Sometimes giving your child a little confidence is all that is needed........

My Dad owned a small machine shop called B.O.K Mfg. Co. on W. 4th St. in Dayton, Ohio while I was growing up.  Among his employees included his brother and sister and assorted relatives who came and went during the years and several Hungarian immigrants who fled their homeland during the 1956 Hungarian Uprising.

Although Dad had very little education, he learned his trade as a tool and die maker and was able to support not only our family, but as I remember, Dad was always helping out relatives, friends and strangers with some kind of monetary stipend to help them get by. 

Dad standing among some of his Bridgeport mills

I loved going to “the shop” as Mom called it, where she worked as the secretary, bookkeeper and whatever else needed to be done. 

I would wander past the machines and watch intensely as Dad’s few employees would carve out a finished piece from a round bar of stock working very diligently to obtain the precise dimensions.

By age seven, I could operate the drill presses while sitting on a metal stool topped off by a phone book so I could reach the levers. By age eight, I could put a bar of stock into a lathe chuck and slowly turn the metal as the long ribbon of carvings would drop to the catch basin.

By age nine, I was able to operate a Bridgeport mill that was designed to slowly remove metal from different angles as you watched the final product appear.

I would have been happy to follow my Dad into his respected trade, but he wouldn't have it. I was off to college just like my older brothers to apply our minds rather then our physical abilities. I think Dad would have enjoyed me working with him, but he didn't want me losing the fingers that he did,  typical of a machinist, when they were accidentally caught in the cutting tools. He probably thought I couldn't stay focused long enough to avoid an  accident.

So off we went to college....the 3 Kender boys......Dave, after graduating from Miami Univ. and then  to a career as an Air Force officer and Silver Star medal winner during the Vietnam War and then later as a professor at Wright State University where he still teaches today. Ricky went on to Ohio University and later became a very successful businessman in Dayton and now travels back and forth from his homes in  Florida and Dayton as he chooses.

And me, ..well...I headed off to the University of Oklahoma and majored in Journalism  and later leaving that career in the Newspaper trade in search of a few more dollars. I've had several different ventures including owning Blue Sky Pool Service which Pattye and I started 26 years ago.........working for Chuck Norris for 18 years in Dallas and now, now I can finally begin to write again and chronicle my life through my short stories I hope to publish soon.

I have always thrown myself into whatever job or position I have found myself doing over the years. And once again, I owe it to my Dad, who had the confidence in me to sit me up on that stool  and let me create a usable widget for use in this wonderful country.