In Honor of My Father
Greg and his father at their 2022 family reunion in Dallas
Yesterday, CBS Sunday Morning ended by playing Luther Vandross’ 2003 song “Dance with My Father” in honor of Father’s Day. I’m fortunate that my dad, born in 1942, is still going strong, physically and mentally. He and his father, Horace Thomas Sr., were the first examples of male leadership in my life. In his honor, I share an excerpt from a family-related post, “Elder Leadership and Family Wisdom,” from a few years ago.
I am who I am because of my father, Horace Thomas Jr., and my mother, Ida Rose Thomas. They were quite young when they conceived me; they moved to Brooklyn from Georgia to strive for a better life for themselves and me. Although they separated and divorced early in my life, my father has been in my corner, rooting for me and advising me, especially from my teenage years onward. He’d tell me that if you learned sales, you’ll never starve. It’s a fundamental business skill that he learned by selling men’s clothes at Saks Fifth Avenue, doing door-to-door sales, and by launching several products, one of which—a female swimsuit line with an open heart-shape on the bikini backside—was stolen by one of the big clothing chains.
Planting the seeds for my later love for the blues idiom, my dad would tell me: “If you ain’t got nothin’, you ain’t got nothing to lose,” as a foundation for why working-class folks should become entrepreneurs. He’d emphasize the importance and value of owning your own home and your own business. When discussing entrepreneurship, the phrase unlimited possibility would roll off his tongue right into my imagination.
In the mid-70s, he moved back home to Waycross, Georgia, from New York City to become a general contractor, but decided to begin as a painting contractor instead. While in NY, painting apartments and homes was one way he made ends meet. To make his mark and establish his brand at home, he called his business MR. PAINTER. From the age of five or so, I’d spend most summers down South, with aunts and cousins in Jacksonville, Florida, and with my paternal grandparents in Waycross, and with Grandma Honey, Martha Roberts, in Ludowici, GA. I was accustomed to it being summer, a time for play and relaxation, so I bristled at the prospect of doing painting work with my dad in the red clay, pecan-tree heat of Georgia summers. But in retrospect, observing my father’s work ethic and unwavering commitment to quality was seminal in my development. He takes pride in his work and doesn’t cut corners. I came to admire the way he’d hold the brush and carefully paint so as not to leave paint marks on the ceiling or crown molding of a home. He took care to do each job right, so that repeat business, word of mouth, and referrals became the mainstay of his enterprise.
My father also built and ran a golf driving range in Waycross, designed and manufactured a multi-use product called the painter’s holster, and set an example of civic and cultural leadership by spearheading an effort to have a segment of major highway in Waycross named after one of the most renowned sons of the town, Ossie Davis, who attended primary through secondary school there from the mid-1920s through the Depression years.
The Tale of the Golf Driving Range
My dad has been a golf enthusiast for as long as I can remember. He followed Tiger Woods' development from the time Tiger was five years old, and Lee Elder and Charlie Sifford were among his golf heroes. Along with the customary pars, birdies, eagles, and holes-in-one, phrases such as "from tee to green" and "a player leaking oil" peppered our chats. As much as I loved the physical, aesthetic and mental side of basketball, my dad was as passionate about the mix of power and control to strike with accuracy from the tee, the roughs and sand traps of life as you approach the green, and the focus, finesse, and delicacy of touch required to get the golf ball into the hole.
Dad saw a plot of land owned by Sam Scott, who at the time was one of the largest mobile home builders in the state of Georgia. Scott had hired my dad, who usually focused on residential and commercial properties, to assemble a crew to manage painting for Scott Homes' mobile properties. My dad took on the challenge and also hatched a plan to get that plot of virgin land transformed into a golf driving range.
Dad took a rectangular electronic football set and transformed it into a mini-golf driving range model, complete with artificial turf, flags in the holes, and miniature golfers. He took this model to Sam Scott's mansion. Scott met him on the porch; Dad placed the model down in front of him.
Scott looked at the model, then looked at Dad. Then he stared at the model for a long time. When he looked at my father again, he said, with a heavy Southern drawl:
"Horace, you've put A LOT of thought into this, haven't you?" Yes, he had. And yes, he did: my dad got the permission to develop the driving range, which demonstrated to me that indeed you can take a dream and actualize it, from tee to green.