SNGF: Remembering Dad on Fathers' Day

Randy at Genea-Musings has given us this challenge this Father's Day weekend ================================================================
Your mission this week, should you decide to accept it, is to:
1)  Sunday, 16 June, is Father's Day.  Let's celebrate by writing a blog post about our Father, or another significant male ancestor (e.g., a grandfather).
2)  What are three things about your father (or significant male ancestor) that you vividly remember about him?
3)  Tell us all about it in your own blog post, in a comment to this post, or in a Facebook Status or Google+ Stream post.

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Curt and Nancy Sharp ca. 1977

This is my Dad as I remember him, except for the suit and tie! I only remember seeing him in a tie ONE time after he retired from the Army in 1957.

Alva Curtis Sharp was born on Halloween in 1917 and died in September 1978, seven weeks short of his 61st birthday. One of the most important things about my Dad is that he never had any contact with his family after he ran off and joined the Army in 1925. And he was adamant that he didn't want any of his kids (meaning me) researching his family history. After his early death from cardiac arrest, my Mother continued that policy and would not listen to any of my findings about his family. In fact, it wasn't until after she died in 1996 that I learned his family had been in contact in 1979 and a brother had even come to meet her. Ah, the secrets we hide.....




My Dad was incredibly smart and, when he decided to take up a new hobby, did it whole-heartedly. In the early 1950s that hobby was photography. In the later 1950s and 60s, it was woodworking. He built much of our family's furniture. In the late 1960s he got into golf. In the 1970s he took up needlepoint. Thankfully, we have many mementos from his various hobbies.

My Dad was also very athletic. Neither of his sons had any interest in sports, but I did. He taught me how to pitch and hit and tried to sneak me into Little League as a kid (girls weren't allowed then). He was a semi-pro bowler at one time and supposedly made quite a lot of money hustling bowlers. He'd bowl right-handed until he hooked some poor guy, then switch to his natural left-handed style. He taught me to bowl starting when I was about 8 or 9 and insisted that I do it "right." That instruction finally paid off when we got Wii Bowling a few years ago; impressed the heck out of our kids that I could pick up spares! I spent hundreds of hours with my Dad at the local bowling alley, either be instructed, bowling in youth leagues that he ran, or keeping score for him, sometimes even in league play.