Tell Everyone About Your Dad

Parent Cafe
1

Dads don’t get enough attention. A few years ago, I read the late Tim Russert’s book about his dad and was struck by how similar his dad was to my dad. Russert wrote the book, in part, because he presented his dad with an award at a moose lodge or VFW lodge or something and was overwhelmed by all the people that later contacted him to thank him for the things he said. If I recall correctly, Russert said, of the speech, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.

I think we can forgive his use of a dead tired cliche.

Russert also wrote the book for his son.

I’ll give Russert credit, he gets it. A book about dads written for sons isn’t something I’d say is common and I’d add that 90% of books probably shouldn’t even be written. Especially in this day and age of angry people it is worth thinking about dads. I do not want to go first.

I’d love to hear about your dad.

2

My dad encouraged me in just about every pursuit I wanted to undertake. He was cheerful and optimistic, and loved talking to all sorts of people – a real schmoozer. Other people enjoyed him as well. When he passed away, my sister and I received a sympathy note from the postmistress – yes, the postmistress! (He had a PO box rather than street delivery.) She raved about how delightful and kind he was, and told us that for him, she never minded getting his Barrons Weekly out of the pile early on a Saturday morning.

3

My dad was extremely hardworking and frugal, honest and trustworthy, kind and generous. I miss him so much.

4

My Dad married while he was still in college. Served in the Marines and then the Foreign Service, where he ended up with his dream job. He loved and cared deeply about Africa where he put in most of his Foreign Service time. He had a pretty interesting retirement job too. He loved sailing and one of my favorite memories is racing with him every Wednesday and Sunday when he served in Tanzania. He learned to fly later in life, but sadly could not fly for very long as he lost the feeling in his feet. He tried out his dream of growing grapes, though it turned out to be more difficult than he expected. Never actually made any wine! He loved to argue and dinner discussions were often loud, to the astonishment of many of our friends. He was almost certainly a high functioning alcoholic. He lived large and never said no to an experience. The last thing he told me just before I was going on a road trip (having had my license for all of three months) was “Don’t drive too slow,” I like to think that was the motto of his life. I miss him.

5

My dad is the best father I could’ve ever asked for. He worked several jobs while I was growing up to make sure my sister and I were well provided for and on top of that coached me in softball, basketball, and volleyball. He never missed a single event of mine. When he got into an accident my last day of 7th grade, he became a stay at home dad by default.

Since I’ve gotten sick, he has made the 4 hour drive every few weeks to go with me to every appointment, every infusion treatment, and has just in general made our lives a lot easier by doing housework and running errands. When I found out I probably couldn’t have kids, he was the first one to say that it doesn’t matter where kids come from as long as they are loved (meaning that an adopted kid would be no different from a biological kid in his eyes).

My dad is also one of those people that people just gravitate towards. He is highly charismatic and funny and knows how to work a room. He was president of a union for several years and is very political. He raised me to be a fighter, to fight for what I believe in even if I’m fighting alone. (Unfortunately, I inherited the fighting gene but not the brave and charismatic genes.)

He was also the community dad. Most of my friends growing up had crappy or non-existent dads. To this day, he still acts like a father figure to probably a dozen or so of my (and my sister’s) friends even though we’re in our 20s and well launched.

6

My dad is a great man . . . could never do him justice. :x

7

My dad was the first in his family to go to college. He’d been working since he was 14 at a box factory so that he could contribute to his family (both parents worked FT, but neither had finished HS) and the expectation was that he’d keep working. So he got a job at an insurance company after HS graduation.

After 2 years there, he was told to train a new guy who would be his boss. Why? Well, the new guy was a freshly minted college grad. So my dad decided he was going to college. He enrolled in a local Catholic college and graduated in 4 years, working FT afternoon/night shifts while going to school during the day, paying his own costs plus paying R&B to his parents.

He was (and is) a huge sports fan, but he never saw a sports event at his college because attending would have cost money and would have taken time away from work. When JFK appeared at his school, he didn’t go because he had to work. He sounded wistful when he told me these things, but not bitter; that’s just the way things were.

