This website is a gift to my son Joey. In case we have other children, it's for them too. Right now Joey, you're seven months old and you're on the floor next to my chair playing on a blanket and making happy baby noises. You're the cutest baby I've ever seen and I am head over heals in love with you.
This website will work like a journal that I'll try to update regularly. I'll try to record the important lessons I've learned in life. Hopefully you'll learn easily those lessons that are usually hard won with blood, sweat, and tears. There are two quotes that I attribute to myself. Others may have said similar things, but these two principles occurred to me when I was about 18 years old. They are:
1. Wisdom is difficult to attain. It takes years of messing up to get it.
2. A true wiseman is one who learns from the mistakes of others without having to repeat them for himself.
That basically sets forth the theme of this site. It's a way for me to pass on the wisdom without the pain. H. Ross Perot, a self-made* billionaire businessman tells the story that his dad tacked 100 principles to his bedroom door as a kid. It was 100 things that his dad wanted him to know and to internalize and Perot attributed his success to his dad's inspiration. Consider this the 21st century version of tacking important principles to your door.
To be certain, you will have trials, tribulations, life lessons, and hard times. There will be many things you will have to experience for yourself in order to understand or take to heart because that is human nature (rebellion, arrogance, pride,etc.). But if I do my job and you yield yourself to God's plan for your life, you'll minimize the immature need to fall on your face before you listen to reason.
I have some goals in creating this website that I'll share up front:
1. To lead you into a relationship with your Messiah and God: Jesus. I have no wisdom to offer that hasn't been given to me by God or learned from His Word. Everything you read here will be from God's Word, my own experiences and knowledge, or the experiences and knowledge of those who have taught me. And God has worked all of these things into my life to increase my faith, to protect me, to equip me, and to build my relationship with Him. And He's given me charge over you as long as we're both here on this Earth, so I want to pass on as much as possible to you.
2. To give you insight into who your dad is as a person. When my Poppop passed away, I found myself regreting not knowing him better. What was his favorite song? Who were his friends? What was his childhood like? I don't have that problem with my dad. He has told me countless stories and I know a lot about his life. I want you to know me too. Probably more because I know how much a boy wants to know about his dad. There's an internal yearning to connect with your family and especially for a boy with his dad. I don't know what life will bring. God could take me tomorrow or I could live a hundred more years. EIther way, I hope this helps you to know me as a man and maybe it will even be a blessing for my grand kids some day.
3. To teach you to think. I will be putting a lot of information on here in the future and I hope that you memorize a lot of the quotes, the wisdom, and the scripture. I hope that you learn to apply it to your life. Make it a part of who you are. Our world toady is moving at 100mph and people are woefully uncritical in their thinking and their opinions. Learn to be a critical thinker.
4. I hope that you know how much I love you. The time and effort that I plan on putting into this should show you just how special you are and how important you are to me. Having you has changed my life. I love just staring at your little face. I wonder what you'll be like as you grow. I think about my dad - your Poppop - and how close I am with him and I find it so hard to imagine you as a man trading stock information with me or advising me on important matters. I long for that, but I know it's a long road and I need to be your dad before I can ever dream of being your friend. But no matter what...I love you. Forever. Unconditionally.
So that's the introduction. Now I expect you to study everything I write with fervent vigor. But not until you read the Bible each day. Just because the name of this site is Thus Saith Your Daddy, doesn't mean I equate my musings to scripture [the Word of God]. It is simply an allusion to the authority that God uses to teach His children and I want to emulate my Lord.
And to any friends or family who read this sight, I expect you to look at everything through the lens of scripture. If there is any worldliness or any unBiblical teaching, I expect you to bring it to my attention and question me. I don't want that junk creeping into this journal.
Enjoy!
Love, Your Daddy
This site written and maintained by Joseph Campagna III
*No one is self-made. God is in control of all things and allows or prohibits as He wills.
UPDATE September 2026
Hello Boys,
Well, it is about 18 years later and I finally got the site back up and running. It had been erased because the useless webhost shut it down. But thanks to AI and the WayBackMachine, I was able to save it. Thank God because that was a lot of writing.
It's been a long, long road. Nanny is gone, GG passed, and you are all teenagers now. Joey is still on the floor next to my chair playing on a blanket... LOL. Just kidding. But he's still playing, it's just video games now. Joey is a sophmore in college, Caleb is a senior in high school, and Grey is just finishing up a middle school soccer game. He is in seventh grade now.
When I started this site, I didn't really know any of you. Two of you weren't even born yet. What a ride. I had no idea I would have 3 awesome, successful boys. It has been the joy of my life to be your dad. As scared as I was at the time I started this site that I would be a bad dad and 'mess up my kids,' I got pretty darn good at it. Truthfully, it was God's wisdom and leading and the fact that he gave me boys. I am a proud boy-dad because I know how to deal with boys. I don't always get it right, but I have loved every minute of being your dad.
I was looking out the front window today (like I have for 22 years), and there was a flatbed delivering construction material to a neighbor. When the driver took the forklift off the back of the truck and started unloading, I had the strong impulse to call you to come look at the truck! Besides the fact that you were all at school or work, you haven't been impressed by that stuff in a long time. [I thought it was pretty cool!] But I thought about how awesome it was when I could get you excited about something simple like a tractor. I miss that... a lot.
So I figured I would pick this up where I left off so that when I am gone, you will have this to look back on. And maybe my grandkids will too. I plan to cvhange up the organization a bit and try to make it more personalized to each of you. I also want to make it more easily navigated by category or topic.
Everything I wrote you back then still holds up, but I have a lot more for you now. Especially since now, I know you each as a person and now as young men.
I am proud of each of you. I love you very much. You are each very much your own man and have your own strengths. You are all very alike in many ways too. Stay friends for life. You will always be each other's strongest ally and your greatest link to your past. As the sang says, the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young.
As always, the most important thing is your relationship with Jesus. Tend to it like a garden. Like a precious treasure. It is. It is your future and your hope. He holds it all and He loves you. Don't ever ignore Him or take Him for granted.
Be a man, son. I love you.
Love,
Your Daddy