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Ronald Voveris of Pittston with his father, the late Bronis Voveris.

Amanda King as a little girl with her dad, Matthew King.

Lifelong fisherman Bill Biebel of Wilkes-Barre gives some tips to his grandson, William Stanley.

Bill Biebel of Wilkes-Barre shares some of his gardening knowledge with his granddaughter, Mia Rose Stanley.

The late Jake Guydish during World War II, before he returned to his West Hazleton home town to get married and raise nine children.

The late Jake Guydish of West Hazleton inspired his son, Times Leader staff writer Mark Guydish, with his example of courage and commitment.

Henry Haase, with his daughters Kristy (left) and Sarah (right), standing in front of the Denali National Park and Preserve sign,

Times Leader executive editor George Spohr and his father share a moment in the great outdoors.

A young Jeric Foulds, now digital and social media editor for the Times Leader, with his father, a ‘real-life MacGyver.’

Dads rescue their kids from skunks, forgive them when they wreck the car and grow gigantic carrots in the garden. They tell them the hard truth that they’ll never be a star baseball player, teach them how to laugh at themselves, introduce them to the great outdoors and, most of all, show them how to live.

In honor of Father’s Day, the Times Leader staff solicited “dad memories” from readers and added some of our own.

Happy Father’s Day, everyone.

***

My dear Dad had his hands full raising seven children, with Mom’s help. He was a breadwinner, extremely religious, responsible, not a smoker or drinker, and believed wholeheartedly in music. Each of us kids were well-versed in piano and some in organ. As a diversion, several of us went on fishing trips to watch Dad fly fish. We still have that urge to catch a trout or two.

One day, he went a quarter of a mile away, leaving my sister Joan and me to fish Newfoundland Creek. We caught six trout but ran out of bait so we looked for worms under logs and rocks. We found many copper-colored, lively ones, and used them a lot.

When my Dad came back, we showed him our catches and the worms that they hit on. He gasped at the so-called worms. They were baby copperhead snakes. Oh, so poisonous!

We were more careful after that episode.

My next adventure was while fishing Lackawaxen River at night. We caught our share of trout and decided to go back to the car. My flashlight burned out, so I asked my Dad for help. He said, “Walk in front of me and I will guide you.” After a short hike we came to a small hill and he said softly, “Shut up. Don’t say a word. Be quiet. Step backward.”

After a few feet I asked softly, “What’s up?”

He said, “Look ahead.”

There in the ray of a flashlight was a skunk with its tail up, aiming directly at me.

I learned a lot from my Dad. He was and will forever be, the greatest father a man could ever ask for.

— Ronald Voveris, Pittston

***

As I galloped through the different phases of my life, I often ponder the role of a “Dad” since I’ve been one for more than three decades and have had a Dad for six.

I have come to realize the goal of a father should be to help the child become a competent adult.

If one can work that magic by being a best friend, great! But too many “ATTABOYS” is not a key ingredient to competent adulthood.

When I told my father at age 11 that I wanted to play for the Philadelphia Phillies like my hero Richie Ashburn, he curtly reminded me that I was struggling in Little League and that my star teammates likely wouldn’t play beyond high school. The honest appraisal stung a bit at first, but he was right. My future was behind a typewriter — not home plate.

I learned from my father that encouragement is needed, discipline required and guidance always necessary.

When measured doses of each are tactfully applied, the result — more often than not — will be a son or daughter who can navigate the waves of life that can sink the boat.

— Dan Burnett, city editor

***

I blame my dad for never being quite sure what I want for Christmas.

My family moved around a lot, and we lived in all sorts of places. We lived in Brooklyn and Queens. And then we lived in places like Norwood, New York, which makes Ashley Borough look like a teeming metropolis.

As such, I always got to experience the best of both worlds — and all aspects of my dad.

There’s “Impatient New York City Dad,” who I vividly remember yelling “Go back to Jersey!” or “Gas pedal’s on the right!” when we’d get stuck in traffic on the Belt Parkway. And there’s “Laid-Back Dad” who taught me how to canoe, fish and swim.

I can lump my friends into two broad categories — my city friends, who do city things and are used to the city life, and my non-city friends, who grew up used to small-town life and small-town charms. As for me? I thoroughly love both. I’d be just as happy living in a big city as I am living in Harveys Lake.

