On this Father’s Day, I’ve been thinking about the lessons my dad left me—the ones I can name, and the ones I am still trying to learn.
Some of what he taught me I can point to directly: how to ride a bike, how to swing a bat, and that the best produce is eaten straight from the garden. My kids still remember him cutting open a watermelon right in the middle of the field and sharing the heart of it with them. Those are the easy ones to name.
But the lessons that actually shaped who I am aren’t the ones I could have recognized in the moment.
The understanding that hard work matters.
Doing things right is always more important than doing them fast.
That integrity simply isn’t negotiable. We think about that a lot in how we farm and how we craft our wine.
Those lessons weren’t formally taught; they were just lived, and I absorbed them by watching.
Then there are the lessons I am still trying to learn.
Those who knew my dad know he had a deep passion for the outdoors, especially if it involved fishing. In his later years, he spent countless hours fly fishing.
If you are unfamiliar, fly fishing is truly an art—it takes focus and a lot of practice. He always said one of the things he loved most about it was that it required just enough attention that you couldn’t think about anything else. The to-do list, the worries, and the weight of life all drift away for just a bit.
I experience something similar when I am working in the garden, or when we briefly took up golf (hopefully, we will dust those clubs off again soon).
Being physically still isn’t really my challenge. It’s that, without some intention, the quiet spaces in my day quickly fill with thoughts running in a million directions.
But pair that stillness with something that requires a little attention—or with someone you love—and you can actually exhale.
The escape from feeling hurried isn’t just the pause. It’s what you do inside it.
Thanks, Dad, for the lessons you taught me, and the ones I’ll spend my life learning.
