THE EDITOR: "Happy Father's Day," my children greeted me as I sat to join them and my wife for breakfast.
Just then, I immediately remembered my father of whom I am very proud.
He worked as a field policeman at Trinidad Petroleum Development Company Ltd (TPD) in Santa Flora/Palo Seco. I remember him leaving home at 6 pm for his 11 pm-7 am shift. I admired him as he marched down the road, returning in the morning with a similar gait. He didn't just walk when wearing his uniform.
By this simple act, without using words, my father taught me to take pride in my work.
When it was my time to work, it was no problem for me to leave home at 4.30am-5 am to get to work. I got to Port of Spain between 6 am-6.15 am, which allowed me to go to Holy Mass at the Cathedral, and then take a casual walk to my workplace.
Workers who lived within walking distance from work, arrived at 9 am and immediately went to the lunchroom to have breakfast before beginning their work for the day. And on many occasions, they disappeared after lunch.
All this leads me now to my looking at the Beyond The Tape show. On it, I would see young men, many of them fathers, with their faces partially covered, going to "put down a wuk" with a gun in their hand, in a grocery, a bank, a businessplace, a home, or even a church.
We even see young girls, putting on displays of hooliganism in schools.
Communities often come together, demanding the government post more police officers in their communities and schools, to protect them from their own sons, fathers and daughters; and should a policeman, in his own self-defence, kill one of their sons or fathers, they protest and shout "police brutality."
The Almighty told us "...by the sweat of thy brow, thou shalt eat bread." He also gave us the Ten Commandments to live by. Our founding fathers told us to live by the watchwords: Discipline, Production, Tolerance. But we do not obey.
For us to have a Happy Father's Day, fathers must take their responsibilities seriously and become fathers to their families, their communities and our nation. Happy Father's Day 2024, in advance.
C. F. Noel.
Siparia
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