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Article: What happens to children without father's example?
- Article from:
- Chicago Sun-Times
- Article date:
- June 18, 2006
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 2006 Chicago Sun-Times. (Hide copyright information)
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My earliest memory of my father, Monroe Anderson, dates back to
when I was 3. On a pre-dawn winter morning, I stood in my flannel
pajamas, watching him stoke the coals in our apartment's potbelly
stove until there was a golden glow bathing the room. My last memory
of my father, alive, was in 1984 at a New Year's Day family dinner in
the Gary house where I grew up. Dishes were being cleared from the
table when my father vanished, returning with a vintage shotgun
cradled in his arms.
"I want you to have this," he said, handing it over, barrels up.
The shotgun meant a lot to him. When he was a boy living Down
South, his maternal granddaddy used it while teaching him to hunt for
supper.
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