Commentary: The Best Job In The World
Since late 1993, I have been blessed with the best job in the world. Every day, I’ve learned and experienced something new. The opportunities for growth and the challenges that come with them have been endless. So, too, have the adventures.
Asked to do it again, I wouldn’t hesitate for a moment. It’s been that good.
Above all else, DCB’s Jeff Johnston is devoted to raising his son, Dylan. Photo by Matt Trulio
That was the year I became a father. It also was the same year Eric Colby, then the editor in chief of Powerboat magazine, hired me as the publication’s managing editor and launched my career as a marine industry journalist.
But the job I’m talking about—the best one in the world—is being a dad.
My kids are grown. Alex is 29 years old. Anna Rose is 25. Both are successful, thriving young adults who destroy all generational stereotypes placed on them by Baby Boomers such as myself. Still, I do miss them as the often-helpless little ones they once were.
Taking a ride with seven-year-old Dylan Johnston made the author’s day and reminded him how much he enjoys being a father.
And that is why I have to thank seven-year-old Dylan Johnston. The son of DCB Performance Boats president Jeff Johnston, he took a ride with me and a few other folks last Wednesday in a new DCB M37R catamaran owned by Kelly and Julie O’Hara of Upstate New York during Mercury Racing’s introduction for its new 500-hp outboard engine in Charleston, S.C. Watching Dylan grin the whole time—we even managed a few fist-bumps—during the ride made my week and reminded me how much I love being a dad.
Just as I know his devoted father does.
Jeff Johnston and I have been good friends since our shared Powerboat magazine days, and the light that takes over his eyes when he looks at his son is more bright and beautiful than the graphics of any DCB creation. Like me and my co-publisher Jason Johnson, who lives for his daughters Morgan and Colbie, Johnston knows that raising kids is a privilege.
So Happy Father’s Day to all of the dedicated dads out there in the performance-boating world. You have the best job in the world.
But you probably already know that.
A dedicated father himself to his 19-year-old son, Macallan, Mercury Racing director of consumer experience Steve Miller (left) shared a moment with Jeff and Dylan Johnston during this week’s Mercury Racing 50th anniversary gala in Charleston, S.C.
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