Lesson 1: Stand for Those Who Can't (How My Father’s Love & Guidance Led to My Life in Law)

I was born in Chicago, Illinois. My family moved when I was young, and we ultimately ended up in a neighborhood called Kingswood in Orlando, Florida. I’ve never researched Kingswood’s history, but I understand it was developed in the ’60s. At that time, NASA was developing and growing what would later become known as Kennedy Space Center. As I understand it, a lot of initial residents of Kingswood were students at Florida Technological University (later known as UCF). Those students were working or going to work at the Space Center.

By the time my family moved to Kingswood, the neighborhood was mostly blue-collar. My family wasn’t poor, but we were far from the top. My childhood was filled with friends who came from many backgrounds, cultures, and races. I didn’t realize at the time what a gift that was. Many of the kids in my neighborhood did not have a father around. By default, my house became the house that everyone would go to after school, and my dad was called “pops” by many of the kids in the neighborhood.

Our neighborhood was nice. The houses were well-built stone, and we had an amazing community park. In that park, we had several basketball rims, and I spent many days out there playing game after game. My friends and I were typically the younger ones out there, and from time to time, things would get rough. Fights weren’t common, but they happened. However, most were minor and ended almost as quickly as they began. Looking back, a game of basketball became so much more. It taught me a lot about life.

The park, for as long as I can remember, had a groundskeeper. I remember he was mean, and I got the sense that he didn’t like kids. Picture Gargamel, but scarier. At least he was to me. One day, the groundskeeper decided he didn’t like us playing there anymore, and he took the hoops down. He claimed that he didn’t take them down, but before putting new ones back up, the HOA wanted to have a meeting about all the “outside kids”coming in to play. There were no “outside kids”, but this would become the theme for the HOA.

It was several months before the HOA meeting took place. By then, in typical kid fashion, I had moved on to some other hobby and completely lost interest in basketball. However, my dad hadn’t, and he expected me to go to the meeting with him. I argued with him about going and told him I didn’t care anymore. He looked me in the eye and said, “It isn’t about you, it's about everyone else who can’t fight. Sometimes life is about sticking up for the guy who needs you to.” I remembered immediately feeling embarrassed and rushing to get my shoes on. We drove around the neighborhood in my dad's green pickup truck, picked up truckloads of kids, and dropped them off at the meeting. We probably made seven trips.

I don’t remember everything that happened at that meeting. I was in the back, and it was a packed room, probably no bigger than 20 x 30. I couldn’t hear well. I do remember when the HOA president asked if anyone objected to not “replacing” the rims, my dad stood in opposition. The whole room got quiet. You could hear a pin drop. My dad proceeded to tell them that on behalf of all these kids he brought, he objected. He then read procedure after procedure explaining why it was a violation of the HOA rules to take them down in the first place.

The groundskeeper quickly chimed in, “We didn’t take them down. They were stolen.” Without skipping a beat, my dad opened a large bag he had been carrying and said, “Funny because they didn’t get very far with them. They were sitting behind your shed when I found them.” The groundskeeper immediately knew he had picked a fight with the wrong man. The rims were returned that week and shortly after that, the groundskeeper resigned. But what I remember the most was the kids thanking my dad. To my dad, it was just a fun night giving hell to a crusty old groundskeeper. To the kids, dad was being their “pops” and they loved and respected him for that