My Dad's Legacy

This is a picture of my dad, Harry King, when he was in his early 20s, around the early 1930s. He was one of the most musically talented people I've ever known. He loved to sing and could play anything with strings on it. He mostly played guitar, but he also played the piano and the violin. He even had a cello for a while, and he learned to play it pretty well before he traded it off for something "better." I have a picture of him with it, miraculously, shown below.  He was always buying and selling musical instruments, so he would have different instruments all the time. If he were alive in today's world, I have no doubt he would be on eBay all the time.

Some of my earliest memories are of my dad and me singing some silly song he made up. How I wish I had recordings of those times! There wasn't any video, of course, or even cassette tapes in those days. He had reel to reel tape recorders though, as you can see in the picture below from about 1960. I guess he didn't think about the silly songs as anything of consequence, so he didn't record them, but those are the main things that impacted me. You just never know what your kids will remember and treasure about their growing up years.


So, remember that, you young moms and dads.  Make memories with your kids and document it well. Today's fun and games become tomorrow's treasures in their memories of their childhoods.

My dad left me a legacy. No, he didn't have money or anything of any real value according to this world's standards. He loved the Lord, though, and he loved to worship Him with singing and music. That is the legacy he left me. He passed that down to me, and now I am worshiping the Lord in song. It's a passion of mine. Recently, our praise team sang "Just a Closer Walk with Thee" during worship on a Wednesday night. I was flooded with memories of singing that song with my dad. Sometimes we sang at church, sometimes on the radio program he had for a while. I was thinking how he would be blessed to know that I'm still singing and praising the Lord. He instilled a love of God and of music in me, and it's still there! I got choked up and almost couldn't sing that song thinking about him.


What a Godly heritage I have! Here's to my dad, who has been in Heaven for 32 years, worshiping Jesus in person!  Thank you for what you left with me. 

(By the way, your grandkids all sing and play, too, in case you didn't know.) 

Happy Father's Day to all you dads out there!