His name was Pa Raidy. He was a dairy farmer; born, raised and died in Wisconsin. His body lies on the shores of Lake Butte des Morts where he loved to fish. He went to school to the third grade and then worked on his parents' farm, became a blacksmith, married and then bought a farm of his own.

The farm was a small farm - eighty acres to be exact - about fifty acres tillable; the rest woods, wild hazelnuts, wild raspberries and roughage for the herd of cows which needed milking twice a day. Pheasants graced the fields in the fall of the year.

He was Pa because he was my pa. I write all of this as a prelude to what I really want to write.

My pa was part of the fiber that made America become great. It was not the Roosevelts, the Hoovers, the Rockefellers - the rich and famous. It was the hard working farmers and factory workers, truck drivers who were the life blood flowing through the living entity called America.

Although he probably did not know or care who was the "father of our country", or about the Constitution - which, by the way has never done anyone one hill of beans anyway - he knew what was right and what was wrong. He knew what it was to save enough money to buy a farm, work the soil and raise a family of six on the money he got from selling milk and raising and preserving fruits and vegetables for the winter.

What he learned, the soil taught him. He was a machinist, a veterinarian, a horticulturist, a weather forecaster, a carpenter. He had what all the schooling cannot teach one.

He had common sense, which all animals are born with, man being the only animal who educates it away.

Pa had little money but generously gave what he had. Money never seemed to be a problem with him. Nor was the lack of it. One day as I remember it I needed money for school. When I asked him, he put his big rough hand into his pocket and brought out all he had and said, "Take what you need."

My pa never had smooth hands or clean fingernails.  His hands were always rough, strong and tender. Never once did he need to use them to spank me for I had too much respect for him and he made so few laws there were none to break. It seemed love and caring for one another were enough to carry us from day to day through the storms of life.

When I was little I used to sit on Pa's foot as he crossed his knees and I would go pony riding. I sat on his lap until I got too big for him to hold me. I think I was his favorite but I guess my sisters and brother thought the same. He cut our hair, soled our shoes. On cold winter nights we six would gather around the table and play our favorite card game called "Smear". How proud he would be if we could outsmart him or play just the right card to win the game.