10 Things

It's June, which is means that it is almost Father's Day and my dad's birthday. Last month I wrote about 10 things that I learned from my mom, so the natural follow up is 10 things that I learned from my dad. In no particular order:

1. How to Drive
I remember lots of driving lessons with my dad, especially...

2. How to pass the Ohio Maneuverability Test
The state of Ohio made us pass a maneuverability test instead of parallel parking. The problem was that I failed that part the first time but passed the road portion of the test. My dad spent countless hours the next week practicing with me in parking lots on our own maneuverability course, and then I passed the test.

3. How to maintain a car and keep it for a long time
My dad is great about keeping up with car maintenance and keeping cars for a long time. My first car is almost 10 years old and still going strong.

4. About Baseball
We went to at least one Cincinnati Reds baseball game each summer and sometimes more games on vacations. As I grew up, the baseball lectures progressed. I was ready for advanced baseball lectures by my teenage years. I still enjoy going to baseball games.

5. About History
Sometimes he could even mix baseball and history.

6. About Politics
My dad has a knack for sharing his political knowledge without pushing his views onto anyone else. Political cartoons and opinion pieces were often marked with a post-it note for me to read. Now he emails links or mails us a particularly good political cartoon.

7. How to keep up with things
My dad is organized and keeps up with things. This rubbed off on me (most of the time...) and I still like marking a paper calendar even though I have electronic ones too.

8. How to avoid too much college debt
As student loan debt grows, my dad helped us (my brother and me) avoid taking on too much debt for our educations. He helped us navigate the financial aid systems at our universities, which was not easy.

9. How to manage money
I am glad that I had an allowance growing up and learned to manage money over the years.

10. How to be there for your family
Over the years, I observed my dad do so much for his parents, for my mom, and for his children. Thank you, Dad!

There are certainly more things that I have learned from my dad over the years, but I have used up my 10 Things list for this month.

You can read more posts about 10 Things on the Tenth of the Month at shimelle.com.