After college he received a fully funded fellowship, earning his Masters and PhD in 2-1/2 years (finished his dissertation while starting a FT teaching position). Although he had offers from Georgetown and some other top-notch schools, they weren’t tenure-track, and he had two kids under the age of 3, so he took the position that seemed best long term. He used to say that he’d never make a lot of $$, but he had the greatest lifestyle in the world. He retired at age 72 after 50 years of teaching. He has the love and respect of his family, his colleagues, and numerous students who still e-mail him, meet him for lunch, etc.

8

My dad did a remarkable job of staying involved in his children’s lives after he and my mom split when I was 9 and my sister was 6. He did not have custody, but he was as important a figure in our lives as our mom was – and this took considerable effort on his part.

Later on, he was the only one of my kids’ three living grandparents who had any genuine interest in them. He spent time with them regularly until we moved far away when they were 12 and 8. After that, he was only able to see the kids once a year or so, and I think this was a great loss for everyone in the family.

One of the most important things I learned from my dad was responsibility. He was impeccably careful about living up to his commitments – including things like taking his work seriously, paying his bills (and child support!) on time, and learning enough about the issues in local and national elections so that he could cast a well-informed vote on Election Day. I think every kid needs a role model like my dad in their lives.

That said, I still have some negative feelings about him, even now, 12 years after his death. I will always resent the fact that when my long-term boyfriend and I got engaged, his response was “It’s good that he’s going to marry you because nobody else would want you now.” (This, I should explain to those too young to understand, was a reference to the fact that I was not a virgin.) He insisted that I could not get married in a white dress (same reason). And he drove me crazy when my kids were growing up because he was convinced that my son would turn out to be gay because my husband and I didn’t push him into organized sports and military service. (It turns out that he’s straight, though gay would have been fine, too.)

I realize that these issues are mostly a function of my dad and me being of different generations, but that doesn’t mean that they didn’t hurt at the time and that they don’t hurt now. Still, I give him a lot of credit for his enthusiastic involvement as both a parent and grandparent.

9

My siblings and I pretty much assume that our parents didn’t really want kids. My dad in particular was very hands off. He was also an alcoholic and was rarely home.

I married someone very much unlike my dad. He’s been an awesome father to our kids. In adulthood, my dad didn’t develop an interest in my life or his grandchildren’s lives. I spoke to him about once a month, more frequently when he went into an Alzheimer’s care facility. Even when he had all his wits about him, he never once asked about me or the kids.

When he died, it was kind of shocking to read Facebook posts by my stepsister and her daughter. They were really sad at his passing - I think they may have had more of a relationship with him than we did. Only my oldest brother attended the funeral- my other brother and I did not. I haven’t looked at many of the photos of the memorial service. It’s taken me over a year to reach out and continue my relationship with my stepmother who really is a wonderful woman. I’m sure I still have baggage over my relationship with my dad!

As adults, my siblings and I have moved to the same city in the same general area - we are only a few minutes apart from of each other. We’ve grown closer and more involved in each other’s lives and the lives of nieces/nephews. I’d say that we try to be better parents, but it does suck that our kids have basically only had one set of grandparents growing up (not my parents.)

10

My father died when I was 14. He would have been 90 yesterday. Still miss him every day.

11

My dad passed away in October. He had a great sense of humor and even wrote his own obituary.

