One last post for the day.

Today was my sons' father's birthday. He ws born on Easter Sunday. If he were still living he would have been 54 years old today. His birthdays may have stopped in 1995, but our love for him lives on, and he remains in our thoughts and words.

Warren Tabor Johnson was a brilliant man. He was self-taught in many areas of tooling, electronics (before it became popular) higher mathematics...he was an inventor of sorts as well. I would have put him up against any college-degreed engineer. Warren had more common sense in his pinky finger than most anyone I ever knew. He loved us, and took his responsibilities as a father/husband seriously. He provided and we wanted for nothing. We were hardly wealthy, but we were healthy enough to buy good things when we bought them. He was uncompromising when it came to quality. Even our dog had the best doghouse known to man at the time...shingled and sturdy enough to withstand a tornado, lol. 

My kids will have their own tributes to their Dad, but one thing that I'll always remember was the way he supported me in anything I wanted to do, (except work when the kids were little -- he wanted me home with them). But, even so, if I expressed an interest in photography, he bought me the best camera available, the accessories, and several instructional books. I mentioned one time that I wished I had learned to play piano as a child, and one day there was an upright piano delivered to the house. He knew I loved music, and he provided me with a Sony Stereo for my 30th birthday, and the first CDs to ever hit the market. When I was collecting the dolls, he bought me the sewing machine I still use to this day, and he encouraged me to take the correspondence course to get my official 'Doll Doctor's License."

I don't think he was wonderful because he "bought me things." I think he was wonderful because he didn't want me to become stagnant in motherhood. He respected me as a living, thinking person...and he forgave a lot of bad cooking as I was developing my culinary prowess ;-)

Warren had the dryest sense of humor, and used some of the funniest expressions I've heard to date. He was stone-cold serious, but hilarious at the same time. There wasn't a lazy bone in his body, and there was nothing he couldn't figure out. I still miss him, and I wish I could tell him I'm sorry for any time I might have given him the impression that I didn't appreciate him. Sometimes I talk to him and ask him what I should do about this, that, or the other. He would have been proud of my magazine. I know it.  

So, I didn't want this day to end without him being remembered. He was one of a kind, there'll never be another one like him, and I at least have the gift of still seeing him so very strongly in both of my sons...their mannerisms, brains, looks, and their loving hearts. Thank you Warren, for two of the greatest gifts one person could ever give another. We love ya.

Warren_Ryan_1983