I am like my dad.  He taught me so much.  Here are some things I learned from Larry Fuller:
            Get up early, you will feel better all day, even on the weekends.  You need to get your work done before the sun gets too hot.  Always leave for work early.  You may get held up somewhere along the way. On the weekends he would come and wake us up.  Get up time’s a wasting he would say.  We have things to do.
Don’t waste food.  Always clean your plate. He grew up poor and he thought you shouldn’t waste food.  He had to work hard in the garden to help raise food for the family.
            Save for a rainy day.  You never know when you will have some unexpected expense to come up, and something will always come up.
            Be honest.  You won’t have to try to remember what you have said before.  People will trust you if they know that you are an honest person.
            Drive carefully.  Buckle up before you start the car.  Never exceed the speed limit.  Make sure to keep your vehicle serviced.
            Be careful with firearms.  He taught me to shoot a gun.  He stressed to me that you never point a gun at anyone no matter whether it is loaded or not.
            He knew when to plant and dig potatoes.  He always went by the signs in the almanac.  I would always call him when I had a question about planting something. 
            The son of a mailman, he was born in Dickenson County, VA and never ventured too far from his home.  Once, we went to see the Atlantic Ocean.  Dad rolled his pants legs up to his knees and waded out into the ocean.  He was so excited he walked out too far and the waves soaked his pants all the way to his waist. Dad said the next time we come to see the ocean we will stay about a week, but there never was a next time. 
            He worked on his car.  He always believed that you should keep your car in good running condition.  He knew that you would pay later if you didn’t. I always liked to help him.  He would pull the car up on the handmade grease rack as I watched in amazement how precisely he drove upon the two narrow boards.  He would always ask if I wanted to help.   It would take all of my strength to pump a small amount of grease from the large can while he took the hose and put it where it needed to go up under the car.  I remember the strong smell of the oil and grease and how it would be on our clothes when we came back inside the house.
            He put lighter fluid and flint in his cigarette lighter. I loved to watch how he would squint as he dropped the tiny flint into his lighter. He would then squirt the bottle of lighter fluid into it and the smell would float into my nostrils, it was a sweet smell.
            Dad would comb his coal black hair.  He would squirt his favorite oil into the palm of one hand.  He would take his hands and rub them together, spreading the oil all over both hands. I loved to watch as he took both hands and smoothed his hair down just like Elvis Presley.  He would comb and rub until he got it just right.
            He always had a tan. He was always outside working at something.  The sun never seemed to bother him; he could stay out all day working in it.  His skin was naturally dark and the more he stayed out in the sun the darker he got.  I thought he was so handsome.
            Dad never was without his watch. He would put it on the minute he woke up in the morning and he would take it off before he got into bed.  He always called it his huckleberry, and I never knew why.  You could see his tan line around his watch when he took it off.
            Dad was a coal miner for 30 years.  He never complained of hard work. He would say that hard work never hurt anybody.   He was always grouchy through the week.  When weekends would come he was a different person, he would relax and turn into our Dad again.
            Friday night, Mom would put the black shiny coal in the potbelly stove until it became red-hot.  She would put a dishpan full of water on to heat for dad’s bath, and then lay out his towel and washcloth.  A sheet was hung on two nails over the kitchen door for privacy.  Weekend nights were the only nights we were allowed to stay up that late.  Dad would come in with his skin covered in coal dust, the whites of his eyes shining.  He would ask what we were doing up so late, and we would say, “It’s Friday night, Daddy.  No school tomorrow.” 
            Dad would go into the kitchen where Mom was ready to help him with his bath.  She would help him wash his hair, rubbing the shampoo into his scalp, and then pouring the water over his head to rinse it.  Then she would wash his back with a washcloth lathered with soap.  I would lie on the couch pretending to watch TV and listen to them talk as the strong smell of the Lava soap floated into the living room.  After his bath Dad would pop a top on his Miller High Life and light up a Winston.   
            I remember watching Dad shave on Saturday mornings.  He would lie out his razor, his soap, and his shaving brush.  He would run some water in a wash pan and heat it on the stove.  Dad would take the brush and put it into the water to soften it. He would then take it and start to slap the cake of soap with the bristle brush until lather started to form.  It seemed to me that it took only a little effort to make such a large amount of lather.  Finally, he was ready to shave.  I watched as he ever so carefully ran the sharp razor over his face until it was smooth. He would splash water over his face to get rid of the excess soap, then take the towel and pat his face dry.  He would then take the little white bottle of Old Spice and pour just enough to cover the palm of one hand, then he would rub his hands together and pat his face.  The smell lingered in the house for the rest of the day.
            After all of the Saturday chores were finished, and he was in a good mood, I could coax Dad into letting me drive the car.  He would usually have had a couple of beers by that time in the early evening, and he wasn’t too hard to convince.
             The whole family loaded up in our big, black, Ford LTD and headed for the John Wright place.  It was just a big open field and I would just drive around and around in a circle, practice backing up and parking.  Everyone stayed in the car the entire time that I was driving.  Mom complained every breath, especially if Dad let me drive back home.
            Before I was old enough for driving lessons, sometimes on Saturday morning Dad, Mom, my brother, my sisters, and I would walk a couple of miles to my grandparents’ house. Dad would stop us along the way to point out a stand of young birch trees or a patch of ginseng.  I learned to recognize maples, poplars and oaks.  When we stopped so the little kids could rest, Dad would tell a few jokes or a story.
            Dad had a great sense of humor.  His stories were usually funny.  He loved it when people would ask him what happened to his upper arm.  It had a huge scar from a terrible childhood burn.  He would tell people, especially children, that he was blowing up his muscle one day.  He would go through the motions with his thumb to his mouth, blowing with his jaws puffed out and making a full muscle with his arm.  “I blew it up too big, and it busted and left this big scar.”  Kids were amazed over this, convinced by the scar that the story was true.  I know I believed it for years, before Mom told me the real story.
            Not only did Dad tell funny stories, he was always drawing funny cartoon pictures.  He would draw on anything, what ever he was reading or working on, the side of a newspaper, or a puzzle book, what ever was handy.  It would just be a funny head of a character with big ears, but it would always make me laugh.
            Dad continued to make me laugh even after I was a grown woman, with a daughter of my own.  All of those years of mining coal had damaged his lungs. As Dad’s breathing began to worsen, I tried to help him occupy his mind with things he had always seemed to enjoy.  I convinced him to draw me a few pictures.  He said that he really didn’t feel like it, but he would try.  His hands were shaky from the breathing treatments, but he steadied them long enough to draw a respectable picture of a horse.  He reached it to me, proud that he could still please me.  I reached it back to him for his signature.  He said, “There is no use in me signing it.”  “Yes there is.  Who will know who drew it years down the road?”  He signed it.  I put it away with everything else I save.
             A few years after Dad passed away; I found the hand-drawn pencil sketch and decided to share it with my family.  I made copies on nature print paper and framed them for my mother, brother, and sisters for Christmas gifts.  You would have thought that I gave them a Picasso.  Seeing Dad’s signature on it, everyone cried.
            I am glad now that I asked Dad to sign the horse sketch.  I wish I had asked him many other things, before it was too late.  I have so many unanswered questions that only Larry Fuller can answer.