Well, I won’t be reading obits any more with a sigh of relief that I’m not in 'em. My luck ran out on October 14, 2015, peacefully, if somewhat reluctantly, in my ______ home, in the presence of family members. I’ve thus gone on to join Serge and Walt (his best friends) in the great life hereafter. I’ll greatly miss my much-loved wife of 61 years, ___, four of the greatest children a father could ever ask for: of Toledo, OH, ___of Germantown, MD, of Woodbury, and ______ of Federal Way, WA and, of course, seven super grandchildren: , _. _, _, _, _ and _. My parents, Edgar T. and Anastacia , preceded me in leaving this world. Born and raised in _, North Dakota, I spent the '50’s attending University of North Dakota Colleges of Commerce ('53) and Law ('59), wrapped around a tour of duty in Germany with the US Air Force, accompanied by my new bride, . Working career? Yes, I had one. It consisted of brief stints at private practice and corporate law, but the great majority of my work was in the legislative service field–five years in North Dakota and the final 27 years with the MN legislature, where, as a legislative draftsman, I specialized in long sentences like this. and I enjoyed travel. We made six of the seven continents. (She balked at Antarctica.) Activities after retirement involved mainly working on various collections, such as stamps, hockey cards, beer memorabilia, and a few other items, which must now be disposed of. I spent 30+ years as a member of ________ Lions Club and 10 years as a volunteer working with Traveler’s Assistance at MSP airport. Somehow I always managed to see the humorous side of things. A little more serious attention to details might have boosted my working career a bit. But, you know what? Given the chance, I’d probably do it all over again. So long good friends. May the good Lord take a liking to you. (Me, too!)
Funeral service will be held at _____, on Mon., Oct. 26th at 11am, with visitation one hour prior. Memorials preferred to UND Foundation or Church.

12

@toledo …love that obit! Especially the line…“that now must be disposed of.”

H is from ND. Your dads sense of humor seems somewhat typical for that area.

13

My dad could make anything. He was a Seebee in the navy and was responsible for making anything they needed out of whatever was around on the ship. He could eyeball something and measure it without a tool. He loved to tinker with boats and contraptions. He had a great smile and a down to earth sense of humor. He didn’t have any time for fools and would often tell people they were acting like one. I really miss him.

14

My father, born in 1908, was third-generation college-educated. His mother had a college degree, too. (She taught school, as did her sisters, including a “spinster” who taught until she retired at 70.) He disappointed his father by choosing journalism over the law (which his father and grandfather practiced). He had no mechanical ability at all; in fact, many things broke when he tried to fix them–except for prose–that he always enhanced. He liked small foreign cars. We had a Morris Minor Station Wagon he had custom-built in England in 1954 and, later, two Peugeots. This was unusual in the 1950s and 1960s. He liked to gamble on the ponies and sometimes won very big–and then he’d take a sabbatical and take everyone on a trip (six months in Europe, for example). More often he lost.

When WW2 started, he went to England as a war correspondent and covered the Blitz from an office of three men; the other two were equally talented as journalists. One became a famous TV reporter; the other a famous NYTimes reporter. My father became editor of a local newspaper and won several Pulitzer Prizes.

My mother was his third wife.

He gave me two great pieces of advice:

  1. Arrive at work before your boss, and don’t leave until after the boss leaves. If you’re the boss, keep reasonable hours, so your employees can have a life.
  2. Don’t put anything in writing unless you’re prepared to see it in your local newspaper and above the fold.
15

Even though I only had one dad, I have two very different memories of him. Dad #1 was an alcoholic and I learned at an early age to stay hidden when he got home from ‘work’ so you could see what mood he was in.

Fortunately he quit drinking when I was 12 and Dad #2 showed up. I was a tomboy and was the ‘son’ my dad had wanted. My brother hated sports and I loved them. I would watch all sports with my dad and he would give me tips when I was playing baseball, soccer, basketball, etc. He had a great sense of humor and loved to argue…I mean discuss things. We could argue about the color of the sky. When I told him I had signed up for the military, he told me I would be kicked out within 6 months because of my attitude. :wink: I lasted 20 years (with the attitude) in the military.

He was a colon cancer survivor at age 25 and died from rectal cancer at age 51 because he was too stubborn to see a doctor regularly. I was 21. I really wish he could have lived long enough to see my kids- he would have gotten a kick out of them. I think about him often.

16

My dad was a blue collar worker first generation american who graduated from high school and was in WW2. He did not talk much but showed his love with action. He provided well for his family.
He was a feminist, and for that I am eternally grateful.

