[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 148 (2002), Part 8]
[Senate]
[Pages 10445-10447]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              FATHER'S DAY

  Mr. BYRD. Madam President, the Bible commands us to ``honor thy 
father and thy mother.'' Last month, we honored mothers. It was 
mother's day. This month, this Sunday, it is the fathers' turn. On that 
day, we honor men in their role as fathers, not as any of the many 
other titles they may wear: not for their accomplishments at work, 
though that is how many men define themselves; not for their 
accomplishments at home that are not family related, such as in their 
role as gardeners or home builders or mechanics; but as fathers.
  Fatherhood requires no special training, no advanced degree, but it 
does require a long commitment and a considerable level of effort. It 
is not always easy. It requires a certain warmth. It is not for the 
faint-hearted or the self-centered. Though it has its hero moments, it 
is not a popularity contest. As a father, a man will hunt buggers, as 
they used to say; buggers or monsters in closets on dark nights, 
investigate all strange sounds, and kill a lot of bugs and spiders. 
Just ask any father. He will be expected to know how to make volcanoes 
out of plaster of Paris and 2-liter soda bottles. He will become the 
instant authority in all manner of arcane subjects like sports rules. 
He will become the ultimate authority in all matters of discipline. 
Father will set, and enforce, limits and intimidate all prospective 
suitors of his daughters. He becomes the man by whom all other men are 
judged. It is difficult to over-estimate the importance of a father 
figure.
  If you ask a child what he or she likes best about their father, they 
likely will not mention the father's job. They won't comment on how 
nicely he mows the lawn, or how the car gleams, the chromium shines, 
those fenders which mirror themselves. It is more likely to be that dad 
makes funny faces--yes, that is what they will comment on, dad makes 
funny faces--plays catch, makes waffles on Saturday mornings, or gives 
pony rides on his shoulders. Maybe dad does a great cannonball jump 
into the pool, maybe he cooks the best hamburgers on the grill, or 
maybe he takes his kids fishing. It is those times that a father is 
most engaged with his children that makes a moment special to a child. 
As we grow older, we can appreciate the effort that fathers put into 
their jobs, so that they might provide for their families, but that 
appreciation only sweetens the treasured times when dad plays with his 
kids.
  I have spoken many times about my dad. He was not my biological 
father. But he was my biological father's sister's husband. He and my 
aunt raised me as my mother died when I was a year old, a little less 
than a year old, in the great influenza epidemic of 1918.
  I was just reading last night a Senate hearing by the Appropriations 
Committee on a resolution appropriating $1 million to fight influenza 
in 1918. That hearing was conducted in September of 1918. Less than 2 
months later, my mother died of that influenza.
  So she asked, per her wish, that my father's sister--he had eight or 
nine sisters, two or three brothers; there were large families in those 
days--my mother's wish was that one of my father's sisters who had 
married Titus Dalton Byrd take me, the baby. I had three older brothers 
and a sister, but take me, the baby, and rear that baby. And so because 
of a mother's wish, my uncle, Titus Dalton Byrd, and his wife, my aunt, 
Vlurma Byrd, took me to West Virginia from North Carolina, and there in 
the coal fields of West Virginia they reared me. They took care of me. 
They loved me. My memories are of that tall man, with a red mustache 
and the black hair, who went to the mines every day and worked hard for 
me and for his wife, my aunt--the only mother I ever knew. And he was 
the only father I ever knew.
  As a matter of fact, I didn't know that he wasn't my father until I 
was a high school senior. In that year, 1934, this man whom I called my 
dad took me and sat me down and told me the story of how the influenza 
had taken away my angel mother and how he and his wife, whom I knew as 
my mom, had taken me as an infant, just a few days under 1 year old, 
and raised me.
  And I can remember him, that old coal miner, honest as the day is 
long. He had no enemies. When he died, he didn't owe any man a penny. 
He was honest, as I say, as the day is long. He worked hard in the 
bowels of the Earth.
  I never heard him use God's name in vain in all the years that I was 
with him--never. I never heard him talk about his neighbor. I never saw 
him sit down at the table and grumble at whatever was on the table, 
whatever it was--never, ever a grumble.
  As I say, I didn't know for a long time that Titus Dalton Byrd was 
not my father. I called him Pap. He was my dad.
  He was a quiet, hard-working man, worn down by the strenuous life of 
a coal miner in the days before the mechanized and much safer practices 
of modern mining. He would come home--I see the coal dust sometimes in 
his eyes. I see him coming down the railroad tracks. I see him coming 
home from a hard day's work in the mines.
  Many times in those mines the roof was so low that the miners had to 
walk on their knees. They had knee pads and they would walk on their 
knees, sometimes working in waterholes, lifting that slate and lifting 
the shovels of coal and heaving them into the coal car. They worked 
hard.
  There was little hope for them, not much to look forward to in that 
coal miner's life. Day after day, day after day, the same old grind, 
lifting that coal, shoveling that coal into the coal car.
  I would see him coming down the railroad tracks from afar. I would 
run to meet him. As I came to him, I could see that tall man with the 
red mustache and the black hair set down his dinner pail on a crosstie. 
As I came near, he would lift off the lid from that dinner pail. And 
when I came up to him, he would reach into that dinner pail and bring 
out a cake that my mom had bought, a 5-cent cake--a 5-cent cake from 
the company store. He had taken it to work. He had taken it to eat for 
himself, but he didn't eat it. He always saved the cake for me. He 
always saved the cake for me.
  What a man that was. I have met Presidents and Governors and 
Senators, Members of Congress and Kings and Shahs and Ambassadors--all 
the great people of the Earth. In my time

