, and the 
rising cost of college education. All fathers feel a sense of growing 
unease about the spiraling deficits, the uncertain future of Social 
Security, the weakening of America's global competitiveness to the high 
price of international conflict. What kind of future are they leaving 
to their children?
  On a very personal level, fathers also share common fears. Where are 
their children? Are they behaving? Are they growing up to be good 
people? Will the world be good to them in return? I know that fathers, 
with sons and daughters in the military, carry particularly heavy 
burdens of worry these days, as well as fathers who are in uniform 
themselves with families waiting, waiting, waiting and praying for them 
at home. I hope these fathers know that the prayers of the Nation are 
with them.
  Fathers want the best for their children, which is why they push 
their children to do their best. To be sure, some fathers have taken 
this perhaps to unseemly, even dangerous, extremes, as the stories of 
some ``sports dads'' attest. But most fathers want their children to 
develop a healthy sense of competition, coupled with fairness, to learn 
to win and to learn to lose graciously, to foster a sense of 
perseverance that will stand their children in good stead no matter 
what field of endeavor they play upon.
  Fathers want to encourage a good work ethic. They want to encourage 
good study habits. They want to encourage the character traits of 
reliability--according to an old Greek ideal, character is destiny--and 
dependability, thoughtfulness, and generosity of spirit, traits that 
will make good students, respected leaders, able employees and, some 
day, good fathers and mothers.
  The best fathers, of course, practice what they preach. Parents are 
the best teachers, sometimes without ever giving a word of instruction. 
They teach by the example of their own lives.
  My own dad was such a man, the greatest man I ever knew, my dad. He 
was not my father. He was the man who raised me. But he was the 
greatest man I ever knew. I have met kings and shahs and Presidents, 
princes, Governors, Senators. Just that old coal miner dad was the 
greatest man I ever knew--hard working, God-fearing, generous with the 
little that he had. He took me in when my mother died, and he raised me 
as his own.
  ``It is not flesh and blood but the heart which makes us fathers and 
sons,'' wrote Johann Schiller. He is right. Titus Dalton Byrd was not 
my biological father, but he was my dad, pap. He is looking down from 
heaven right now. He is looking down. And some day I will meet him 
again. He was my dad.
  He encouraged me in my studies. He didn't buy me a cowboy suit. He 
didn't buy me a cap buster. He bought me a watercolor set, a book, a 
drawing tablet, and some crayons. He took pride in my accomplishments.
  Benjamin West said that he was made a great painter because of his 
mother who, when he went to her with little drawings about birds and 
flowers and so on, she took him up on her knee and she kissed him on 
the cheek. She said: Some day you are going to grow up. You will grow 
up to be a great painter. And that made him a great painter. He did 
grow up to become a great painter, made so by a mother's kiss.
  So about my old coal miner dad. After a long day at work, he would 
spend time with me. He talked with me. He listened to me. He watched me 
recite. He watched me play the violin. He feared for me when I wanted 
to follow him into the coal mines. He shared his fear; he shared the 
love that was behind it. He gave me a whipping a time or two. He always 
told me before he whipped me that he loved me, and it hurt him probably 
more than it hurt me. That was my dad. He pushed me to do better, to 
reach higher, to work harder. He didn't want me to have to work in the 
mines as he did. He gave me pride in him. He never used crude language. 
I never heard him use God's name in vain in all the years that I knew 
him--ever.
  He never raised a fist in anger. He never treated anyone with 
anything but courtesy. He was a poor, humble, hard-working coal miner. 
He took life as it came. He didn't grumble at what was placed before 
him on the table. He never complained. He never said anything about 
mom's cooking. He never used bad language, as I said. He carried 
himself--a poor miner without two nickles at times to rub together--
with the quiet dignity of a true gentleman. There was a man. I am proud 
to share his name. I think that is one of the greatest compliments that 
any child can give to his or her father--that proud inflection in their 
voice when they say: This is my dad.
  Like fathers everywhere, I delight in their every triumph, from the 
first breath onward, just as I mourn their every setback and 
disappointment. In speaking from my own experience, no father ever 
ceases to worry about his children and the kind of world they are 
inheriting. That is why I suppose it is whatever hair fathers are 
allowed to keep turns white.
  So on this Father's Day, I remember the old coal miner dad that I 
had. I could see him coming from the mines. I watched him as he walked 
down the railroad tracks, and I ran to meet him. As I came near, he put 
down that dinner bucket he had carried into the bowels of the Earth 
there in the darkness--the darkness of the coal mine. He put down that 
dinner bucket and lifted the lid, and he took out a little cake that my 
mom had put into the dinner bucket, and he always saved the cake for 
me. He gave me that cake. Yes, he took the cake into the mine, but he 
didn't eat the cake. He always saved the cake for me.
  So on this Father's Day, I wish I could tell fathers across America 
to relax and enjoy the day, to sleep well, basking in the love and 
affection of their families. I wish I could, but I know they are still 
worried. That is what a father does.
  Madam President, I close with a bit of verse that I memorized as a 
little boy. Over the years, I have come to appreciate its lesson more 
and more. I am sure that old coal miner dad knew it, too, for he lived 
with simple wisdom. It is called ``The Little Chap Who Follows Me.''

     A careful man I ought to be,
     A little fellow follows me,
     I do not dare to go astray
     For fear he'll go the selfsame way.

     I cannot once escape his eyes,
     Whate'er he sees me do, he tries;
     Like me, he says, he's going to be,
     The little chap who follows me.

     He thinks that I am good and fine,
     Believes in every word of mine.
     The base in me he must not see,
     The little chap that follows me.

     I must remember as I go,
     Through summer's sun and winter's snow,
     In building for the years to be
     The little chap who follows me.

  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona is recognized.

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