Most of us dads are family misfits, fretting over the next oil change, the dying shrub, the longed-for promotion, the expanding waistline, the overdue mortgage.

Which is why Father’s Day in its non-traditional form is often celebrated around Tuesday morning when one of the kids says, “Hey, wait…wasn’t Father’s Day Sunday? Happy day, Dad! Hey, can I borrow 20 dollars?”

And still, we are among the luckiest people on the planet. We are, after all, just guys. Although we don’t bring a lot to the table, somehow we have sired The Next Generation.

Some of us are fortunate enough, just plain lucky enough, to have not only a father but also a few back-up fathers, men who didn’t pay for our crayons and school clothes but who nonetheless earned our respect and deep gratitude.

It is a blessing when you can feel to these gentlemen like a back-up son. Not a second stringer, just not blood kin. Yet still part of the family.

It’s been more than a decade since my friend of more than 45 years eulogized his father, a man like the one I’ve just described, the backup dad for me and a few others. At the service, my friend Clint spoke with an eloquence impressive but, considering the circumstances, surprising. I was proud of him. I was grateful he spoke for several of us who loved his dad too, guys his preacher father, Bro. Charles Davis, made feel like adopted sons.

Years ago, Bro. Davis gave the address at our high school graduation, encouraging us to be wise, as young David was, with the stones we’d choose to slay the giants we’d face. Before and after, Bro. Davis set the example.

Then one autumn Saturday morning in 2011, he brought the mail inside, sat in his chair, then died suddenly of a heart attack, his Bible open in his study, his notes ready with Sunday’s sermon.

“He worshipped in heaven this Sunday morning,” the funeral program read.

His son and my friend Clint told a lot of stories about his dad in the filled-to-the-brim church – they even had to sit people in the choir loft. Most of the stories I knew already. A personal favorite is the one when the pickup screeched to a stop on Interstate 20; Clint and his younger sisters had figured out they could alter the steering of the truck by rolling from side to side on the foam mattress in the truck bed. There was hell to pay.

His dad got out, cracked the door on the camper top, pulled Clint out and tore him up on the side of the road while truckers honked their approval. Then he pitched a subdued Clint back into the bed, got back in the cab, continued the mission.

Clint will tell you that being the oldest child is not always all it’s cracked up to be.

And he told us all, with that illustration, something we already knew: Clint’s daddy was old school.

One story about this imperfect but godly man I did not know. Glad I do now.

Bro. Davis would roll the toothpaste tube very carefully, day by day, all the way to the opening. Not surprising, especially for a man whose first job brought him $2,200 annually as a junior high coach and teacher in Webster Parish.

When the tube was completely rolled, he would unroll it and rake is thumb down the tube to get one more squirt. THEN, to get the absolute last bit of toothpaste, he’d suck the end, and brush furiously. Only then would he throw the completely spent tube away.

Here’s a guy you’d trust with the inventory.

Clint said that even through that modest hygienic illustration, he learned a lesson from his dad. The days of our lives aren’t much different than tubes of toothpaste. Each day, we get a new tube.

And each day, we roll the tube toward the top as little by little we squeeze out a piece of the day. Hopefully, what we squeeze out will make us and others a bit cleaner.

Then we head home from work and the tube seems done, all the way to the top. But that’s when your spouse and children need you, and nothing is more important than that, so you roll the tube back out and slide your thumb down its middle and get another little bit of love to share.

Then it’s late and there’s that tiny bit left, that bit you can suck out. And maybe you need to, because maybe that’s when you need to say to someone, “I was really a jerk today. I love you. I hope you’ll forgive me.”

Each day, we get just enough in the tube to handle the day’s challenges and needs. Tomorrow, a new tube.

Bro. Davis didn’t waste much toothpaste or time. One of the many legacies he left was his willingness to be used up in service, his willingness, as they say in sports, to leave it all on the field.