Conclusion:

My dad doesn't believe anything he's told. He always has to have all the facts, for everything. And if someone can't give him all the facts... He goes out and researches them himself. Why? I think it's because his brothers, sister, older neighbor kids, and sometimes even parents always lied to him. Sometimes it was to mess with him, like with his brother's "Ironheart" story, or the neighbor kid's false recount of the letter his mom received about the pipes. Other times, the lying took place to keep something nice from him, like surprise thirtieth birthday party. My dad's a skeptic: Nothing is ever true unless proved. Sometimes, it's a real pain; having to give him solid evidence that the church trip is actually a church trip and not just a bunch of people telling me and my friends to get into a van. Sometimes it really helps, like when we got a letter in the mail saying I had been invited to go to Australia in the summer, and he proved it was a scam by doing his research. However, annoying habits, like the skepticism, definitely shape my dad's character, and I can guarantee that he would not be the same person without them.