My dad works in the woods (logger) - his mom died of cancer when he was 12 or 13, and his dad didn't pay much attention to him or his brothers afterwards, so he was nearly forced to drop out of school when he was 16, just to survive. Over the years, he's made a living for himself through hard work and now, more or less, works for himself. He owns his own machines, finally has them in good working order, and has them paid off (no more $4000 monthly payments), so he finally has money to do things for us and himself (for example, he finally bought a couple snowmobiles this year, and we as a family have always been interested in this. That, and he's going downstate with a bunch of his buddies to a NASCAR race) and I believe he deserves it all.

I love how, even in this community of old-fashioned, closet minded hicks, he's still relatively carefree. He'll sit down and watch reality TV, or even dating shows with my mom and sister. I've never heard him say "fag" or drop the N-bomb like many of his peers, and he even seems to be a little uncomfortable when engaged in such conversation, as I have observed. He's a little bit rough around the edges, but I still love him.