My dad past away Dec. 27,2015. There are many words that can describe my dad and the type of person he was, here I just sorta picked a few and one phrase keeps coming back to me from many people...Cleve was a very special character!
Yes indeed he was, and a very special person to many people!
My
Dad,
My dad was like a bull in a china shop, and
he could not whisper to save his life for anything…you could be standing 25
feet away from him (or possibly in the other side of the house) and when he
whispered you could hear every word he said.
Dad was like an abstract artist, if he knew
what you wanted and had a picture or drawing of it he could make it. But if you
weren’t sure how you wanted it made and there were no pictures or drawings of
what you wanted then dad’s mind went to work. He would play around with the
idea for a bit then start to draw, then mode whatever pieces he had gotten
together to see how they would fit.
If
he thought they were going to work or give him the base of it, he would then
start looking for other things to use and somehow make it all work and look
fantastic!
Dad was the same way on heavy equipment; he
would look at an area whether it was for a pond, lake, road, boat channel,
drainage or cutting around mountains for pipelines.
Dad
was also literally one of the best welders in the world,
now it may sound as though I’m bragging and or boosting about my dad, but I’m
really not…I’m just stating fact! He was known all over the world for
his welding and the way he could handle equipment!
My
dad never boosted or bragged about what he could do, he would just simply state
the fact if he could or if he couldn’t do something. If he could find a better
way to do it he would.
“I
can say with full confidence and proudness that through the years my dad had
people that came to him to learn anything and everything they could or he would
teach them.”
The
most important thing about my dad was he was a caring man and a giving man, a
man that believed in the one and only
Almighty GOD! He would give the shirt off his back, I actually saw him do
this when I was a kid. He cared about people and tried to help in any way he
could.
Dad was a hardworking man; he was always
working with something. He didn’t know what it was to take time off; he grew up
in a time when kids had to help their parents especially if there were several
children in one family. Everyone had to work and start at a young age.
He
was also funny and like to kid around, tell jokes and laugh, but he was very
stern and hard also. He was respectful, had morals, values, common sense…this
is how he was raised and how he raised his kids also.
It was said at his service a couple of weeks
ago that he was a special person and he was a real character, “well, yes he
was…my dad was a real special
character!”
L.A.
Brey Holleman
Jan.
2016
