Last week, I wrote about my 19 years at this newspaper and how things had changed in that time, or hadn't. Today, a more important anniversary — of 95 years.

Aug. 14, 1914, was a momentous day in history, at least to me. That was the day my dad, Eusebio Lara Pecina, was born, in Seguin, one of the oldest towns in Texas.

My grandfather, a native of San Luis Potosi, Mexico, worked at many different jobs around Texas and Mexico. The family traveled with him. By the 1930s they were sharecroppers in Robertson County.

E.L., one of four sons and four daughters, was fluent in Spanish and English and often served as a translator for non-English speaking families, such as when someone had to see a doctor. His first marriage ended when his wife died and he was left with two young daughters.

My dad's best known by his initials and though we children address him as "dad" and "daddy," we've also adopted the affectionate use of E.L.

He met my mom at a community dance, the only social arenas where young people were allowed to mix, albeit under strict supervision. Although they lived just a few miles apart, they're courtship was centered around the letters they wrote to each other. After reading some of them, I had to conclude that my father, always a man of few words, could sure put things down on paper well. He married my mom, Primitiva Pecina on May 13, 1939, in Bremond.

My future parents continued their work as sharecroppers and also traveled to West Texas to pick cotton. They eventually settled in Marlin after E.L. told Tiva they needed to establish their own home so their children could have a stable life.

My dad left a job building fences to work at a Magnolia Service Station on the corner of Commerce and Wood Streets, making more money in a few hours than he had made all day building fences. That was good, but he wanted more.

He was a man of many talents, most of them self-taught. Eventually, he bought the service station and operated it for almost 40 years under the Mobil insignia. In 1960, he doubled the size of the building, adding more equipment and work areas.

Although the station offered automobile repairs and other services, E.L. preferred working on lawn mowers and other small engines. I thought Briggs & Stratton were family members.

Like his father, he did many different kinds of jobs including buying and selling used cars but always at 200 Commerce. He also liked to repair kids' bikes.

The station was a training ground for my brothers and for me. I don't think my sisters were much drawn to hanging around the smell of grease and gasoline. I learned to clean windshields and pump gas and, under my dad's eagle eye, to count out change. I didn't realize it then but it was a classroom where I learned the value of hard work as well as the value of loyal friends and customers of different races, creeds and income levels.

I learned something else: much as E.L. loved to work with his hands, he wanted us to emulate him only if it was our choice. Limited by a sparse formal education, he and Mom emphasized that more education brings more options.

We baby boomers like to whine sometimes about our absent fathers of the '50s and '60s — those guys who left mom and the kids in suburbia to toil in a city daily and missed out on the closeness experienced by rural farm families. Both scenarios might be true for some but I would venture to say not everybody raised on a farm grew up healthy and emotionally whole and not all suburban kids grew up to "drop out."

Unlike my dad, I'm not a person of few words. I wish my dad had done this or been there for that, but I've finally concluded that parents do the best they can with what they have. Children get to decide at some point in their lives how they will deal with it and what kind of people we want to be.

No, I haven't dismissed what I missed but I've realized that though E.L.'s lessons may not have emerged directly from his mouth, they come through loud and clear through both time and distance.

Like him, I value education, the duties of citizenship, faith, family, hard work, sharing what you have and the gift of observation. If you look long enough, you can learn something from almost anyone. They may not always be lessons you want to practice or even retain, but watching — and listening — bring their own rewards. It remains your decision what you do with those lessons and I guess he taught me that, too.

Now, looking at the photos of my father on his 95th birthday holding my new grandson, his newest great-grandson, I have mixed feelings. My dad, though fairly healthy, is approaching 100 and he may not be around for much of my grandson's life. That makes me sad.

However, if I've learned my own lessons well enough, there's a good chance young Wesley Joaquin will get a pretty good idea of how to live a life as long and fruitful as E.L.'s — from me. If I do my job right.

Ana Pecina Walker is editor of the Longview News-Journal.