Fathers

I didn't get my blog written in time for Father's Day, because I worked. And the minute I got home, I had to plop myself on the couch with feet up on the coffee table and watch the US Open. I thought about my father all day long, but especially watching that golf game. Golf is a game that my parents enjoyed. In fact, in retirement, it was almost their job! I think they played three times a week, at least, year round. My father had a serious heart attack when he was 84 which he totally ignored and consequently it did a great deal of damage to his heart. Despite what must have been serious angina, he continued to drag a golf cart around and walk 18 holes for several months before the damage got too severe and created other problems that eventually led to his death. He was not going to miss his golf.

I love the game. So does one of my sisters, Mary Beth. In fact, she has already had a hole-in-one. My father had two, both in same year. Just like waiting for the Browns to make the Super Bowl, I am waiting for my hole-in-one.

My father was truly one of the good guys. He was Swedish, from a small town in Pa. which provided him fodder for his many stories about the locals. He was a very handsome man and was in his 30's and widowed when he met my mother while on leave from the army. He was sent to officer's training school, served in WWII, came home and went to college on the GI bill while working full time and raising a family. He ended his army stint by remaining in the reserves and retired as a Lt. Colonel. He would have liked to have completed law school, but by the time he finished a bachelor's degree, I think already having three of his four children to support was a deterrent.

My father's early years were not easy. He had a difficult father who has been described as mentally ill. He had to leave Westminster college to help with the family business and manage family affairs. He married a high school sweetheart who soon after developed TB and was in and out of sanatoriums for much of their seven years of marriage before she died. Some of that history is vague to me as it was a family secret for years.

If I think of the routines in my childhood, I think of my father going to work in the morning, dressed in suit and tie (and fedora and overcoat in the winter) and returning at the same time every day for dinner. We all sat at the table together and a standing joke in our home was that someone would spill their glass of milk and it would head straight for my dad's lap. We had lively conversations and my father was a master story teller. He had a fantastic memory and could recite poetry that he had learned as a youth in school. He could imitate that different ethic accents of the men he had befriended over the years while he worked for the Youngstown Sheet and Tube steel mill. He had many sayings, jokes and expressions that we have passed on as a family. He had a wonderful sense of humor. He was very intelligent, and could finish the New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle by himself in an afternoon. He loved to fish and hunt. He was an avid reader. He liked to discuss politics. He was mellow. I see much of him in my oldest son, Matt. They have a relaxed demeanor but underneath is a burning passion for history and political debate. And, my father definitely influenced Matt's passion for fishing and the outdoors.

I think the best gift that my father gave to me, though, was his patience and ability to listen. He did not judge me. I know that I must have exasperated him often. I was a willful teenager and an opinionated young adult. The Vietnam War caused us much strife as my world was very impacted by the draft and the war and we stood on opposite ends of the debate. Years later he told me that he had been wrong and had changed his opinion to my side. He supported me emotionally through the dramas of my divorce, single parenthood, changes in career, remarriage, separation and all the issues in between. I felt uplifted by his acceptance of me and my decisions, no matter how bad they were. I felt very close to my father and grieved very deeply after he died. I miss him today and will always. Thank you Dad. You were the best. And you were right when you said "too soon old and too late smart." But I keep trying.