That’s my dad’s fault.

My dad taught me to live life to the fullest no matter what your setting. If you’re in Manhattan, cram in as many shows, restaurants and attractions as you possibly can. If you’re in the Adirondacks, spend every last bit of sunlight hiking and swimming before building a campfire.

Visitors mock me when they come to my house or my office. The walls are mostly empty and I don’t have a lot of knick-knacks. Maybe it’s because I moved around so much as a kid and again in my adult life, but I’ve always valued experiences with family and friends over things. I’d rather do something than own something.

In that respect, I find myself turning into my dad. In addition to sharing a name, we now share the same blank stare when people ask us what we want for Christmas.

— George Spohr, executive editor

***

My dad, sister and I took a father/daughter trip to Alaska. Part of our journey included a few nights in the Denali back woods.

Sans cell service and electronics of any sorts, we were encouraged to take part in outdoor activities. We went on a hike, took a tour of ​Fannie Quigley’s homestead and enjoyed watching wildlife in their natural habitat.

My sister wanted to pan for gold. She was convinced we’d strike it rich. My dad helped feed the could-be-rags-to-riches tale and I found myself putting on river boots, grabbing a pan and joining my sister hunting for specks of gold in the frigid, rapidly running stream.

My dad stood safely on a bridge a few yards away recording our adventure.

Our search along the banks proved unfruitful so I thought I’d go a little further in.

I anxiously plunged my pan into the water cleaning it from all sediment and charged into deeper waters.

“Slow down,” I heard from the bridge.

“SLOW DOWN! You’re going to fall,” I heard a little more clearly.

“Sarah, you’re going to — “

And in I went. The freezing cold Alaskan stream took me down. Water rushed into my boots and when I tried to make it to shallower grounds down I went again.

My sister stood there silent and shocked.

Dad on the other hand, was laughing it up safely on the bridge.

Soaked and cold, I went back to our room and tried to warm up.

I met Dad and my sister at dinner and upon sitting down was greeted by strangers saying, “I heard you had a nice swim.”

While I was panning my memory for the perfect story to share, I realized that I can look back to any moment of my life and pull out multiple nuggets of golden memories of my dad.

— Sarah Haase, arts and entertainment editor

***

If anyone has an excuse to kill me, it’s my father.

Instead, he’s always shown me compassion and understanding — even when he probably wanted to strangle me.

An example that comes to mind often is when I wrecked his car in high school. I was probably 16 or 17 years old when this happened. A fairly new driver, I would often bump into things from time to time or go a little faster than I should have been going.

One weekend afternoon, while driving my Jeep to work at the mall, I was in a four-car pile-up. It wasn’t my fault, either. Some clueless female driver in a mini-van stopped quickly to turn at a spot that she later noticed was an exit. Because nobody saw it coming, the next few cars behind her — including mine — hit each other.

I pulled into the parking lot to answer questions for the cops, along with the other drivers. As I’m in the parking lot speaking with an officer, I noticed my father driving along the road.

Instead of getting upset that I was in an accident, he told me that it wasn’t by fault and took me for Rita’s Italian Ice to calm down.

“Cars can get fixed,” he told me. “You’re alright. That’s all that matters.”

A decade later, while I was borrowing his car because mine was getting some work done, I was in an accident that totaled his car.

This time it was my fault.

I called him to pick me up from the scene of the accident.

He had every right to scream, yell, shout and be angry.

Instead, he just said, “You’re alright. That’s all that matters.”

I’m grateful to have a father who is understanding, compassionate and forgiving.

Because of him, I tend to be understanding, compassionate and forgiving.

That’s the type of father I hope to be one day, because that’s the type of father I have.

— Justin Adam Brown, features writer

***

The brown bag lunches I carried to high school often contained, of all things, some enormous carrot slices.

When my classmates marveled at the diameter — easily four to six times wider than an average carrot — I’d explain, “My dad said this one probably ‘hit a fish’.”

That was a reference to how he’d go to the Susquehanna River with his bow, shoot a large fish with an arrow attached to a line, pull it in and bury it in the garden. An especially large carrot seemed to indicate the fish had fertilized the garden well.

Thinking about those long-ago lunches makes me realize how many interests my dad has had — not only archery, fishing and gardening but making homemade pickles, picking dandelions for homemade wine, shooting photos, paddling a canoe, taking the family on long hikes in the woods, and of course, freehand sketching.

