A day late and a dollar short: That's the way I always felt around my father, who was the workingest man I ever knew. Here I am again, a day late, explaining why he would have deserved Father's Day off.

He certainly earned it, having produced seven children and I-don't-know-how-many grandchildren. In his 78 years, though, he didn't get days off: He farmed.

Anyone considering farming as a hobby, pastime or part-time pursuit, consider again. It's a full-time job. The term "24/7" is a product of the farm, where sows don't have litters from 9 to 5, calves don't get sick in broad daylight and the harvest can't wait two weeks so you can take the family to the beach.

Fifteen years after his death, I see my father was an all-American hero. Working under the sun gave him the bronze skin of a native and crow's feet from his permanent squint. His combed-back hair and features reminded me of Roy Rogers, another of my childhood heroes.

Though not an imposing man, Daddy was strong from long days involving horses, mules, tractors, sawmills, welding, cattle, hogs, chickens, barbed-wire fences, baling, combining, fertilizing, planting and harvesting. His was a world of Duroc and Poland China, Holstein and black Angus, Farmall and International Harvester.

This man of the great outdoors wasn't much for being indoors. The barn, the chicken house, the grain store were confining enough; anything beyond that made him fidgety and short of breath. An earlier American hero, Daniel Boone, could pull up stakes and head west whenever people crowded him; my father had to stay put, because he had a family to support and crops in the field.

Daddy shied away from large gatherings, including, to my mother's constant dismay, church services. Only the funeral of a close relative or friend could force a tie around his neck.

He never learned to read and write more than his signature, and it amazed me that he could navigate his way in strange cities when picking up a bull or dropping off a load of grain.

My father grew up in an even bigger family, in the Great Depression, with fewer creature comforts than I had. His life was hard, even before he met me. He knew his obligations and responsibilities as a husband and father.

His was not the touchy-feely generation, and we never tossed a baseball or had father-and-son chats. He did teach me to ride a horse, though, and to hunt for game, to whittle with a pocketknife and to enjoy the flying jenny he built in our yard.

He amazed me, but he also scared me when all the evidence -- or my little sister -- pointed to me as the culprit in some misdeed. Corporal punishment was a given, not a possibility.

Other times, he made me smile as he broke into a verse of Corrina, Corrina or danced a jig.

From my father, I inherited thin hair, bony feet and, especially, impatience (if at first I don't succeed in repairing some device, yelling, throwing and kicking are perfectly acceptable options).

Too, he passed along the hard-work gene, though mine is more recessive than dominant.

I didn't do a thing on Father's Day, then, just to honor my hero.

Reach Glynn Moore at (706) 823-3419 or glynn.moore@augustachronicle.com.