Removed from home before 4th birthday due to both physical abuse and emotional neglect. Fuck Dad#1.
Adoptive dad subsequently abandons my family when I am 9 years old. Fuck Dad#2. To this day, we cannot confirm death/ final resting place of the shitbag who left us. He would be 86, if still alive.
Both of these fuckers made me a better dad, as I swore that my kids would NEVER know many of the emotions I had as a kid. Today, my relationships with my grown ass boys are at the very foundation of my ongoing happiness. Father's Day sucked until I became one. Then each year made it more joyful, and the pain from the past would wane a little bit more.
In the absence of a father figure, both of my grandfathers were very close to me. They instilled work ethic, commitment to family, being a gentleman, or being tough enough to kick life's ass when you had to. I was closest to the one on my mom's side, and he passed before I ever met my wife. Without a doubt, the one person I'd ever want to get to have a day with again would be him, so I could share the family I have today with him. I was always his partner in 42, and he might boot me to the side to play dominoes with my wife. LOL. He worked at the local grain elevator/ co-op( no statues) and when he'd come home for lunch during our summer visits, my cousins and I would all ask him for Big Red, Sunkist, MelloYello, or a Frostie root beer in those tall 10 ounce bottles. He would bring them in and we would hide from him throughout the house and he would come find us. We would always start laughing/ giggling before he got to us. He taught me( and many others) how to water ski, so maybe he would prefer the day at the lake, as we did so many times as a family. His birthday was the day after Christmas, and he always asked for my grandma's pineapple upside down cake. I cannot have it now without thinking of him. One thing we did not agree upon was how to eat homemade hot rolls. He'd split em open and pour sorghum molasses on them after a meal. I could never get there on that front, but it makes me smile to this day when I see anything with molasses in it. He loved sports and most definitely handed that down to me. When he would leave to go to work, he would leave the newspaper on the kitchen table with the sports section on front, because that's what people really wanted to read anyway, or so he said. He wanted me to wake up to that. He was a gentleman and showed me that you could carry yourself with dignity, be true to your word, bust your ass, be someone your family could depend upon; and you didn't need to tell the world how good you were. If you were good, they'd already know.
My dad's (step) father was a hard-ass drinking/ cussing/ mechanically inclined/ smart as hell German with an incredible love for his family, and especially the grandkids. He hated our dad for what he did to our family, and he made it well known. So he carried himself much differently from my mom's father, but the thing he had in common was an incredible commitment to us. He taught my cousins and I everything from basic plumbing, to gardening/ canning veggies and fruit, carpentry, fishing, and how to cuss in the garage after skinning a knuckle while changing out a starter on a truck. LOL. This man cussed pretty much like no other person I've ever been around, and I grew up on farms and served in the military. The difference with him, as that he very, very rarely aimed it at a person. It was mainly just venting, but holy hell he could cuss a blue streak. He drank cheap beer and watched wrestling...and loved having his grandsons in there watching it with him. "Boys, I need another soldier!" and we'd haul ass to the utility room to grab him a beer, because whoever got it, would take the first sip( the foam) off the top. When he passed, we had some good booze, but we 6 grandsons shared a sixer of tall boy Meister Brau or some cheap ass beer. He would have loved it. That beer was terrible! LOL. When our dad left, this man would haul firewood to our house because the fireplace was the only source of heat. He would bring a pickup load of groceries, just because he felt like it was time. He was very generous, but like in a Dale Earnhardt, tough guy way. "I'm gonna bring this stuff, but don't be running your mouth about it to the family." I've always respected that he was also trying to protect our own confidence and dignity. As ana side to that, he hated how all of my grandma's church friends would gossip and worry about shit, and very often they would be the root of his cussing tirades, again, not AT them, but damned sure ABOUT them. But sure enough if they had a car problem, or something with the waterheater, or anything; his ass would be over there fixing it for them. I have inherited much of those 2 philosophies from him. I'm gonna show up, no matter what. but I'm probably gonna bitch about it beforehand.