I first realized “Daddy’s an artist” at age 4, when I saw the cute little cartoon mouse he’d created at the request of his co-workers. The mouse, clinging to a cocktail glass and appearing to be “half in the bag,” as Dad would say, was part of the invitation to a long-ago Foster-Wheeler Energy Corp. Christmas party.

Over the years my dad, Bill Biebel, has delighted friends and relatives with cartoon characters, birthday cards and realistic pictures of wildlife, all carefully drawn by hand. His most recent effort, designed to share his love of nature with his grandchildren, is a 32-page children’s book he wrote and illustrated about a year in the life of a mallard duck family.

So, yes, Daddy’s an artist who draws remarkable pictures. But in my eyes, the way he’s developed and shared so many interests shows his talent is really the art of building a life.

— Mary Therese Biebel, features writer

***

The purple heart in his bedroom dresser drawer, the scar on his bicep, the left hand only partially able to open, the stories of the German air raid. Jake taught courage and commitment to just cause.

The spare garage crowded with cardboard boxes and cellar corner swamped with buckets of sorted metals, the demand for help repairing cars, furnaces and anything broken, the admonishment when idly holding a refrigerator door open or leaving a room with the light still on. Jake taught frugality, recycling, value and common sense.

The fearsome shout from downstairs warning against “one more peep” to the noisiest of nine kids past bedtime, followed by the humane punishment of simply standing facing a wall in silence (rather than the expected belt lash) after that peep. Jake taught discipline and restraint.

The set of rock’em sock’em robots to assuage chicken pox blues. The revocation of bike privileges after being caught careening recklessly into an intersection on a dare. The gas Bunsen burner set up so I could play chemist. The car ride in the wee hours of the morning to a place with open sky and no artificial light just for a chance to glance at a comet never spotted. The wizardry he exercised in helping me replace a car engine flywheel that, until that moment, I didn’t know existed …

Jake taught family. Jake taught devotion. Jake taught unspoken, unwavering love.

In his last days of rapid deterioration, Jacob Guydish II sat in a room alone with me and seemed to grumble. “You work your ass off your whole life and you have nothing to give your kids.”

I sat so dumbstruck the words wouldn’t come out.

Dad, you gave us everything.

— Mark Guydish, staff writer

***

My Father, Matthew King, is one of the most incredible humans I’ve ever met, and I am proud to call him Dad.

For the 27 years I’ve existed on this planet, he has been there to support me in any and every endeavor I chose to pursue. Whether he liked the idea or not.

He’s hilarious, handsome, and has an amazing heart. He is my hero and a person I aspire to be like.

On this Father’s Day, I hope this little bit of information can be shared with the world! I love you Dad!

— Amanda King of Nanticoke

***

My father, George, introduced me to the outdoors at a young age and it’s something that I appreciate every day. We spent countless hours in the woods and on the water as he taught me how to hunt for deer and turkeys and he patiently stood by my side along trout streams teaching me how to cast.

Those experiences have yielded a ton of memories, but the ones that stand out the most are the times when I shot my first deer and caught my first trout with my father by my side. For as happy as I was with the accomplishment, seeing the pride on my father’s face created a memory that will never be forgotten.

— Tom Venesky, outdoors writer

***

Ask any child who their hero is, it’s not unlikely to hear a response of “Dad.”

As an adult, that claim still holds true for me.

My dad is a real-life MacGyver, and I couldn’t be more thankful.

Once, during a history project, he helped my friends and I craft an Egyptian pyramid that was so impressive it didn’t even fit through the classroom door.

When I was 15, he bought a wrecked Pontiac Sunfire GT and restored it to like-new so I’d have a sweet first car, and turned around and did it all again a year later with a Chevy Cavalier for my brother.

He brews the best homemade cherry wine. He’s king of the grill, and master breakfast chef.

He got me hooked on classic rock — although I don’t know if he’d call it “classic” — all those years driving around and asking me to point out the artist of the song on the radio. I’ve had the fortune of seeing some of the best concerts with him: Def Leppard, Van Halen, Jefferson Starship, Kiss.

I could go on, but no words could really do justice to how great my dad is. The man is smart and kind, and he can do it all.

— Jeric Foulds, digital and social media editor