My father often said that the most important entrepreneurial seed a company grows is the talent that represents it.

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My father often spoke of a doctor cousin who, having decided to try his hand at beautifying noses, did a few teenagers successfully and then, after unwrapping the bandages of an older patient, watched in horror as the tip of the gorgeous new sniffer slowly began to droop toward the patient's chin.

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My friends, when I was growing up, my father was often at sea, and the job of raising my brother, sister and me would fall to my mother alone.

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"I don't speak to my father very often but he has been telling me what he has read in the papers as well, " Barrett told BBC Radio Manchester.

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As was the case that night, my father would often buy me an ice cream cone at a nearby custard stand on Okalahoma Avenue as a gratuity for my patience while I waited in the car and he shopped.

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But I often wonder what it would have been like if my father had a greater presence in my life.

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And I share this often -- as many of you know, my father was a blue-collar worker at the city water plant.

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