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At the time, I thought my dad might punch him out.

I am pretty sure he punched guys for less, and this guy was being pretty rude that day at the Elks Lodge.

That was one of the many days when I went with my dad as he played handball down stairs at the Elks. I shot baskets while he played, and I continued to shoot as he went upstairs for a couple of beers.

I am fairly confident that I hold the record for most shots attempted and made on that old court in the basement of the Elks.

After hitting the game-winning shot in the imagery game I played as I shot by myself, I walked upstairs to get a pop with my dad. As I walked into the bar, I heard this guy, who was a teacher, raise his voice at my dad, who was between jobs at the time.

Apparently, my dad’s recent or prolonged unemployment was the topic of conversation.

“That’s your own damn fault,” the teacher yelled at my dad. “You could have worked at the mine, but you chose not to. That’s your own damn fault.”

Like most kids, I thought my dad was Superman growing up, and I was glad he didn’t punch the rude teacher. It wouldn’t have been a fair fight, and I assume that is why my dad held back. Plus, I know my dad always liked that teacher — even after his rude comments that day.

On the way home, I asked what the heck the teacher was talking about. I wanted to know what he meant when he said my dad could have had a good job.

His answer was simple. That job was non-union.

One day in the early 1980s, my dad came home with a pink slip from the Atlantic Richfield Co., which bought the Anaconda Co. a few year earlier, just a few days after Christmas. Even though I was only 6 or 7, I have a vivid memory of my mom crying as my dad broke the news as he walked through the kitchen door.

My dad was an electrician with the Company, and I figured he would be for life. Instead, he was one of hundreds of people to lost their job that day.

That led to almost a decade of my dad working on the road, leaving my mom and two brothers behind as he tried to make a living for all of us.

He would send home most of the money he made, holding back just enough to pay for a dive motel room and some groceries.

When the new open-pit mine reopened as a non-union outfit a few years later, my dad could have probably have taken a steady job in Butte again — assuming he wasn’t already blackballed because of his reputation as a union man.

Taking that job, however, would have meant selling out on everything he believed in.

Like his dad before him, my dad is a staunch union man. Together, my dad and grandpa, who probably would have punched out that teacher, combined for more than 125 years — and counting — as members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW).

There was no way my dad would take a non-union job. It was never an option. Even at 75 and retired, he is still a member of the IBEW.

My great-grandpa was a big union guy, too. He was instrumental in the great paper boys’ strike in the 19-teens.

As a very young boy, I remember my grandpa stressing the importance of a picket line to me. He told me that if I’m ever walking into the M&M and I see even one shoeshine boy with a picket sign, then I turn around.

It was a speech he gave me, my brothers and cousin many times over the years. Crossing a picket line is just something that you never did. A union man taking a non-union job might be the only thing that was as bad, according to the influential men of my life.

My dad and grandpa were always strong on their convictions, and standing up on principle was just something they always did.

Having integrity like that often comes at a cost, and my family saw that first-hand in the 1980s. We would often go months at a time without seeing my dad, and we didn’t have enough money to talk to him on the telephone very often. We didn’t have cell phones then, and long-distant calls added up quickly.

When we were lucky, my dad worked close enough that he could drive home with his electrician buddies for the weekend. He would get home really late on Friday night and then have to leave again on Sunday afternoon.

The times when we did get to see him for extended periods of time were even worse because that meant that he was out of work. Those were some pretty lean times in our house.

Sacrifice, though, was nothing new to my dad. When he was 18 years old in 1967, he volunteered for the military draft. While other guys his age were heading to college, bailing to Canada or looking for deferments because of bone spurs, my dad voluntarily signed on to what he was sure was a trip to Vietnam with the Army.

He had orders for ’Nam, too. But those orders changed when the North Koreans captured the USS Pueblo in January of 1968. So, he spent a couple of years near the DMZ in South Korea.

He volunteered for the draft because he figured he was going to be drafted eventually. Plus, he said he didn’t want someone else to have to go in his place.

Decades earlier, my grandpa was set to be the starting quarterback for the Butte Central football team as a senior. Instead of going to school that year, though, my grandpa, at the age of 17, joined the Navy so he could help save the world in World War II.

Like my dad, my grandpa, who would have turned 99 on Thursday, always had a great B.S. filter. He had an unbelievable ability to see through phony people, and he was never afraid to call them out.

Neither ever took a shortcut, and they always traveled the high road — even when the low road was much easier to take.

From the time I can first remember, I paid attention to the words and actions of those two men. They shaped me into the person I am today.

I like to think I am a lot like my dad and grandpa, even though nobody, including myself, can stack up to them in my eyes. Neither man was famous, but they were respected by those who knew them. And you always knew where you stood with them.

Over the last eight months, I have been lucky enough to talk with a lot of people as I am running for my next job, and I have been asked all kinds of questions. The other day, I got the best one.

Time after time, we have seen people with good intentions run for office. Once they win, they are corrupted by power, money and influence.

It is hard for voters to know which candidates will stay true to themselves and which ones will sell out. Truth be told, many of the candidates don’t know themselves.

“How do you know you will be able to stay above the ick?” this voter asked me.

I could have given her some canned campaign lines or promises that so many candidates give to try to convince the voter that I know I will be able to do that.

But I know there are two big reasons why I will always be the same person with the same principles, no matter what job title I hold.

So, I told her about my grandpa and my dad.

— Bill Foley can be reached at foles74@gmail.com. Follow him at twitter.com/Foles74. Listen to him on the ButteCast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.