So today is my dad’s birthday. He was born the same day as Dottie West and Eleanor Roosevelt, (but just a few years later), is an aficionado of all things Auburn, a lover of clean cars, freshly cut pasture grass, is great at being a grandfather to many, and today I want to wish him a long distance Happy Birthday! I just happened to be in Africa today, so, sorry dad, I’m going to miss your birthday party, but I didn’t forget it (as I’m sure your thrilled to see haha). I looked through all kinds of different shots from way way back like the Throwback Thursday photos from the 1950′s but I couldn’t find anything any more appropriate than this photo above. There’s always something about fall when our family can just hang out on a Saturday and watch Auburn football.
It’s so hard for me to even understand or describe the difference between being here in Uganda and being at home in Auburn, but my dad is a big reason why I am able to do what I’m doing right now and I’m so thankful for that gift. Happy Birthday, can’t wait to see everyone again when I get back home.
Posts Related to This Topic:
Throwback Thursday today is from October 1955 and would be Larry Fillmer’s 7th birthday party. I just love these old black and whites. Apparently back in the mid-50′s you dressed up for a birthday party since one of them is wearing a suit and bow-tie and I love the card table, which was probably literally used as a card table. I’m not too sure about any of the history behind this photo, and the only reason I am saying the date is 1953 is because there are 7 candles on the cake, otherwise, there was no date or anything else on the photo. I’m sure someone in the family will tell me a little more about the image, but I’m almost 100% sure that’s my dad as the birthday boy from the way he is dressed, watch and all… always a snappy dresser. Pretty sure that is his brother Les Fillmer standing to the right of Larry.
So it seems, I’ve now been told, the photo was taken in Birmingham in an area called Oak Hills in Central Park, the puppets were Howdy Doody Puppets, and yes, they apparently played cards on that card table.
Posts Related to This Topic:
My Throwback Thursday post today isn’t really from all that far back, though it looks like it. I happened to have found a missing roll of black and white last week that I shot back on Thanksgiving 2008. It was expired when I shot it, so these two shots above were really far gone, but they still have a pretty neat look to them even with all the grain. The second shot actually came from this photo shoot Thanksgiving Photo Shoot for a Christmas Card and was shot with a Nikon F5 I no longer own. For some reason my luck with Kodak BW400CN isn’t all that great because I keep misplacing various rolls, but I love the look of film, and keep going back to film over and over. I just ordered some medium and large format film to shoot with my grandfather’s Graflex camera (a Speed Graphic) I received a few years ago, can’t wait to see how those turn out. It’s amazing to me that we can still shoot with a camera built in the 1940′s and end up with perfectly acceptable results, even when compared to current DSLR’s… well maybe I’ll wait and see what my first 4×5 looks like first.
Posts Related to This Topic:
My Throwback Thursday post today is from approximately Christmas of 1957. The images just prior to this one in the album had a Christmas tree in the background and all the others have a date of 1957. This particular shot has nothing on the picture itself.
Who wears a tie for Christmas as a 12 year old? That would be my dad, Larry Fillmer, who is coincidentally wearing similar but update attire in his executive photo there too (and is also now on Facebook, yeah!). Yes, always immaculately dressed no matter what the occasion, he must have been patiently waiting to go somewhere, I’m sure someone out there knows. Funny thing is, I swear we still have that chair in the family somewhere, and that table, which I remember well growing up, I think is still in the family too, pretty sure the lampshade is history though.
I love how sharp and detailed some of these photos are from the 1950′s that (I assume) my grandfather, Don Fillmer, took. He was the photographer of the family but the equipment he used back then was nothing compared to the equipment we use today, and many of his black and white shots were sharper than the best digital cameras today. I would loved to have known what equipment he would be using today and how he would have made the transition into digital everything.
Posts Related to This Topic:
Thanksgiving weekend is just about to wind down and move into the 25 day rush to Christmas. It was a nice weekend with some nice rain showers and lots of food. I just finished watching one of the more lousy versions of the Iron bowl (if you are an Auburn fan) over the last few years and it ended in an Alabama romp. Alabama played well and will have a full plate next week coming up against Florida in the SEC Championship game.
Early on Thursday I did a quick photo shoot for Dale and Larry Fillmer (that would be mom and dad) for their Christmas card. Here are a few from the shoot that were my favorites (don’t think any of these made it on the card, but these were the ones I liked). Looking forward to the new series that starts tomorrow at cumc called Simple Christmas. Something we can all take to heart, focusing on what is important at Christmas and why we celebrate the holiday in the first place, can’t wait. If you are in the Auburn area, come by at 9am or 11am and see what it’s all about.
I am really looking forward to this Christmas season and all the possibilities of the upcoming new year. I always look forward to the changing of the new year. It always seems to bring change and a new time of growth for my family, as it is with many, and I can’t wait to see what the Lord has in store for us in 2009. Celebrating a Simple Christmas is going to be a great place for my family to transition into the new year.
Posts Related to This Topic:
It’s Thanksgiving week and that means that Auburn University classes are over for the holiday break. For the last few years this week has been the time which my dad, Larry Fillmer, takes a few days off from work and gets on the John Deere tractor and cuts the pasture grass for the winter. There is around 20-30 acres of actual grass to cut, so it usually takes most of the week. Today was a bit cloudy and cold, but, it’s November. I think there are a few people in his office that read my blog so I thought I would let you know what Larry Fillmer looks like when he is not in a suit and tie on campus.
I would love to hear from those who know Larry but don’t normally comment on my blog. Can I have a caption for the photo above??
