My Father, the Storyteller

Leonard Ristow, Jr. – my father – was a storyteller. In fact, he told stories through a variety of mediums, from visual to written to spoken.

PHOTOGRAPHER / FILMMAKER

As a young boy growing up in southern Minnesota I perhaps first recognized my Dad as a visual storyteller. He loved imagery. He was also always interested in technology. In particular, he loved cameras. Over his lifetime, he owned a lot of different cameras. It was actually through my Dad that I first discovered my fascination for cameras.

Sometime in the late 1960's, my Dad purchased a Kodak Brownie Hawkeye camera with a flash. He loved to take pictures with it and was interested in using the popular technology of the day. The Hawkeye was a small, square, box-like still film camera that had been developed in 1901 and became popular throughout the 1930's, '40's, 50's and '60's with various models and iterations. I'm not exactly sure what year my father got ahold of his Hawkeye but I'm pretty sure it was in the late 60's. So, while not the latest technology then, it was still at the peak of it's popularity.

In time as the camera grew old it began to leak light pretty badly and he eventually stopped using it. In fact I still have a photo he took of me around the time the camera started to become unusable. Lots of light leaks apparent around the edges of it. I love that photo anyway, because it captures a young me - circa 1975 while on a family road trip through Oklahoma – in all my 1970's, shorts, striped-shirt, and Chuck Taylor tennis shoe-wearing glory.

But most of all I love it because my Dad took the photo.

I remember discovering that Brownie on a shelf in our home office one day. I asked my Dad if I could play around with it. He allowed me – and encouraged me to use it. I quickly became enamored with the ability to photograph life. Soon, I too became disillusioned with its light leaks and stopped using it. But it had served it's purpose: it had hooked me on photography. I was amazed at how a tool like a camera could capture moments from real life. I began experimenting with what that meant for me and my imagination. From that point on I began to see creatively with my mind as well as my eyes.

By the 1970's, instant cameras became all the rage. Dad graduated up to the then-new and popular Kodak instant camera line. He purchased a Kodak Instamatic 100, the first instant camera sold in the United States, selling for an average price of $16.

Later, he purchased a Polaroid Automatic 250 Land Camera, another instant camera that became very popular in it's day.

It seemed to me like my Dad had that camera around his neck everywhere he went for many years: holidays, family vacations and church events. He was proud of it and loved the ability to capture an image and quickly see the results printed out. It was pretty cool for its time. I still had my Dad's 250 up until a house fire many years ago.

After I left home for college, he often told stories visually when I would visit, sharing pictures with me that he'd taken from various events or in talking with me about progress on home projects he was working on (a garden, a woodworking project, a model train track landscape, etc.). My Dad was never more than an amateur photographer (and really just more of a hobbyist). But he enjoyed it. It was not his skill that inspired me. It was his passion.

My Dad was also a filmmaker, of sorts. His love for cameras was not restricted to still photography, but spilled over into 8mm motion picture film cameras as well. That's him below on the left with a Bell & Howell 8mm film camera. He took lots of home movies of our family and activities around the church in Minnesota. In 1978, I would discover that same 8mm camera stored in our garage in Texas and ask him, once again, if I could play around with it. Once again, he encouraged it. Little did I know at the time but that would ignite my passion for media production that has now been a career my entire life.

GRANDFATHER / CHILD

Grandfather's are typically greater storyteller's than fathers. After all, they started as fathers and anted up.

Dad loved telling stories to both my boys. If they were playing with toys, he would tell them about some of the toys he used to play with as a young boy. As my boys got older, Dad would share with them more about his parents and extended family. He would talk with all of us about his days on his Uncle John's farm when he would visit there as a young boy and help out. He talked about how he got stung by hornets one day when using the water pump. Uncle John had Jamaicans who worked on the farm. One of them, named Tarzan, had huge arms and would swing my Dad and other kids around above his head for fun. Uncle John 's farm was one and a half mile from a POW camp with Germans. At night, Dad remembers hearing the voices and songs of the POW's echo across the fields. Stories like these certainly embedded images of time and place in my own conscience and I learned about my father's life growing up. I loved hearing theses stories because I got to know my Dad a little deeper as a both a young boy and as a human being.

Dad loved trains, both full-size and model trains. I can still vividly remember the huge wooden table in our basement in Minnesota upon which he had built a large HO gauge scale train set, complete with buildings and roadways and stations. I loved to watch whenever he would run his trains around the tracks. It seemed like such a big train set to me as a young boy. It was a miniature world in which I could imagine myself in those trains, in that town, adventuring on the track, transported to another time and place. I think my Dad liked to imagine that too. It was a mini-escape to another time and place, even if briefly.

