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Show YOU HAVE SOMETHING I NEED May I ask your aid? Without it, my task is impossible. What I need is an understanding heart. Father is, I admit, an unlikely hero. He did not achieve a blazing success in money, scientific discovery, political or military leadership, athletics. He was not young-except in spirit-when I first saw him. So I'm asking you to interest yourself in a man who was middle-aged when he began the adventure that makes my story. Thus you have to "swim against the current." I know. In boyhood I admired Father's ability to throw a hard punch much more than I appreciated his medical knowledge and insight into causes of illness. In my teens I idolized the demi-gods of the BAC basketball and track teams and the home run leaders of the Bees and the Braves. But I still hope you'll see the remarkable traits I now see in Father. His story may help give you courage for your own struggle with life. You've a perfect right to ask, Why should I read about somebody else's father when mine would make as lively a story or better? Two answers: 1. Your Father is probably just as worthy a life story. This biography may help you see possibilities in your Father's life, both in likenesses and in contrasts. 2. Father's nature and Fate joined up to enact a tale that is more than personal. In several senses we were lucky. Father led our family to typify the recent "Free Land" chapter in American history. As you know, Free Land has meant much to the growth of our government, our ways of life, the ways you and I think. And the Free Land or Frontier era did not end in 1890 as some think. |