Posts Related to This Topic:
Ok, so call me strange I guess. There are a few holidays that come up each year that I really don’t like, and Father’s Day is one of them. Don’t get me wrong, I love my father dearly (see photo left), and I am sure I will make sure he knows that on Sunday.
In general, when you work for yourself, holidays just become a pain in the neck anyway. No one works, you can’t ship orders out, sales go down, and the entire world is “out” running around when they normally are not. But, fathers day is the topic. I will say that there is one reason why I like fathers day, to be able to honor my own earthly father, who to me is one of the greatest and most meaningful people in my life, and to remember that we have a father in Heaven that is better than any earthly father we could have in any form.
But there are more reasons I don’t like this particular holiday, what about you? Not a father yet? Well, here is what’s in store for you.
1. It is a Made Up Day
You can say this about most holidays in general, they are man-made, made up days. Father’s Day was a celebration inaugurated in the early twentieth century to complement Mother’s Day, and first celebrated in the U.S. on July 5th 1908
2. Churches Celebrate This Day in Services
For some reason, even though it has long since lost its Christian heritage it is still put forth as a day we celebrate in the worship service itself. I would rather see its spiritual meaning talked about than how important fathers are (yes, I know they are) to all of us.
3. Churches Don’t Seem to Know its Origin in Faith
No church I have been to in the last 35 years (yes I have been going to church that long) has ever explained to me the spiritual meaning on how Father’s Day was started. In Germany is was called Männertag and was always celebrated on Ascension Day (the Thursday forty days after Easter), and it was a day for men to go do something together, like hiking or some other manly activity.
In the Roman Catholic tradition, Father’s Day is celebrated on Saint Joseph’s Day, commonly called Feast of Saint Joseph, March 1, but it is pretty much a secular day or secular celebration. Here in the U.S., the first celebrated Father’s Day was in a church. The Williams Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church South, now known as Central United Methodist Church. It was suggested to the pastor (some believe) because of a deadly mine explosion (called the Monongah Mining disaster) that had just happened killing 361 men. Another reason is Mother’s Day was first celebrated two month prior.
4. It’s Another Day of Required Gift Buying
Notice I said gift buying and not gift giving. I love gift giving, but I don’t like to be told by the calendar when it should be done. My wife and I have always thought this way. If you want to give someone a gift, give it to them, don’t hold back for some government made holiday. I don’t like the feeling of required giving that comes with holidays.
5. It Reminds Me How Old I Am
Remember back when Father’s Day would roll around and your mother would have prepared something for you to give your father or you would do something in church for your father. All designed to make sure you didn’t forget it (as a kid how could you remember it), but some day, you were required to remember yourself. Now my son is old enough to remember without being told.
6. It Reminds Me What a Lousy Father I Was
I have a feeling that some people don’t like Father’s Day because they had lousy fathers. I for one did not. My father took me to baseball games, football games, and all the normal fatherly stuff.
But that didn’t make me a good father (I say past tense because now that my son is out of the house I think that has made me a better father, haha). Father’s Day for me personally just reminds me of my shortcomings when my son was at home. My grandson William (see photo above of me and William) however is the cutest little guy ever (I am sure he doesn’t want to hear that) and I was thrilled to get to spend some time with him. He has a great dad. Don’t know where he gets it from but Bryan (my son) is such a fantastic dad to William.
7. It Reminds Me of the Fathers Who Are No Longer Here
Mother’s Day this year was different for my wife. She had just lost her mother to cancer less than a month earlier. This has to be the same thing with son’s who have lost their father over the last year. I know one in particular, Josh (see WILLIAM WALKER AGERTON), our Connections Pastor at the church.
I know he will be remembering his father this Sunday (although he is in Uganda right now) as my wife and I remembered Georgia on Mother’s Day. Others I know won’t get to see their fathers like my brother over at Worship Journey who’s father is a missionary in Africa.
8. You Are Reminded to Spend Time With Dad
Not that celebrating fathers is not important, but it usually has some time requirement attached to it. You can’t do this or that because it is Father’s Day. I spent time with my dad almost every day. I am lucky, yes. We usually walk about 2-3 miles together at the end of each day when he is in town and I am home. That usually equates to 3-4 days a week, but we often work together on the weekends or attend some sporting event together.
I don’t need to be reminded to spend time with my dad. I do it because I want to, not because the calendar tells me to.
9. The Restaurants Are Always Full
You can never get a table at a restaurant without waiting on Father’s Day. Being that it is on a Sunday (thank goodness for that), everyone finds it necessary to take fathers out for lunch after church. Don’t these people take their fathers out to eat any other time during the year? Same as with mothers day, if you want to eat after church (most do) you have to wait more than usual.
10. It is One More Day to Commercialize
And I saved the big one for last. Yes, it is yet one more day we can listen to a barrage of advertisements telling us buy buy tools and gift cards for our fathers. This starts just about when Mother’s Day ends. Walmart changes everything over the Sunday of Mother’s Day and that’s it, we’re toast.
For the next two months we are overwhelmed with advertisements from every angle, radio, tv, Internet, church, work, school, you name it. Somehow NASCAR and Father’s Day seem to go hand in hand now to. They actually take off on Mother’s Day and don’t have a race. How in the world could anyone who is actually breathing forget what day is Father’s Day. I love the Peanuts Christmas special. After the tirade that Charlie Brown and Linus goes on about how commercialized Christmas has become and then Linus reads Matthew.
We seem to be a society of one that moves from one holiday to the other commercially. There is no down time, we are constantly being told what holiday is next on the buying list. Do me a favor, don’t buy me anything for Father’s Day, oh, and by the way, I love you dad.
