Role Models

I was watching an NBA Basketball game this week, one of many, and got to thinking about role models. It was probably that Sir Charles was on the halftime show. I'm a Utah Jazz fanatic and have been from the begining and will be forever unless...well something bad happens. But I always loved Charles Barkley. He had theat commercial though where he said he didn't want to be a role model, or something to that nature, but you don't realy get to choose.
My grandpa was probably my first real hero. Most of my first memories have something that connects me to that man and to the ranch. He ran a ranch in Washington state. We would always drive down there from Vancover where my family lived. My grandparents would always be waiting for us there. I lived with my grandparents for a while when I ws very young and my sister was going through some burn therepy. My parent left me alone with them. Big mistake, because I'm sure that this is where my deep love of everything remotely dangerous (explodes or goes fast) comes from. My uncle (another childhood hero) was always up there, the baja racer/outfitter/adventure seeker, and my grandfather had that old school outdoorsmen attitude.
I remmeber grandpa used to pick me up and set me on the saddle of his horse with him. She was a Palamino (blonde). Not coincidently, I love horses and appreciate a good blonde. He was shorter, but always had this quiet dignity. He was alwyas thin, his face a little leathery from the sun, and he always had his head capped with a silverbelly Stetson cowboy hat. Dang, I have got to get one of those hats. He used to pick me up and haul me out to the bulldozer on the ranch when it would snow, and we would plow the roads together. I still love the sound and smell of a diesel engine. Then when we'd do chores, he'd put me in the international scout 4x4 and take me out to help feed the horses. You guessed it, I still love old 4x4's. He hunted, probably at first out of neccesity, then as time went on he, like most of us who hunt, learned to love the experience of being part of the earth and the cycle of life; a member of that chain of events rather than just a bystander. He was a mechanic by trade for many years. He was gifted at that. I still remember sitting in the garage and handing him tools while he, my dad, and my uncle worked on stuff. I vividly remember many of those experiences, just like I remmember the moose that hung in the lodge there and the feel of his electric razor as he ran it down my smooth little boy face. If you have to pick a hero, here's your man.
It has taken me many years, but it may have finally dawned on me how great a man my own father was. I alway gravitated towards the things that my grandfather did, maybe even a little towards my uncles crazy hobbies. My dad never got into that stuff as much. He dabbled in all of those things (I'm sure as a result of the superior genetic strain that we all seem to have come from) but he tended to be more the cerebral, electronics/computers/booksmart guy. I used to say that he could build a satelelite out of a can opener, but would probably fail to open the can. He's smart, and I mean that very seriously. But I could never quite understand him. It was like our brains just wheren't wired quite the same. It is only now that I realize what a great man he was/is. You see, I saw him sacrifice alot, and thought it foolhardy. I saw him suffer, and thought it was weakness. I saw him humble, and mistook it for flawed character. I have always idolized the warrior, the hunter, the adventurer. But he was rarely these things.
I remmember how he dealt with my granmother, his mother-in-law. She was a quadroplegic, paralyzed from the neck down from my mothers birth till her death at 56. I remmember that dad would always go over every sunday and load her in a stretcher and take her to church. Every sunday. That's over 1,000 that I can count. He always shopped for cars that were big enough for that stupid stretcher, when I just wanted a sweet truck. He went over almost everynight to make sure that her physical needs for food etc. were met. What kind of man does that. I remmember him riding a bike 10 miles to work, so my mom could drive to school. I remmember him working extra hours to put her through college for a bachelors, master, and finally law school. I know that he got very little of her time and attention for many years. I'm married, and I don't think that I could have made those sacrifices. He still makes those sacrifices. Sometimes I want so badly to just say "hey dad, take some of that cash that you work for and spend it on yourself." But I always see him look around and spend it on someone else. Only now do I start to identify with him. I see the ways that his being a technowheenie has blessed me. How that cerebral guy somehow ended up as part of my brain as well (at least I'd like to beleive that). I see things that I go through in marriage, and can finally understand just how significant his sacrifice, humility, and patience were. What type of man does those things?
Now I realize that these two individuals kind of define me. A strange mix of a person, but I would not trade that for anything. I'm very proud of who I am and where I came from. Indeed, these two "Coles" were very different, but both are special to me. These are my role models, the type of men who have qualities that I want to emulate. I hope that someday those who knew me will look at my life and say "What kind of man does that?"