[[Page 10446]]

as majority leader, I met with the Shah of Iran, the old Biblical 
country of Persia, just a few weeks before he left Iran forever. I met 
with him in his palace, just he and I and his wife and my wife.
  I met with the King of Saudi Arabia, the great royal family of Saudi 
Arabia. I met with President Sadat, one on one. I met with Prime 
Minister Begin of Israel; President Assad of Syria; the King of Jordan. 
I knew the King's father. I met with Vice Premiere Deng, the real 
leader in Communist China. I met with President Brezhnev, down in the 
Crimea, just he and I sitting across the table, he with one person who 
was an interpreter, I with an interpreter and one assistant, that was 
all, sitting down, in the Crimea. Brezhnev, he reminded me of an old 
county commissioner back in West Virginia. I bet there are some of 
those county commissioners in Missouri, just oldtimers, people of the 
soil, people of the Earth.
  So I met with these people: Margaret Thatcher, the King of Spain, I 
met with all this great array of world leaders.
  Who was I? I was a country boy from southern West Virginia, a coal 
miner's son. But the greatest of all these people that I have met on 
Earth, one of the greatest--I knew he was great because I lived with 
him--the greatest was my old coal miner dad, coal miner dad.
  Well, I would walk along with him, kind of feeling grown up, you see. 
Here I was, a little old boy. He saved me a cake and then I would walk 
on down to the house with him. I felt pretty grown up, walking with my 
dad.
  So he always saved the cake for me. He never forgot to save me 
something. He would always give it to me with one of his quiet smiles. 
Those short walks were a special time just for us, and the memory of 
them gives me a warm feeling to this day.
  I have no doubt that there is a Heaven. I have no doubt that in that 
Heaven right today is that mother who died on the evening before 
November 11, 1918. And because of her wish, I am here today. If it 
hadn't been for her wish, that I be taken by Titus Dalton Byrd and his 
wife, I probably would have grown up in North Carolina. It is hard to 
tell what I might have amounted to but because of a mother's wish.
  My dad was the one who gave me pencils and paper, drawing books and 
watercolors at Christmas. He didn't give me a cowboy suit or a cap 
buster. He gave me drawing tablets and watercolors, urged me to learn 
how to draw and how to write and how to read. He was the one who bought 
a violin for me and encouraged me to play.
  The fiddle was a big gift in a day and place where there wasn't much 
money for frills. I got a lot of enjoyment out of that fiddle playing. 
And because of that fiddle, I really had a political advantage, and I 
was advised by a Republican--as I told some of these fine pages here, 
earlier today--a Republican lawyer advised me to take that fiddle. He 
said: You take that fiddle, Bob, and everywhere you go you make that 
fiddle your briefcase. You play a tune or two and then you put that 
fiddle down and you give them a straight story on why you want to go to 
the West Virginia Legislature. And quote a little poem or two, but they 
will remember you because of that fiddle. Nobody else who is running 
can play a fiddle. They will remember you not because of the fiddle but 
because it got their attention and caused them to remember you. But it 
is what you say that really counts.
  I ran my first campaign for elected office. I was an underdog. I was 
very young. I was unknown. I was untested. But my fiddle playing at 
campaign stops got people's attention and left them with a memory 
associated with my name. They were willing to listen to me talk as the 
price for getting to hear me play.
  So in that way you could say that my dad helped me to win an 
election--my first election. He did, because he bought that fiddle for 
me. Without that fiddle, I wouldn't have won that first campaign, and 
probably wouldn't have been reelected when I ran for the West Virginia 
Senate. I had to go into additional counties, and I took the fiddle 
there. When I ran for the House of Representatives, there were 
additional counties. I took the fiddle around.
  So that was what my dad gave me--that fiddle. It was because of his 
and my mother's wish, you see, that I am here today. It is how far I 
was influenced.
  My dad also encouraged me in school. He did not want me to follow him 
into the mines. He knew the dangers too well. He had seen those dangers 
up close. He had seen too many of his fellow coal miners killed. He had 
seen the men on the floor of the house with a piece of canvass 
stretched over them who had been run over by a motor, or executed by a 
fallen cable, or killed by falling slate. He had seen those dangers up 
close. So he pushed me to do well in school. He wanted me to do well in 
