Ogden » John Neilson has a story for just about every day of his son, Braydon's, short life.

There's the one about Braydon, at age 6, wanting to ride a sheep in the Fourth of July rodeo and cleaning out a friend's roof-top air conditioner to earn the entry fee.

Then there's the one about how he loaned his dad $20 -- but demanded the bank teller extract $10 more from Neilson when he repaid the loan.

And there are plenty of stories about little girls, beginning when Neilson found Braydon -- a 1-year-old -- behind the couch at day care with 2-year-old twins who were kissing on him.

"My dad is making that up!" says Braydon, a 9-year-old who spares a minute or two from

his bike to listen to his father's stories.

"No, I didn't."

"Yes, you did."

"No, I didn't."

"Yes, you did."

To call Neilson a doting father, though, does not quite capture their relationship. He takes care not to spoil Braydon.

Nonetheless, there is no denying that Neilson, a single father, has one big source of happiness: his pint-sized son.

"He's the best thing in my life," says Neilson, who has raised Braydon since he was a toddler. He refused to leave without the boy when he and his wife split up.

"He tries to find women for me, but it doesn't work. I don't have time," says Neilson, who struggles as a maintenance man to keep the two of them fed, clothed, housed and

Braydon just a little bit spoiled. The boy, who will be in fourth grade in the fall, has two closets filled with toys and his bike with the license plate reading "2 Fast 4 U."

The reason Neilson does not date is about more than time, though.

He doesn't want to expose his boy to a potential broken heart should his father's romance go sour.

"You've got to be the stable person in a kid's life," says Neilson, shrugging.

Neilson doesn't spend much time thinking about his sacrifices or analyzing his parenting style. Is he foremost a breadwinner? A nurturer?

"I don't think about it. I just do it," he says.

But when Neilson talks about his own dad, who died in 1983 when Neilson was still a teenager, it's easy to see how he learned to be a father.

"I couldn't ask for a better dad," says Neilson.

Having a good role model, says a Brigham Young University researcher, can make a big difference in how a man fathers his own children.

Sociology professor Renata Forste and colleagues from the University of Texas and Texas Workforce Commission recently published research that adds to the growing body of evidence that fathers matter. Their study, "Just Be There For Them," was published in the winter edition of the journal "Fathering."

The researchers interviewed 36 young, single, low-income fathers about their dads and their own fathering absent the influence of wives or partners.

Those who said they had bad fathers are generally guided by a desire not to fail, to not repeat their fathers' mistakes. "They know what they don't want to do, but they don't know what to do," says Forste.

Such fathers long for someone to help them figure out how to be dads, and often see their roles fairly narrowly as breadwinners.

Single men who, like Neilson, had good fathers "have a much richer expectation of what they should be doing," says Forste.

Those fathers see themselves as both breadwinner and nurturer, and often express a desire to connect emotionally with their children.

One of the men interviewed by researchers, Rick, put it this way: A man's role "is to make as much money as you can while spending the most time with your kids."

Forste notes that society provides all kinds of support for single mothers, but not so many for men.

While formal parenting classes may not be the answer for time-short single dads, one-on-one mentoring by friends, former coaches, former Scout leaders may be the answer.

"They're really trying to figure this out on their own," Forste says.

Neilson says that's been true for him. "I didn't know nothin' about being a dad."

But the fact is, he did. He watched his own father.

One time, Neilson, who was raised on a farm west of Ogden, refused to feed the horses. His dad told him that in that case, Neilson would eat outside that night. "'No, I won't,' I said."

His dad didn't say another word. He just got hold of the chain saw, went into the kitchen and sawed off a corner of the kitchen table and handed it to Neilson to take outside. "My mom got a new table out of it," Neilson laughs.

Another time, Neilson traded a family cow, without permission, for a neighbor's pickup. When the pickup broke down, his dad showed up, told him to get out and promptly rolled the truck into a power pole to break it for good. The lesson? "Easy come, easy go."

Braydon -- Mr. B to his dad -- has the same kind of spunk as his grandfather, and Neilson works hard to channel it in the right direction.

Neilson works full time at Union Station in Ogden but he also does maintenance for homeowners and often takes his boy to the house jobs.

Braydon works alongside his dad, who shares his pay. Braydon promptly puts his money in his own savings account.

What does he want for his son? "He needs a good job, an education. He can't run around being mean."

And when Braydon, who is spending days this summer with his gravely ill mother, talks about eventually marrying, Neilson tells the boy that fidelity and stability are the ideal.

"Every kid needs a mom and a dad, but it don't always work out that way."

Sometimes, it works out another way.

Says Neilson: "He's mine and I'm his and that's it."

kmoulton@sltrib.com