Hard Not to Think of Dad on Father's Day

How did all our Fathers get to be such great guys? Am I right?  Isn’t time a wonderful thing?  For my generation, many of our Fathers are gone, presumably to heaven.  When here on earth, they were dads and husbands and not much more.  Sure, they taught us things and paid for things and disciplined when mom was too tired or exasperated.  But they weren’t Fathers yet.  Dads don’t really become Fathers until we sons become dads.  Does that make sense? (NOTE: I’m leaving out girls and dads and Fathers ‘cause I have no personal point of reference.  Sorry.)

My dad became my Father in 1984 though I was born 32 years earlier.  Slowly but surely as I raised my own children I began to see more clearly the man who had raised me.  And now, this being Father’s Day and all, I’d like to talk about my Father for a moment….  The adage about young boys arguing that ‘my dad can whip your dad’ never crossed the threshold at our house.  We knew dad couldn’t whip anybody.  Skinny and ‘not tall’ with a two-pack a day habit and an often sullen expression.  We always thought he impressed his buddies with his golf skills and his dirty jokes.  But those skills were not yet for my appreciation and I just saw a guy with out-of-style fedoras trying to hide his jug ears.  He was never mean, but he was a bit distant. The clue I was missing at the time was his penchant for making and keeping friends.  Not ordinary men, but extraordinary men of all professions…. Buddy and Harold and Jimmy and Gordon made the clocks tick in our small town.  How could they be so loyal to such a stern little guy?  Could it be because he was loyal to them?

Like most men of my dad’s generation, he had fought in World War II.  And like many he had seen action and certainly hated it.  As a child the ‘what did you do in the war, daddy?’ questions were most often answered with a grunt, but occasionally he would tell a tale of such absurdity that I knew it must be true.  Paul Hodgson was skipper of PT 348 in the South Pacific with a crew of maybe eight guys (true).  For years he told us the story of cooking one big hamburger that fed his entire crew.  Now this made perfect sense to me at age nine even though I should have asked how they turned it or what they used for a bun.  Once in high school I caught myself telling this story and the sad look of sympathy on the faces of my audience was the first clue I had ever had that dad might have not been totally honest.  Within the past twelve months, by pure happenstance, I discovered original documents that showed my dad’s wartime experiences in a much, much darker light.  His somberness, drinking and rare efforts at humor started to make much more sense.  And that he had protected his children from this truth made him quite a bit taller in my eyes.

But enough of that talk.  Dad eventually became my Father when my son and daughters were born.  Now, a child’s amazingly innocent questions were directed at me.  And the silly parenting mistakes became my mistakes.  The answers and recovery had been shown to me before.  But I was too busy to pay attention.  How did he ‘manage’ the mayhem that was childrearing?  Suddenly,  the rare and mumbled comments made over a bourbon in my youth seemed like the lecture notes from Socrates as I strained to remember how he treated my mom when she was upset and admonished his children when we were bad.  Because our house was a happy house and as unlikely as it seems, dad’s being his quiet and stern self set the metronome ticking so that the rhythm never got lost. 

My dad, and later my Father was the coolest guy I may ever know.  But words fail me to tell exactly why.   I do remember when he told me he was proud of me.  It came a bit later than I had wished but he looked me in the eye when he said it.  And I knew then that I would do whatever I could not to let him down.

So thirty or so years later, I have children and I pray I’ve remembered to tell each I’m proud of them.  I know I’ve meant to, because I truly am and I know how good it makes the young one feel.  But now, things are different than I ever imagined.  Now, I want to make them proud of me.  My working days are almost over and career accomplishments are behind me.  But there is so much more I want to do and I want my three children to be proud of me as I go forth.  I love being their Father.