school. He encouraged me. He always wanted to see that report card. And 
there was one category on the report card entitled ``deportment.'' He 
always looked at that deportment. How well did Robert do in school? How 
well does he mind the teacher? Does he do what the teacher says? Is he 
a rowdy or is he not? He always watched that.
  From him and from my aunt, I developed a love of learning that has 
lasted my whole life.
  I was the first in all of my family--going back many generations to 
William Sayle who settled in Virginia in 1657 on the banks of the 
Rappahannock River. He was the ancient forbear of my father, my real 
father, my biological father--I was the first in my family, going all 
the way back to England, to go to college.
  I am proud to say that my children and my children's children have 
excelled in challenging academic fields. My grandson, Frederick, is a 
physicist, following in his father's footsteps. I may be biased, but at 
the rate my family is going I wouldn't be surprised if one of my great-
granddaughters won a Nobel Prize, thanks to the academic legacy 
inspired by my dad who himself had practically little or no schooling 
whatsoever.
  I know he must look down and be proud of all of us, just as we strive 
to make him proud.
  I have another grandson who is a physicist also, Darius. I have a 
grandson who is on one of the appropriations committees as a staff 
person. I have a granddaughter who works in the Senate. I have a 
granddaughter who lives in Leesburg. She is a wonderful granddaughter. 
These daughters of mine and the grandchildren and now three great-
grandchildren--three are great-granddaughters--I have no doubt that 
they will win some Nobel Prize or something even more worthy.
  I know that I am not alone today in cherishing the memories of my 
dad--the man who raised me. Nor am I alone in seeing the reach that a 
father's encouragement can have through many generations who cannot 
feel the warm touch of that long-gone father's smile. History books are 
replete with the stories of famous men and women who owed their start 
to some early encouragement from their fathers or their mothers.
  Benjamin West, an early American painter, said, as I understand it, 
that he owed his becoming a great painter to his mother--his angel 
mother--who, when he was a little infant, a little child, came to her 
with his child's drawings of flowers and birds and showed his mother. 
She would take him upon her knee and say, Benjamin, you will grow up to 
be a great painter. And Benjamin West grew up to be a great painter. He 
said he was made a great painter by a mother's kiss. That is the way it 
is.
  It is what we celebrate on Father's Day. It is not the work, it is 
not the accomplishments, it is not the titles, it isn't the bank 
account that bring children home to visit with their father and share a 
meal with him or send him a funny yet sentimental card. The moments of 
a father's love made manifest--these are the pieces of gold in memory's 
treasure chest. Those moments of joy, of laughter, of mutual pride at 
being in the same family make the labors of the week drop away like a 
heavy winter coat in the warm rays of the summer sun.
  For myself, of course, and also for all fathers, I hope that this 
Sunday is

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filled with family and with laughter and with warm feelings. Let us all 
look upon, think upon, and remember our fathers and our father's 
father, and glory in their greatest and most lasting achievement--happy 
families.
  Let us not forget that Biblical admonition, honor thy father and thy 
mother. We only have one of each. That is it. That is the sum total--
only one.
  I close with the words of an unknown who wrote the ``Little Chap Who 
Follows Me.''
  I am sure that my dad, although he never had the luxury of sitting in 
a schoolroom reading that poem, the ``Little Chap Who Follows Me,'' 
certainly in his life typified that poet's thought as a father who 
thinks of the ``Little Chap Who Follows Me.''
  Many of the poems, like these simple little poems, have a message:

     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 self-same way.
     I must not madly step aside,
     Where pleasure's paths are smooth and wide,
     And join in wine's red revelry
     A little fellow follows me.

     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 who follows me.

     I must remember as I go,
     Through summer's sun and winter's snow,
     I'm building for the years to be,
     A little fellow follows me.

  Madam President, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BYRD. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the 
quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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