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Your father died at a pretty early age and I can tell that you still miss him, but cherish your time with him. He was an intelligent man and at least he told you the facts; just enough for someone of tender years, I assume.

Having grown up in a family where politics and news was discussed daily, where I was fascinated by what the adults said so managed to absorb a lot...just by listening when adult friends and family visited and the talk really "got into the weeds", so to speak, and lucky enough to have gone to school where and when real FACTS were taught, by the time JFK was running for president, I was aware enough to understand what a TERRIBLE man he was. And though still in high school, I certainly did NOT know all THAT much about just HOW terrible a person he was, but did learn that later.

I'm writing a journal of historical FACTS about the times I've lived through, for my grandchild; if you have any such, you should write one too...so that the truth reaches them when you no longer can.

That's a great idea. My kids tell me that I should “write a book”. Mostly about my various adventures and how to fix things. But a book with the “facts” (as I see them) would be good too (or included).

My wife and I talked about everything with our kids. Perhaps too much, but I don't think so. I read Huckleberry Finn to my son before he could read. (Including explaining the term nigger, and how we don't use that term anymore). He agreed that I should substitute it with “slave” or black man, or whatever. We ended up reading it twice. In grade school I recall he said something like “How come they want to ban the book Tom Sawyer just because it has an old-fashioned word in it? The book is about helping free a slave!”

We read the Diary of Anne Frank to all of the kids when they were little. My daughter spoke about it in about 4th grade, and none of the kids believed her about the Holocaust. (It was many years later when they taught about it in school.)

I would tell them how different my dad was. Almost every day he would come into the TV room to change his shoes and socks, and dry them out by the furnace vent. He would watch Hogan's Heroes with me for a few minutes, then leave saying “Oh those crazy guys!” Never bothered to tell me how terrible the Nazis really were! (He was on a ship in the Pacific during the war, cousins in Germany and some that were killed).

My kids were raised in a very liberal part of the country (Seattle). I think it may have served them well to come back from school with the stupid ideas and then we could talk about them at the dinner table and set them right.

All three are very conservative as young adults (with a few misplaced ideas here and there!)