The Shoulders I Stand On: A Father's Day Letter to the Men Who Made Me

Father's Day always hits a little different when you're out here doing what we do. When I'm out checking on buildings, working through orders, demoing something that needs to come down, or just handling whatever the property needs that day, and Sara's in the kitchen working a batch of tallow or getting the girls dressed and fed for the morning, I find myself thinking about the men who put me here. Not just the genetics, but the lessons. The hard ones and the quiet ones. The kind that get handed down without a whole lot of words, just by watching someone work.

I've been blessed with three of those men in my life. And every one of them, in their own way, pointed back to the same thing. God first. Everything else follows.

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Karl: The Farmer Who Showed Me What Hands Are For

My grandfather on my dad's side was a pig farmer. And not just a farmer. He was also an electrician, a tractor man, and the kind of person who knew how to do just about anything that needed doing.

Some of my earliest memories involve following him around and trying to keep up. He didn't teach by sitting you down and explaining things. He just did the work and expected you to watch close enough to learn something. And you did, because you didn't want to look useless next to a man like that.

From Karl I learned that your hands are tools. That dirt under your fingernails at the end of the day is something to be proud of, not embarrassed by. That animals and land are a responsibility, and if you take care of them, they take care of you. That there is no job too small or too messy if it needs to get done.

I think about him every time I'm on a tractor. Every time something breaks and I've got to figure it out instead of calling somebody. He's in that muscle memory somewhere.

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Clyde: The Veteran Who Built Things to Last

My grandfather on my mom's side came home from World War II and went to work. Bricklayer by trade. Contractor by nature. The kind of man who had seen things most people could not imagine and came home quietly, without complaint, and just built a life.

He had a workshop in his basement, and that basement was its own kind of university. He taught me woodworking down there. How to measure right the first time. How to be patient with a project because rushing it means doing it twice. He could operate heavy equipment with the same ease most people drive a car, and watching him work was something I'll carry the rest of my life.

Clyde didn't talk a lot about the war. But his hands told the story. They were the hands of a man who had decided that whatever was behind him, he was going to build something worth having in front of him. That is a quiet kind of faith, and it sunk into me whether I knew it at the time or not.

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Keith: The Father Who Taught Me Everything That Actually Matters

My dad is a primary care physician. He spent his career in medicine, taking care of people in the most direct way a person can. And somehow, through all of that, he never missed a game. Never missed a practice. Never missed a chance to be there.

He coached every team. He was in the stands for everything. When we got hurt, literally and otherwise, he was the first one there. When we got in trouble, he showed up for that too, not to cover for us, but to help us face it and learn from it. When things went right, he celebrated like he had been waiting on that moment his whole life.

But here is what I want to say about my dad, because I do not think I say it enough.

He taught us a lot. And I mean a lot. How to work. How to lead. How to fail without falling apart. How to run a business and understand that nobody is going to hand you anything. How to be a father. How to be a husband. How to be the kind of man your family can stand behind when the ground gets unsteady.

And every single thing he taught us came from the same foundation. God. That was not a side note in our house. That was the whole thing. Faith was not something you brought out on Sunday and put back on the shelf Monday morning. It was the way you carried yourself every day. It was how you made decisions when things were going well and especially when they were not.

Dad had a hardness to him, not a mean kind, but the kind that comes from a man who has committed to something and will not be moved off it. When things got rough, and they did, he did not fold. He did not drift. He held the line and expected us to hold it with him. Stay the course. Keep your head down. Do the right thing even when it costs you. God is still God no matter what the circumstances look like right now.

That stuck. It still sticks.

There were times growing up where I did not fully appreciate it. I think most kids don't. But the older I get, and the more I take on as a father and a husband and somebody trying to build something real out here, the more I understand exactly what he was doing. He was not just raising kids. He was building men. Men who could handle pressure. Men who could take a hit and stay upright. Men who knew where their strength actually came from.

He also modeled entrepreneurship in a way that is hard to put into words. Not the flashy version. The version where you just keep working and trusting and building, even on the days when you can't see how it's going to come together. You stay faithful and you stay at it and you let God handle what you can't. That is what he showed us.

I would not be doing any of this without Keith Baker. Not the ranch, not the business, not the way I try to lead my own family. He is in all of it.

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What Gets Passed Down

Karl taught me to work the land.

Clyde taught me to build something that lasts.

Keith taught me to be a man my family can lean on, and to keep God at the center of every bit of it.

That is the inheritance. Not money. Not property. A way of living.

And somewhere in all of that, I ended up out here raising cattle, building a business with Sara, and trying to pass those same things down to our kids. The work ethic. The faith. The backbone. The understanding that hard seasons are not a sign to quit, they are a test of what you are made of and who you are trusting.

That is not an accident. That is the Lord working through generations of men who showed up, kept their faith, used their hands, and left something behind worth inheriting.

This Father's Day I am grateful for all three of them. More than I know how to say.

If you have men like that in your life, tell them. Today if you can.

And if you are in the middle of being that man for your own kids right now, know that what you are doing matters more than you can see right now. They are watching every single day. They are taking it all in. And someday they are going to be standing on the ground you helped build.

Happy Father's Day.

-- Josh Baker, Diamond B Ranch / Homegrown &