After my kids were born and growing and we would visit Dad / Grandpa, I was so elated to see him still collecting model trains (although much in the much smaller N gauge scale now) and still building trains sets. Ben was enamored with the train sets too. He would spend as much time as Grandpa allowed watching the trains run around the track. It reminded me of myself back in Minnesota when I was a young boy about Ben's age.

It also reminded me of my own grandfather, my Dad's dad. Leonard Ristow, Sr. was also a gentle man who would tell lots of stories. As was common with his generation, he wasn't always as immediately forthcoming with those stories. But over time, in small moments, he would share family memories.

He also had a harder edge and temper than my father did. But I only recall being at the receiving end of an occasional firm reprimand from him (deserved, I have no doubt).

He came from a family of 11 children descended from strict German immigrants. Grandpa had worked as a machinist all his life at Allis Chalmers in Milwaukee. He was a hard-working, blue-collar man who had often been awarded for his dedication and years of commitment to the company.

His wife, my grandmother, passed away on December 26, 1967 - only 12 days after I was born. She was aware of my arrival but, sadly, she did not survive long enough for us to meet one another.

Grandpa Ristow was an amazing figure to me as a young boy. I have fond memories of traveling to Milwaukee and exploring his house in an old German neighborhood. The house seemed like a maze, filled with memories frozen in time. He was a larger than life figure to me, having worked long hours making machine parts in a hot, loud and sometimes dangerous warehouse shop (he had lost part of a finger due to a machine shop accident). I mostly remember his smile and gentle spirit. My Dad was certainly his son, in looks, in work ethic and in gentle demeanor.

Their gentleness certainly defined an ethic within me. I've always been drawn to people who have a gentle, humble spirit and am repelled by those who are coarse and overly critical. (Aren't most people repelled by that? You may be surprised how often the opposite is true). While some see gentleness as a weakness in people, I do not.

In a recent daily devotion I read how David learned (often the hard way, as do so many of us) that he needed God every day. He prays to depend upon God continually and not himself. He is not ashamed of being dependent upon God. In Psalm 71:3, he writes "Be to me a rock of refuge, to which I may continually come; you have given the command to save me, for you are my rock and my fortress." David knew that God was his rock, his strength, his refuge in times of trouble. I saw this manifested in various ways in both my Grandpa and my Dad.

I looked up to and loved them both.

PASTOR

As a Lutheran pastor, Rev. Ristow told stories with words from the pulpit at church every Sunday. Each week my Dad hammered away on his old manual typewriter (later electric), banging out at least one sermon for an upcoming service. If it was Advent, Christmas, Easter, Lent, an important occasion in the church year, if there was a funeral or wedding, or if he was serving more than one church at the time as a vacancy pastor – then he would often write more than one sermon a week.

He was a dedicated sermon writer. Admittedly, he borrowed from a wide range of different sources as he wrote. But no source was more important than the Bible itself. Although he would often share personal nuggets here and there from his own personal life or integrate current events from the world, he always founded his sermon on Biblical themes and stories. His sermons were relatable but there was no doubt of their purpose: to remind you of the love of Christ.

Recently, as I was reading through a few of his old sermons that I'd managed to save, I was reminded just how Gospel oriented his sermons truly were. They were uplifting and while he never shied away from the hard truths and reality of sin and life, he was always loving in the way he conveyed God's Word. Much like the example of Jesus himself.

Today at our church, Celebration in Georgetown, Pastor Joe Champion preached on the value of fathers – and all of us, really – being leaders to those around us. He preached from Colossians and spoke of the Biblical trait of being sensitive leaders – not judgmental leaders. My Dad was most definitely like that: a sensitive leader. Gospel-oriented. Loving. Not judgmental. Pastor Joe referenced a well-known verse from Colossians, which has always resonated with me, even moreso in the years since I became a father:

Fathers, do not exasperate your children, so that they will not lose heart.

– Colossians 3:21

I feel the same way about my Dad. I never felt exasperated by him, particularly in the last several decades of his life as he grew older and even more gentle. He was just happy to share stories of his childhood, his life, his faith and, of course, always about Jesus.

FATHER STORYTELLER

Leonard Ristow, Jr. – my father – was a storyteller. I know that's a trait that I got from him. I'm glad I did. His example as a storyteller has inspired me to tell other people's stories through my work in video and writing and to shine a light on what other people do and how they can inspire others around them.

His example as a father and grandfather has helped me to strive to be a better father myself. I'm reminded of his kindness, loyalty, gentleness and love. I hope I have and am able to be that for my sons, now and in the future.

His example as a minister of the Gospel has also inspired me to make sure that I'm telling the most important story there is to tell – that of Jesus Christ.

When it comes down to it, there is no better story that a father can share with his son than that. It's the gift that keeps giving; it's an eternal gift.

Thanks, Dad. Happy Father's Day. I look forward to the day when I can hear all your stories again – along with the ones I've missed since we last parted – when we reunite again on that glorious last day.