Father's Day -- guiding along the path of life

Today is my holiday -- Father's Day. I am a father and have a father. I am blessed. I have so many memories of my father, who I look up to as my ultimate hero. He was a big influence in my development from an early age. And now, I'm using the benchmark he provided to raise my own son, Henry IV, who is 14. My father taught me courage and toughness. The same things I am now trying to pass on to my son.

One of the best things he ingrained in me was not to engage in triteness with those who would hurt me. The best revenge, he stressed, was success. And that is how I try to live my life as an adult.

My father has reason to be proud of me. I've made something of myself. I'm educated, confident and caring. These are the same values I instill in my son: Don't go looking for fights, but don't let anyone push you around. I've had to overcome obstacles my entire career as journalist, even having won numerous industry awards, but the drive my father instilled in me has kept me pushing for more and more. The intensity to succeed is ingrained. And along the way it has been fun at times as well.

I've learned from him and through my career that the pen is mightier than the sword - as long as the pen isn't
poisonous. That's where humility kicks in.

My son is a lot like me and a lot like my father. He's very demanding. When he wants something he's not afraid to find a way to get it accomplished. The bond with my son started 5 minutes after his birth when I held his tiny head in my hand.

For generations, guiding hands have helped generations of Henry's. my grandfather's name was Henry.
And though my grandfather died when I was my son's age, my father's guidance came from him.

Sadly, many of my son's friends come from broken homes where a father's contact is either minimal or non-existent.

Some fathers go through divorce and in the process divorce themselves from their own children.

Others never marry the child's mother and that lack of commitment is carried over to the child.

Though I had hoped my family would remain intact -- my world and that of my son were changed forever 13 months ago. There was no way I was going to be one of those absentee fathers.

I bought a home in New Smyrna Beach. He has two homes now -- here with me and the other with his mother in the home we had as family in Port Orange.

It has been a difficult transition for both of us, but life goes on.

It's the main reason why I stayed and started this on-line newspaper. Even though I had great job opportunities in journalism elsewhere, I refused to leave my son behind.

We moved here as a family in 1995, and I worked as an award-winning reporter for The Daytona Beach News-Journal until November 2004. I then worked as a city editor for the Taunton (Mass.) Daily Gazette as an award-winning city editor for nearly a year-and-a-half, but the Saturday night airplane commute home and the Tuesday morning flight back to Providence, R.I., and the 45-minute drive to the newspaper was too much.

So I returned home full time, went to work briefly for Hometown News as an associate editor for the New Smyrna Beach and Port Orange editions, before going to work as the editor of the then-daily New Smyrna Beach Observer. When the Observer was converted to a weekly last July, I was out of a job.

That's also when our family life was changed forever by divorce. I went to work as a reporter for the Palatka Daily News for entry-level pay, commuting 67 miles each way. The gas alone was a killer.

So I poured my heart and my God-given talents into making NSBNEWS.net a reality. And with the help of my good friend, Peter Mallory, it was launched on April 11. Now two months later and approaching 22,000 hits, it has taken on a life of its own.

This also means I can have my son in my life and I can continue to be in his. Now that his is a teen-ager, life can be very, very trying at times, but I pray that things will work out for the best.

As long as I'm alive, I will always try to be there for my son, guiding him along the path of life. That is what being a father is all about.