"I am still waiting for my father to talk to me about sex and success, money and marriage, religion and raising kids. Since he died in 1991, I guess I don't have much chance of ever benefiting from all the lessons he learned in life. It's not that he was a bad dad; he was just a quiet one."
The opening lines of Wisdom of Our Fathers describes a regret that grew into this blessing of a book. Joe Kita's sense that he had missed a chance to learn from his father led him to a journey through the hearts of other men with some mileage on them. He talked to bartenders and doctors and salesmen, professors and farmers and teachers, lawyers and pastors, a 70-year-old who held the senior record for the 100-meter run, even a 93-year-old who had gone to Antarctica with Admiral Byrd. His questions were basic: What's the key to happiness? How do you find God? When should you marry? What's the one thing in life you shouldn't miss? What matters? Their answers were straight from the heart.
Wisdom of Our Fathers makes a joyful, manly sound, gathering the lessons these men learned, through blunder and success, at war and at home, through love, loss, and just plain keeping on. A book of reminiscence and inspiration, it's a story of perspective and passion, a harvest of lives deeply lived.
