My dad turns 74 March 27. He’s been there for me during some tough times, and I couldn’t imagine anyone else as my dad. When they make the movie on my life, he’ll play himself as far as I’m concerned.

Dad was born in rural Nebraska – Loup City, to be exact – the youngest of four children on a family farm surrounded by relatives. I can’t imagine what that feels like. I grew up mostly on my own on a cul-de-sac in Florida.

Galan Max White is the son of Evelyn and Tom White, both deceased, who lived barnstorming American lives. After losing the family farm, Tom moved his family to California briefly, and then Oklahoma, where he found a job as a ranch manager for a wealthy oil man.

Dad grew up working long, hard hours as a kid that would be considered child labor if it weren’t family. He loved animals and dogs. He had an active imagination and liked to go on adventures with his best friend, Mark. These childhood stories were the lore I was raised on hearing.

The family moved to northwest Louisiana right before Dad started high school, and he considers the area around Shreveport his home. That may be true, but his visit was short.

But it was in Louisiana that my dad fell in love with music. Johnny Rivers, Fats Domino, Nat Stuckey, John Fred and His Playboy Band. Dad saw the Beatles on Ed Sullivan and played in bands with names like The Odd Things and Waffle. The rest of the family played music – almost everyone played an instrument – but rock ’n’ roll was all Dad. He wasn’t a hippie, and he wasn’t a square. He was cooler than both. Dad was a musician.

He graduated from high school and followed a girlfriend down to Louisiana State University. She joined a sorority and dumped him. Dad was heartbroken and had already been cruelly scolded by his mother before leaving, who told him: “You aren’t college material.”

The draft broke up dad’s bands and their ambitions of becoming club stars. Dad hopped on a last-second bus to San Antonio and joined the U.S. Air Force. He was shipped up to Hamilton Air Force Base in California, and his time there – the late ’60s – put him amid a hotbed of American culture and history.

Dad always jokes about this time, but it must have been a bummer. When someone – especially your own mother – tells you that you aren’t going to succeed, it sticks with you. I think this is doubly true during a time where not being college material meant being cannon fodder for the front lines of Vietnam. The impact of Vietnam is so clearly seen. The band photos and the Air Force photos are on the same page, front-and-back.

He was an early riser, so he was at the Marin County Civic Center just a few hours before the attacks there made Angela Davis a household name. He didn’t spend much time in Haight-Ashbury because short-haired military men ran into trouble there, but he did manage to see Roy Clark, a master musician, at the Fillmore. He liked Janis Joplin, too. As a mechanic on a boat crew, he motored around the San Francisco Bay amid the occupation of Alcatraz. He helped rescue Japan Airlines Flight 2. He saw a lot for a young guy from the middle of the country.

Maybe too much. He never flew until recently, and I got the sense that even in the Air Force, far from combat in the U.S., he had seen some things that made him sick inside.

He transferred to Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida. This is where he met my mother and started his 27-year life in Florida. He moved to Stuart, on the opposite side of the state.

About a year ago my dad and I went back to the Treasure Coast together. I was born in Stuart there, and my dad’s professional career as a plumber was born there as well.

Dad and I made a spreadsheet of people he knew, and I was surprised at how considerate and thoughtful my dad’s list was. He and I had been at political odds before the trip, but I couldn’t help but notice that he made time to visit a friend who was shut-in and to check in with other folks he knew, politely. To a person, each of the people we visited took the time to describe my dad the way that I knew him – “honest,” “hardworking,” “on the move.” 

He was a good guy and they liked him.

I’m also not sure my dad truly understood how well-liked he was back in Stuart. He was so busy working his way up the ladder – he started as a plumber’s apprentice but took his tests ahead of schedule because of his proficiency. A friend’s dad was a local plumber who helped him get started even in the earliest days. There are no self-made men, but dad tried his best to make the most out of the advantages he was given, especially after leaving the Air Force.

Within a few years Dad had built a thriving plumbing construction and service business – White Plumbing, Inc. – that he would run through the ’80s and ’90s.

This was the world I was born into, and this was my dad as I knew him. It is probably how I will picture him for the rest of my life. I can remember him in the Members Only jacket with the giant camcorder and he sure seemed cool to me. 

Looking back, I’m not sure my dad truly understood how much I loved him. He had grown up with a big family, but also with a lot of tough love. He wanted to be more than a plumber. He said again and again “I don’t want to be an old plumber.”

He wanted to be more than college material. He wanted to do the right thing.

A few years ago, I asked my dad what a lifetime of caring for animals taught him. He answered me a few days later – he said it was responsibility. Animals, he said, don’t care how you feel. They need to be fed. My dad was almost wholly concerned with these responsibilities: He kept us fed and then some. I was a spoiled child, and it was thanks to the hard work of my dad’s hands. And he worried about it. Maybe too much.

I’ve already written about our move to Texas, where Dad bought a ranch to retire from the plumbing business. These were bad times and the family split when my parents divorced. I went with Mom, and I don’t know much about my dad’s life during those years except that he wasn’t doing great and that he missed us.

But during that time my dad did one thing that stuck with me. He took me bowling. He listened. He even apologized. He did his best. He showed up. Responsibility. He remarried – to Patti, who is kind and supportive –  and has lived a happy life in Henderson, working.

The years between here and there were filled with … accidents. A horse fell on my dad. He broke a collarbone. There were others. Dad, that man on the move, never really slowed down. He had no choice but to slow down. Then a few years ago he had a stroke. Now he had to really slow down.

Oh, except for one thing: Dad picked up the guitar again. And he became very good at it, taking regular lessons from my high school guitar instructor. He even started a Christian country band that plays across the South. He’s surpassed my guitar skills.

And then one day I found myself in a bad place. Dad never flinched as he got on a plane to come see me. We spent the week after I got out going over family photos and putting out mulch. We even told each other “I love you.”

Happy Birthday, Dad. I love you. Thanks for showing up.