A Gift for You Dad

[Surf Hunter]

I posted this on the other boad buut thought you may enjoy.

A Gift for You Dad

Warning, a long read…………..

So, I was contemplating H’Islanders theory of epoxy coating a plug in space the other night and came up with this idea.

So, were to begin, I grew up in South of Houston near the Clear Lake area. My dad worked for NASA on the shuttle program from its inception. Yup, I was a space brat. We would have parties at the house and a few astronauts even attended included Buzz Aldrin and John Glenn. I was really young at the time but remember it well. So, when I turned eight, my parents split up. I would see my dad every other weekend. It was really rough, when I was with dad, he would talk bad about my mom and when I was at home, and mom would talk bad about dad, not a good place for a kid. Anyway, So on weekends if dad was working late, h would pick me up and take me to Johnson Space Center to his office. He built micro computers for the shuttle project. As a kid it was awesome to see all the electronic doo dads and test equipment that you had no idea what it was, hell, looking back to this day, I was mesmerized by an oscilloscope for hours, yup easily amused.
So, after work, we would go back to dads, he lived pretty much on Clear Lake (a saltwater bay actually) he would give me some frozen shrimp and I would head down and fish for small redfish, speckled trout and croaker. I caught a few, and would bring em home, dad taught me how to fillet the fish and he would cook them up right on the spot. Man that was good.
So a few years passed and my dad and I seemed to grow farther and farther apart. Fast forward about 10 years and we really didn’t speak, not sure why, it just happened that way, I never had phone number to call, but I would write him and give him mine in the hopes he would call. It never happened.
Fast forward again past the birth of my son and the fall of my first marriage, I met Shannon, moved to San Francisco to be with her and low and behold, the chick loves to fish. And found plug building!

So, Shannon and I decided to get married July 2007, my folks rent a beach house in Galveston every year and my family gets together for hat, Shannon’s family lives in Houston so it just seemed like the right time.
My mom did some research and found my dads number for me as I really would be honored if he would come to the wedding.
I called my dad and we actually had a great conversation, We was asking me about the pictures of me and different fish I had caught that I would mail him and I told him about the wedding. He was thrilled.
So dad, I will see you in July 07, I want to thank you for everything, I know things were really rough going there and I blame no one. You introduced me to fishing, cooking and the space program. You mean the world to me, so for you for Christmas this year, Shannon and I built you this lure. It is a copy of a Creek Chub Pikie, Shannon did the space shuttle paint and we hope you love it.

I love you dad,
Tom