Father's Day 2025
A salute to fathers everywhere!
200! This is our 200th Substack!
Hold the applause and buy my books…
As I prepare for this last mission, I am a bit homesick...Mother and Dad; you are very close to me, and I long so to talk to you. America has asked much of our generation, but I’m glad to give her all I have because she has given me so much.
SGT Arnold Rahe USAAF, from a letter to his parents
This quote reminds me of these two guys who stepped into darkness over France in June 1944.
On the left is my “Uncle” Al Urton, an old family friend who fathered two sons. On the right is my father, Hud Beatty. I don’t have any of his letters home; Mom didn’t keep them.
This is the last image of Dad, taken in October 1968, and developed after his death that November. I was thirteen when he passed; I barely remember him. Just last night I tried to remember if I ever saw him wearing a hat for some unaccountable reason, though I have pictures of him wearing them long before I was born.
I have no imagery of the two “other” fathers I had as a teenager, Pete Dewitt and Jack Hendrickson, but this is my late step-father, Jack Hall, with my mother ca. 1980.
This is of my still-with-us father-in-law, Howard Wilson, with my late mother-in-law, Lucie.
I will leave you with this thought…
Sex is hereditary. If your parents never had it, chances are you won't either.
Murphy
Happy Father's Day!