To You … With Love,

The Shepherd

Father's Day always sends me back to the Missouri hills where first I remember the sound of my grandfather's voice.

Coming from parents who had been divorced, I seldom saw my own father, but it was the rough and gnarled hands of my Pa that clutched my heart. He was the tree planted by the waters that yielded its fruit in season, and whose roots went down deep in his families' tree of life. I always saw a part of his pride and dignity in my Aunt Eva's spirit. I still see a glimpse of him, now and then in my brother Bill.

We are the Yale's of Wales, and we have never forgotten the wonderful pride that brings when we say it. Direct heirs to David Yale, brother of Eli who started Yale University, we found our life education in the house of a grand shepherd share cropping the fields and share cropping three grandchildren, left over from somebody else's life. He was called William Henry. No fancy goings on around this man. A humble worker of the land, whose best years of life was given over to laying out love, in straight furrows for our future to grow on. We scarcely knew as we ran through the meadows of our childhood, that we were considered pricey pearls, hidden deep in the great soul of a grandpa.

Thus, on Father's Day, I go rushing off to the southwest corner of Missouri, where I see one good man beautiful enough to be cherished forever.

Happy Fathers Day, wherever your heart takes you. God bless.