12/06/2026
Father's Day Post
On fathers, lessons, and the ones we carry with us.
THE P**P DECK WEST | NASSAU, Bahamas
Shared image shows:
Jim and Helena Lightbourn at home with 5 of their children (Colyn, Charlie, Kathryn, Freddie and Johnny. Christopher, the youngest of 6, had not yet arrived.)
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"Thank You, Jim"
I have a habit on the golf course.
It is not a particularly complicated one, and to anyone watching, it probably looks like nothing at all. But when I manage a good shot, before I turn back to my playing partners, I look up. Just for a moment. And I quietly say two words:
"Thank you, Jim."
James Wendell Clement Lightbourn was my father. He passed years ago now, but I find him most reliably on a golf course, in that brief second after a ball does what you asked it to do. I like to think he had something to do with it. Knowing him, he would have laughed at the idea, waved it off, and said I was giving him too much credit.
That was him. He was quiet. A man of very few words. But as a father, he possessed that special look, the one every child of a serious man knows well. One glance, and the message was delivered perfectly: you better not try that again. We all understood exactly what it meant. And we knew we had better stop, or else.
He was not a man who needed the credit. He just got things done, and he did them right, and somewhere in the watching of him, you learned.
The Man He Was
My father was a hard worker. That might sound like a plain thing to say about someone you loved, but I mean it in the fullest possible sense. He worked not because he had to, or not only because of that. He worked because it was part of who he was. He believed that the effort you put in was a kind of statement about the life you wanted to live.
He was the father of six. Five boys and one girl. If you know anything about raising five boys, you already understand something about my father's character. Patience. Stamina. A sense of humor that could take a hit and keep going, and little tolerance for poor behavior. That look of his covered a great deal of ground. You knew when he gave you 'THAT LOOK', you better behave!
He was very quiet, but he was well liked. He had the kind of warmth that made you feel as though you had his full attention, even in a crowd.
He adored my mother, and she him. She will tell you that herself if you ask, and she says it not with sentiment but with the plain certainty of someone who lived it. She still calls him "My Jim".
And through all of it, family came first. Not as a slogan. As a fact.
What He Taught
My father taught by doing, not by lecturing. He was not the kind of man who sat you down for formal life lessons. The lessons came sideways, worked into ordinary moments. In how he handled a difficult situation without making a scene. In how he showed up consistently, year after year, without needing to be asked. In the way he treated people, all people, with the same straightforward decency.
I have been with The P**p Deck since I was fifteen. People sometimes ask me how that happens, how a person stays so long in one place and builds so much of a life around one thing.
Honestly, I think the answer has something to do with Jim.
He showed me that commitment is not a limitation. It is something you build, and what you build has a life of its own.
I learned how to show up from Jim Lightbourn.
I learned how to care about the people in the room from Jim Lightbourn.
I learned that a good name, a real one, is built in the daily details.
I carry all of that into this place, every day, whether I think about it consciously or not.
The Golf Habit
He played golf. Not with the seriousness of a man obsessed, but with genuine enjoyment, the way a person engages with something that gives them joy and room to think. I picked it up somewhere along the way, as sons often do.
I will be honest with you: my good shots are not as frequent as I would like. Anyone who has played golf with me knows this and is too polite to say so, which I appreciate. But when a 'good shot' happens, that moment is his. I give it to him. Looking up, saying those two words, feels like the most natural thing in the world.
And if I am being completely honest, when a truly great shot happens, I would like to add a quiet postscript to my Thank you, Jim. Something along the lines of: "...a few more of those, please".
This Father's Day
If your father is living, I hope you find a way to sit with him. Not necessarily somewhere fancy. Somewhere real, somewhere he can order what he wants and feel comfortable and be himself.
If he is no longer here to sit beside you, I hope you find your own version of looking up. The particular moment, habit, or small ritual that lets you say: "Thank you. I got this from you."
We will be on the beach on Father's Day, Sunday, June 21st. We will have a table ready, good food coming out of our kitchen, and the kind of afternoon that lets you relax and breathe. We would be glad to share it with you and the people you love most.
Come out to P**p Deck West. We are serving a special Father's Day menu.
Reservations: call us at 327-3325 or book through OpenTable.
https://www.opentable.com/r/the-poop-deck-at-sandyport-nassau
We will take good care of you. That is one of the lessons we carry with us.
Frederick Lightbourn
Storyteller, Islander, Keeper of our Family Table
P**p Deck West | Cable Beach, Nassau | (242) 327-3325 | poopdeckbahamas.com
