I am back from a quick trip to Tucson. I needed to take a little break from the People's Republic of Hillcrest and this blog. More about Tucson later. Suffice it to say I am fit, tan and well-rested and ready once again to "take up the pen." Or in my case, the laptop.
Even though I am not a parent, I like Father's Day. I try to take advantage of all of the Father's Day sales. I bought some cheap golf balls at the sporting goods store. I bought some cologne at the department store. They threw in a dopp kit, a really nice carry-on bag along with some extra potions and nostrums for lagniappe. Carolina Herrera. Hell of a gal. My brother John is typically kind enough to include me in his Father's Day activities. The last couple of years we have played golf. This afternoon we will take Clarke to see the local minor league team lose. It will be a good day. If you can't have fun with a 5 year old at a baseball game, you need to get your pulse checked. Nope, I got no problems with vicarious participation on Father's Day.
I think I would have been a good father. Indeed, it wasn't too long ago that I was in mortal peril of becoming a stepfather. At least that seemed to be the way things were heading. Being the practical sort that I try to be I went out and bought books on step-parenting and I pored over Internet websites devoted to the subject.
Suffice it to say, the peril passed and the books got donated to the library. So it goes.
This is nothing I go screaming in the night about. For a single non-pederast sort of person, I've got more children in my life than I can say Grace over. I have 2 Godchildren. One is Catholic and and the other is Episcopalian, thus covering the main liturgical branches of the Christian faith. I have 4 nephews. On more than one occasion I have been foolishly asked to sponsor a kid for Confirmation into the One True United Methodist Church. One of the Confirmands under my charge was a convert from a Baptist church. What stress.
The little girl across the street comes over to visit all the time. And it would appear that I am once again coaching Little League with my buddy Steve, who is one of the parents who foolishly asked me to be a Godfather of one of his 19 kids. As you can see, I do not lack for attention from the small people.
And while I think that I would be a good father, I don't really know that for sure. God knows that I posses a veritable Whitman's Sampler of faults, quirks, lousy habits and intemperate ideas. I don't much consider myself to be the sort of person that any sentient parent would point out as a model for right living. Granted, it's not like I've killed anybody or anything. Woody Allen once said that said that half the trick to being a good father was showing up on time. To which we can add, the other half of the trick would be to refrain from fucking your wife's adopted daughter. Even I wouldn't do something as trashy as that. And even though I've got that going for me, I concede that at this stage in my life, my flaws and my quirks are practically embedded in my DNA. It's probably just as well that I am not in a position to inflict myself on a child of tender years for any longer than an intermittent basis. But I suppose that I would do the best that I could do, much as my father did and his father before him. And hope like hell for the best.
My own father was a painfully shy man. He was also under tremendous stress. He worked for the Teletype Corporation. You might be saying to yourself, "the what Corporation?" which should indicate the origin of Dad's stress. Teletype was part of the Bell System back when there was a Bell System. Teletype made teletype machines which were pretty much the precursor to computers and fax machines. All of the newspapers TV and radio stations got their news from the teletype machines. The government and the military sent messages on the damn things. They were everywhere.
Long about 1975, IBM started making computers. And about this time, some genius with Ma Bell up in New Jersey made the fateful decision that the competitive threat from computers was nothing to worry about and that IBM would never make it.
Wrong as usual.
IBM and the computers they made took off. Suddenly, and I mean, suddenly nobody needed Teletype machines. And a huge company that seemed to employ at least a quarter of Southwest Little Rock suddenly started laying people off. The Unions made trouble. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 kicked in about then which meant that Teletype's hiring practices had to be overhauled. Guys my father wanted to promote got passed over. And if all of that were not enough, it got sued by the EPA when its waste treatment plant (designed by my father) discharged something into Fourche Creek which caused it to turn blue. No, these were not happy days.
One morning during this time, as I sat on my parents' bed waiting to use the shower, I heard my father's voice behind the door. I was a teenager, so naturally, I eavesdropped. My father was praying. He prayed for the strength to make it through another day. He asked God to watch over his sons and to keep them safe. He asked for happiness to return to his marriage. I also heard him say, " Father, you know that sometimes I just don't think I can make it . I've got to. I've just got to."
And that is how my Dad, my shy and desperately unhappy Dad, began every working day: By praying in private behind the locked door of his bathroom. And after that one time when my youthful curiosity got the better of me, I always stood a respectful distance out in the hall until he came out.
We often think that heroism is measured by one's response to physical danger as on the battlefield or when confronting a harrowing illness. And this is certainly true. More ridiculously, we impart this attribute to our sports figures as if playing a game for a zillion bucks is somehow ennobling. But I think that if the word means anything, it also applies to regular guys that go out day in and day out to bust their ass at soul-killing jobs for no other reason than because people are depending on them. Regular guys like my father who invoked God's aid every morning from his bathroom in Mabelvale.
It's nothing I go screaming in the night about. But it is something that I think about from time to time. I am no hero. But I would have done my best. I would have done my dead level best. And I think I would have been ok.
6 comments:
You would have undoubtedly made a good Father. I know it.
News out of the desert: I think the other writer-friend in your life would agree that you string words together better than many of us who are paid to do so. Excellent musing, and I think you are right - you are a good surrogate father to many a child. OF course, my 17 y/o said you really need to smile more, but I think people have ragged on you for that for years. Seriously, the children you might have step-parented obviously have lost out, if you were reading books on step-parenting and searching the net. Thats more than most biological fathers do. Sometimes moms don't know what's best for their own kids and we are all way too critical of each other, too selfish and self-focused to see that perhaps, with a little compromise and attitude adjustment, and new perspective, what we want - and what our kids need -is right in front of us. Now I'll go back to being irritated that you're a better writer than I am :-)
Sounds to me that "from the desert" was right on the money. But I am not so sure that you lost out. If you were not appreciated at first glance, then you perhaps were not receiving as much as you were giving, and that would not likely have changed over the long haul. Put your time and energy (and money) in on your nephews who need a special relative that they can always count on to be there for them.
Ok....Let's clear something up. This post wasn't strictly about the "step-parent" thing. I understand how it could have been read that way but that was not my intent. And the ex is a very fine person. I was mainly writing, or so I thought, about the situation in general.
As a matter of coincidence, my 20 year old Goddaughter lost her Grandfather this week. She told me that she was working for a law firm this summer.
" You're young. You needed the money." I said.
Sorry we misunderstood. If your point was that your own father was a hero, we wholeheartedly agree. And you are one as well for being such a good friend to numerous lucky children.
No problem. Thanks for your kind words, whoever you are.
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