17

My dad was the smartest person I’ve known. To this day every time I have to make a big decision I think what he would advise me to do.

18

My dad emigrated to Canada from Scotland, as did much of his University of Glasgow graduating class due to lack of jobs in the UK. He worked in the Alberta oil fields as a geophysicist. The oil company shuttled him from Canada, to various locations in the USA, where he met my mom. For many years, we moved every 18 months or so, and then he switched to the new field of computers and settled in Phoenix. He loved the desert and geological interest of the southwest, and I grew up glorying in and being made aware of the details of the natural environment. Every vacation for years was a two week camping tour of the parks and monuments in the Southwest. Every Sunday was a hike and sometimes cookout in a new location.

He was brilliant and had amazing breadth of knowledge on almost any subject. Vocabulary was never dumbed down on our behalf, and my friends didn’t always understand his word choices. Languages and linguistics were his passion. He studied languages constantly, arising at 6 AM to sit with his books, and had an index card with vocabulary words in his shirt pocket. The books came out again after dinner. Language progressed from Chinese to Russian to all the Scandinavian languages, Estonian, as well as German and French. Then he moved to Asia and developed a working knowledge of most of the languages of East Asia. In time, his favorite place was Thailand and he retired to Bangkok, and of course spoke and wrote Thai. When he had a stroke, he was working on his first book, on Cambodian, which unfortunately is languishing in some publishers pile.

My parents split up when I was 9, and he fancied himself a ladies man and lived accordingly. He married a few more times, but kept well involved in our lives and remained friends with my mom for the rest of his life.

In recent years, a sibling and I realized that he was perhaps on the spectrum, between the language obsession and the lack of ability to read or care about others emotions. Being around him was always a show as he told stories, jokes, had sometimes outrageous opinions about politics and social trends, and loved to hold court. He would visit from Asia for a few days and it would be a quick and interesting scene, but had no interest in the plebeian details of my domestic life, as his was far more interesting!

Still, what I got from him was the ability to see life as a lot of fun, to explore without fear, to approach every situation and subject with a sense of intellectual curiosity, to find the humor in almost everything, to be frugal, but indulge in the memorable on occasion.

19

My feelings about my dad are ambivalent, in think in part because he was not my biological father. He and my mother adopted me at 3 months. In that era, babies were thought to be total blank slates, and adoptive parents were told to take their children home and make them their own. I was very different from my parents personality-wise. I am a bookish introvert and a very private person and my father went to his grave criticizing me for it. He struggled with his weight and was insecure about it, and came from an insular, small-town background. As a result, he tended to be suspicious or distrustful of anything or anyone that didn’t fit his idea of what was right or proper and wanted to control every aspect of our lives. My personality didn’t fit his ideas, so I was criticized and nagged for it.

He could be a bully too. He would deliberately say something he knew would provoke me and when I protested, he doubled down and went on and on. Then, when I was truly upset, he would tell me that I was too sensitive and needed to develop a sense of humor. The only sense I developed was that I powerless, I didn’t matter, and I wasn’t worthy of respect.

I slowly began to alter how I expressed myself and how I acted around him to try to avoid this. As a result, I play-acted, pretended and people-pleased my way through life. I told myself I could adapt to anything and if a situation felt wrong it was on me to make it work. I took some disastrous jobs and had some terrible relationships because of this.

All that being said, he was a hard worker and a good provider. He had good business sense and knew how to handle money, and I did reap the benefits of these traits. And he was the “fun” parent, as opposed to my mom, who was frugal, businesslike and no-nonsense all the way. My dad is the only reason I got to learn to drive and wear makeup and anything other than home-sewn clothes, none of which my mother thought was “necessary.” He was also a wonderful grandfather to my two sons.

My dad passed away 3 1/2 years ago, and while I do miss him, once I got over the initial shock and began to see now much of myself I had to hide or give up just to have a peaceful relationship with him, I felt that I had been set free.

20

My dad was an honest and ethical man.