A Tribute to Dads (mine in particular)

Yes, folks, Father’s Day is just around the corner and I thought I’d share a few humorous anecdotes about my 80-year-old dad that are still fresh in my mind despite the attempts of time to erase them from my memory.

My dad was forced to quit school at the age of 13 and is still the smartest man I’ve ever met (although age has slightly dulled the sharpness of his intellect).  His dad sent him off to work in a local automobile factory where he welded car frames just outside Huddersfield, England in 1949 as the country was still recovering from World War II.  He told this story, and continues to do so, in a vain attempt to toughen me up as I whined about trivial things in my life, such as when the arm came off my G.I. Joe or when I was denied use of the family car.

As I approached adulthood and went through the “difficult” years, I remember telling him that I didn’t care about his “stupid” life story and his version of the “having to walk 6 miles, uphill, to school in all types of weather” tale.  In fact, I told him that I never wanted to hear it again on several occasions.

However, in 1991 as I traveled across the Kuwaiti desert during Operation Desert Storm, I desperately wanted my father to be there to relate that story to me once again and I thought about it often as the heat, sand, and events of war threatened to destroy my resolve.  When I returned home and revealed this fact to him, he simply said, “I didn’t know when, but I knew that story would help you at some point,” and as he said those words I’m sure I saw him do something I had never seen him do before…wipe a tear away from his eye (which he still adamantly denies to this day).

As a child, I remember my dad working long hours at the sheet metal shop and coming home exhausted every evening.  During the summer months, my mom had her hands full with three young children to care for.  As a, shall we say, “mischievous” child, I got into more than my share of trouble and my mom would use the often heard refrain, “You just wait until your father gets home,” which usually meant a spanking of some type.

However, when I was ten I remember giving my younger brother what I deemed, an attractive haircut.  My mom deemed it otherwise.  I knew I had stepped in it yet again and waited with fear in my room for the inevitable squeaking of my door which would spell my doom.  My dad simply came in and said, “Son, I’m never going to hit you again.  It’s not the right thing to do (he would often ask me when I had a dilemma, “what’s the right thing to do?”).  But your mother expects me to give you a spanking, but I don’t want to fight that battle with her right now.”  We then proceeded to act out the spanking behind the closed door, complete with my dad hitting my bed with his belt and me crying out in feigned pain.  And he has never raised his hand in anger to me again.

Look, my dad  is and was not perfect, but he did the best he could for me and my siblings with the resources available to him, and I’m sure yours did the same.  I sometimes resented him, as all children do, but I have come to understand, as a father now myself, the immense difficulty of this…”job” isn’t the right word.  So, this Father’s Day do something simple and heartfelt for your dad…a thank you and a hug would probably suffice.  I know it’s all my dad requires.

Steve, MagicKitchen.com blogger