Among the many things I acquired from my dad from work ethic to loyalty to the importance of family, one of my favorites is the “gift to gab!” My Dad will meet “friends” everywhere he goes…whether he’s at a ball game with complete strangers, at the grocery store picking up milk in his home town or in a mall waiting for my mom while she shops.   He makes friends.
He used to get frustrated when I was “on the phone again” after just getting home from seeing my friends.  Of course, this was back in a time when a household had one “landline” with a few phones with very long cords to accommodate movement while talking on the phone.  I’m sure I probably wrapped him up in that long phone cord a few times in those conversations.
Fast forward 25 years…and all that talking was the perfect apprenticeship for being a Social Marketing Community Manager.  My dad said it best, “If that wall would talk back to her, she would carry on a conversation!”  Well, Dad, the wall doesn’t talk to me, but MANY people, complete strangers, do chat with me often on this little silver box called a computer.  And, I think of them as my friends.
So, thank you, Dad, for sharing your gift to gab with me.
“He didn’t tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it.”
-Clarence Budington Kelland
Written by Lisa Moore, Director of Community Management.
(Pictured above is my Dad, Bob Wilcox, my sons, Mac and Sully, and my Grandma, Anita Wilcox.  It was taken at our 2009 Wilcox Family reunion…4 generations.)