My Dad, by Don T. Hancock

After Dad’s passing (Byron Dwane Hancock, sometimes called Buck) we were asked to remember things about Dad.  My memories of Dad added purpose and character to my life.  I remember when I was little and living on 5th West in Salt Lake City.  Dad was building a boat.  When Dad came home he would go out and work on the boat and the neighbors would come to visit and see the boat.  I later learned what interested everyone was the fact that it was made from steel plate and it floated!  

        Later we moved to Granger and built a house on an underground home built by Max Petersen.   I was so impressed with Dad doing such a variety of things to build the home we lived in.  Don’t remember much about Uncle Roy or Uncle Parley helping, but I’ve learned they did.  Then Dad came home with movies of going to New York for being a good layout man for Structural Steel Inc.  I wanted to know as much as Dad.  I would sit and look at encyclopedias about buildings and machinery and was always impressed to know what Dad did. I even held his steel sizing books that you could order stock size steel from, powerful information in those books.   

Dad bought a wrecked Fiat that had rolled and was going to fix it.  I remember working with Dad to fix the car and I got to pump the port-a-power pump as much as I could.   I loved to watch the steel bend back out to make its original shape.  One Saturday we were working on the Fiat when the oxygen and acetylene hose accidentally got burned and the little garage filled with dark smoke and I thought Dad was gone!  Dad said to “Get out!” and I did. Standing outside there was nothing to see but billowing black clouds in the garage.  I stood there waiting and he wasn’t coming out any too fast.  I was building courage and trying to think where I would even look for him.  Then it happened, Dad came out with that Byron Grin on that showed he wasn’t doing something right.  He had got to the tanks and shut them off for the hoses were burning like a fuse to blow the tanks up.  Well the world of Dad was still together.

        

        Then one day Dad was talking to Grandpa Presley and I over-heard something about a gas station and tall bays.  I asked, “What‘s a bay?”  “I’ll show you some day.”  Well, it happened. He took us down to see a great big white building, huge to me at that time, and when the doors went up, they kept going for ever.  The best part was they hung in the ceiling out of everyone’s way.  Then out front was the great big sign that was red, white and blue and said UTOCO.  I loved pumping the gas and talking to all the different farmers and people that came from out of state.  Dad would always get a frosted Pepsi and talk with the customers with his leg flung onto the counter by the red cash box and in front of the pay phone on the wall behind him.  Ya, he was the Boss.

        He would always teach us things, and new skills and knowledge was always great the first time. When Dad figured we had become skilled enough to work on our own, work became slave labor.  I’m not even going to attempt to remember how many times he said, “Get back in here!”  Then one day, he said I could be paid for what I did that was good.  

As time went along as time does, the business grew and Dad wanted to have his own shop and not pay rent.  So the big field that “lived” by us as a playground grew a building and that became Byron’s Body and Paint.  In building this, I revered my Dad as a contractor, electrician, plumber, roofer, mason and cement man.  He was amazing and, like any little boy, I had to know these things like Dad did.  Now this comes to the part that reflects our Heavenly Father.  Nothing is more gratifying to a father than when his son or daughter excels and has learned what he has.  And like our Savior Jesus Christ becoming one with our Father in Heaven. May we do all we can to become like our Heavenly Father, for this is our purpose here.

Don T. Hancock