"The Greatest Dad"

I know LinkedIn is a business site and I have complained about people making it more than that. But I need to do something very selfish, something very therapeutic for me. This may be a bit long but please bear with me.

I need a platform to share some thoughts about the greatest DAD in the world, Lavoska Barton Sr, who a few days ago passed away from complications due to an aggressive cancer at the age of 86. We all found out about the cancer a week or so ago and, because of the man he was, it was fitting that GOD did not let him suffer long.

My Dad learned the carpentry trade in high school and used that trade well afterwards. He also worked on the assembly line at General Motors for a number of years. He was a very creative, entrepreneurial man who always worked multiple jobs and multiple projects. While working his night shift at GM he would do home remodeling and repair jobs during the day to help support the family. He put away savings bonds every paycheck so his kids could go to college. 

He started working at the age of 8 and did not really stop until the 2020 pandemic kept him in the house. He did some thing throughout his life that amaze me to this day. He built his own home from the ground up, mostly be himself. At the age of 75 he put a new roof on his house, and five years ago at the age of 81 (as my wife and my mom and younger sister closely watched us) my Dad and I cut up a 30+ foot pine tree in the front yard of his house that had cracked and fell over, with the top of it resting on the house. It took us a few hours, and I think he survived better than I did.

In my opinion my Dad was a man’s man, appearing larger than life to me in my early ages. He smoked unfiltered Camels at an early age and stopped smoking about 30 years ago. He drank his “Old Fitzgerald 100 proof” bourbon straight and enjoyed a steak and french fries and beer most Friday nights around midnight after his shift at GM. My mom would let me stay up and eat dinner with him those nights and we would talk sports. He was very strong and had a pair of hands that could drive a 16-penny nail flush to a board in two hits. His handshake, however, was kind and gentle and warming.

He and my mom were married for 64 years. My sisters and I had a great childhood growing up and our parents raised us to be respectable and even tempered. Rarely did I hear him raise his voice at us. My mom, a kind and gentle soul, cared for him and had dinner on the table every night and made sure we kids were doing what we needed to do. She was tightly connected to the teachers at my schools and knew my grades before I got home. She kept me us the straight and narrow while my dad worked.

My Dad was the one who introduced me to Christ before I headed off to the Fellowship of Christian Athletes camp at the age of 13. We had always said grace at dinner and very sparingly had “GOD” talks, but this was different as he prepared me for that camp by explaining to me that Jesus Christ died for our sins. I had a great experience because of his preparation. 

He was a man of fundamentals in everything he did. He believed in measuring twice and cutting once. He thought that using the sacrifice bunt to move a runner from first to second was the proper way to play baseball. He was not a big fan of today's game and the way they played. He taught me to catch a baseball using both hands, and, as I played left field, to listen to the sound of the bat to tell where the baseball was going.

He did home remodeling work for everyone in the Barton family, at more than fair rates, sometimes to the detriment of the projects that needed to be completed in his own house. In some ways I thought he was trying to fill the void left by his dad, another "man's man" who did everything he needed to do to take care of his family. 

He was loyal to a fault – a passionate and avid Kansas City Royals and Chiefs fan. He, like a number of us Kansas City fans, endured the long lapses in championships, from 1985 to 2015 for the Royals and from 1970 to 2020 for the Chiefs. He never missed a game, whether it was on TV or radio.

The year 1968, with its eerie similarity to 2020, brought us many transformative events. But what stood out for me was the night Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. Seeing my grandfather cry for the first time was a shock for me. And watching my Dad, with all the sirens and gun shots going off in areas around us, very calmly and with a resolute demeanor, grab the water hose and “wet down” the roof and the sides of our house, as if he expected Molotov cocktails to burn it to the ground. My Dad stayed up all night on guard and our house remained standing. I remember waking the next morning to the burning smell throughout the neighborhood and the sound of jeeps of soldiers driving down our street.

I could go on and on about the things that he did that had a positive influence on my life. But I will close by saying that to me he was the greatest Dad a man could ever have.

Dad, I love you - May GOD rest your soul. 

See you later.