X is for Xtraordinary Man

I won't be copying from my dad's journal today but I do want to highlight what I find extraordinary about this man.

1.  I've never heard him disrespect my mother in my whole life.
2.  He has never raised his voice in anger.  He has been stressed and we knew it when his voice          would squeak a little and he'd call us "dear heart" or "honey-child."   When bills came due,              we knew not to ask Daddy for money for anything . "Honey-child, not now, please."
3.   I've only ever heard him use a 4-letter word one time, and that was when he was trying to tell
      some terrible tenants why he had to evict them.  "There is dog S@#$ all over the basement!"
      he told the man on the phone. When I asked him later why he said that bad word, he very
      apologetically but firmly said, "Because some people just don't understand any other language."
4.   I've never heard him use God's name in vain.
5.   He has never told an off-color joke.
6.   So honest is he, that one time after driving away from a toll booth, realizing he had received back  ten cents too much, he paid it back at the next toll booth--the kind that looked like a urinal
for change? Do you remember those?


Oh, there are plenty more reasons why I think Daddy is extraordinary, but those six right there
set him in class of his own.