~and I remember his legacy~

     My father would be 93 if he were still alive today.  Cancer took him from us when he was only 59 years old and the thought of him being an old guy is pretty hard for me to imagine.  In my mind, I can still see his kind and gentle face but I have only a vague remembrance of his voice.  The years that pass by have a way of dimming parts of our memory.  One thing shall remain for sure, even if I live to be 100 years old and forget most everything else. 
     
     I will always love my daddy.

     Daddy was gone a lot when we were kids growing up.  He was a custom harvester by trade and so each year by mid-May he was already on the road with his combines and crew to cut wheat throughout the Great Plains.  His first stops of the season, Davidson and Frederick, Oklahoma are within an hour's drive from us here in Burkburnett.  He would continue on as he headed north back into Kansas, Nebraska, and both of the Dakotas.  His last stop of the season was in Drake, North Dakota and if he was fortunate, he would finish up and return back home to Kansas sometime by mid-September.  Then it was time to change out the headers on the combines and get ready to head south to Dalhart, Texas to cut corn and milo.  Mom was always glad if he could make it home for good by early November.  We missed him when he wasn't there and to have him with us at long last was a really good thing.

     I went with him on the very last harvest of his life back in 1977.  It was an interesting experience for me and one that I wouldn't trade for the world.  It was a long and hot summer but I learned so much about my dad that I would not have known had I stayed home.  I always knew of his integrity and how he would go way beyond what was normally expected of him, just to be sure that his customers were happy with the job he had done.  I learned that by his example in early September that final season.

      When we got to the little town of Drake, North Dakota that year, the rains came and for 17 days we sat and did absolutely nothing.  His customers, all farmers that he had become good friends with over the years, were beginning to worry.  Their crops were still in the field because of the bad weather and many of them were afraid that my dad would have to pull out and head back south without cutting their wheat.  It was costing him a small fortune to sit there and wait.  Food and wages for the crew were huge considerations for him as well as the fact that he would be needed in Texas by early October.   My dad would not leave.  He had made a promise to those guys that he would cut their wheat and eventually about 3 weeks later, he had done just that.  I doubt that he made much money at his Drake stop but he came away with something that was worth far more to him.

     He came away with the respect and the undying gratitude of a handful of hardworking, North Dakota farmers.    

     By 1978 his health had begun to deteriorate.  The cost of being a custom harvester was skyrocketing.  Fuel prices were rising and just couldn't match what farmers were able to pay.  It was obvious that the time had come for him to quit.  25 years of being in the fields was to be no more.  Depression began to set in for him and when that happened, he just seemed to slip away.  For the next 4 years, his health went downhill and in the summer of 1981 he was diagnosed with lung cancer.  His heart had always been in poor condition and the doctors could not operate on him.  Radiation and chemotherapy could only shrink the lemon-sized tumor a tiny bit.  Later another tumor would begin to grow.  There was nothing that the doctors could do for him.  Two weeks before Christmas in 1982, he passed away.  

     I truly believe that I will see my father again in Heaven someday.  Even though I am now older than he was when he died, I will always consider myself to be my daddy's little girl.  I try my best to do things that he would have wanted me to do.  He would be glad that I am alive and well.  I feel much comfort living here in Burkburnett and I believe it's due to the fact that he once cut wheat so very close by.  Sometimes he even hauled the cut grain into the elevator here in town.  When I go by that place, I remember him and how happy that kind of life had made him.

     My father didn't leave a fortune to this world.  There are no buildings on college campuses that are named "The John B. Scott, Jr. Center".  My father left a legacy far more valuable.  John Scott left his children and they are his living legacies and a testament to the kind of man he truly was.

     So "Happy Birthday in Heaven" Daddy!  We'll meet up again one day.  You'll recognize me right away.  I will still be your little girl.

This is my favorite picture of him.  He was only 53 years old here.  Man, that seems so young!
Haven, Kansas  1976

He loved digging in the rich soil of the land and so do I.  Like father, like daughter.