“Good eye!”

My father was great. This post isn’t really about all that, though. It’s about one (or two) specific things my dad did that have proven to be very beneficial to me.

One was that my dad was big on looking at things. I assume this mostly came from his being an ornithologist, which to a great extent involves looking at little tiny things some distance away.

He was always encouraging me to look for and look at things in the distance. On long car trips he’d often encourage me to watch for things like the water towers with the names of each town we were approaching. I’m sure part of that was just to keep me occupied with something other than complaining about being in the car, but part of it was getting me good at watching for things coming over the horizon, a skill that has proven itself of great value, even though I’m not a fighter pilot, or a lookout in a ship’s crows nest.

The other thing, closely related, was my father’s enthusiasm for praising specific things, of which this was one. Anytime I’d spot something early—especially if it was earlier than he did—he’d say, “Good eye!” He did that a lot when I was a boy, but he never really stopped. I remember just a few years before he died, I spotted a Hooded Warbler outside the house where he was living in Kalamazoo and drew a “Good eye!”

Even though I don’t have kids, I try to do this with other folks around me. A little praise never hurt anyone, and being able to spot things in the distance is always useful.

See the horse in the picture at the top? Maybe this will help a little: