Dad was always there when I needed him, even when I didn't know it or was too dumb to realize it. He was always there. I could ask him a question about my car, and not only would he answer the question, he would usually put on his grubby clothes and stick his head under the hood to get it fixed. Whenever I needed advice on just about anything, he was willing to listen and answer. Dad showed me how to bait a hook and cast a line into the water. He showed me how to clean fish. Dad was there on my second deer hunting trip when I got my first deer. He showed me how to clean it an get it ready for eating. Dad taught me how to drive and was with me when I passed my driver's license examinations. He taught me to take care of my car and helped me decide on which car to buy when I needed to get a new one. When Dad re-shingled the house, I was on the roof with him being shown how to do a good job. All the little things about holding a house together he taught me. Whenever I needed to tell a joke that I had just heard, or wanted to complain about bad driver's on the road, he was the first person I thought to tell. Since Christmas, I haven't been able to ask my Dad for advice on anything, or have him direct me on the roof of the house on what he would consider to be the proper way of chipping ice off the shingles. I haven't been able to tell him my jokes, or complain about problems at work. But what hit me the hardest was the last two weeks as my sisters, brother-in-law, and I replaced Mom and Dad's split-rail fence around their property, was the fact that Dad wasn't there directing us where to put the rails and posts, where and how deep to make the holes in the ground for the posts. That was Dad's job, part supervisor and part teacher. But he wasn't there. We had done Dad's job for him, not because he was sick and unable to do the job, but because he wasn't there. Every drop of sweat from my brow was a tear for my father who will no longer be here when I need him. Dad taught me three simple points of morality: Don't kill. Don't steal. Don't cheat. Three very simple rules to live by. And yet, on Christmas Eve, 1997, one man took it upon himself and violated those very precepts. Like a coward, he approached from behind my dad and killed him. Like a thief, he stole Dad's body away and hid it. And like a gambler using a marked deck, he cheated us out of having our father in our lives.