Progenitors

What’s the best thing your father taught you? Some of my buddies answered that question.

“…my father had tattoos on both of his arms. When l was 16 he told me never to do what he had done. I answered “No problem.” and I went along with him. l’ve never regretted my decision.”

— Eric Blount

The best thing my father taught me was how to love a child! There isn’t even a close second best. — Neil Lukatch

The best piece of advice I ever got was from a long-time friend of my father’s, a few years after my father’s untimely death. He told me If I’m ever really pissed off at someone, to write that person a letter (email today) and sleep on it before sending. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve disregarded that wise info, every time to have regretted my decision.
I would hope that, having ever had the chance to converse with my Father, he would have advised me to: Be myself, try to do well and above all else, have a sense of humor. — Jerry Malsh

For most of his working life, my father drove a Greyhound Bus (in those 1950s days, as American as hotdogs and apple pie). As a child, I sometimes got to go along…From watching him work, I learned that people respond to being treated with respect and dignity… and that working in the service of others is an honorable way to make a living. —Patrick Keoller

Education. Always remember and respect our family name. Always early, never late (this applied to our evening meal and to any business meeting). — George Brigandi

My father gave me very little advice, but always took the time to listen to me and was often skillful at reading between the lines of my conversations with him. I feel now as though he was helping me to trust my own inner guidance. — Steve Starr

My father was big on honesty. He used to say being honest is like being a ‘little bit pregnant.’ Either you are or you’re not. — Brian Cox

The main lesson that I learned from my father is that for most of us, what we do is much more significant and lasting than what we say. It is not so much the specific lessons and habits that my father taught me that have stayed with me, but the example of how he lived his life and demonstrated his values and beliefs through everyday actions. — Bill Lampke

I learned from my father that in the Post Office at the time — and I think it might still be the case — that bosses were called “stupidvisors.”I don’t have a stupidvisor anymore, so you can use my name. — Harold Schlegel

I lost my father in 1981. Since my folks were holocaust survivors we were very close. When he died I took it extremely hard and lost quite a lot of weight and asked why did he had to die before he saw see either of his children marry. I just finished Viktor Frankl’s book “Man’s Search for Meaning.” His mantra is “compromise” which I try to live by. — Rami Hagari

My father was a physician, a devout Catholic, and a very witty man. This is all background for two quotes. “There are three people with whom you need to be totally honest: your doctor, your lawyer, and your priest.” He also had a great admonition. “ Never argue with a fool, because after a while, spectators can’t tell the difference!” — Jim O’Neill

He was an attorney and loved his work… I was proud of him as a professional respected in his vocation. He believed in responsibly caring for his family in the toughest times of the great depression. He took pride in what was his and worked diligently to keep them well-cared for. — Harry Wilson

One thing I remember is that my dad gave me an early appreciation for science. We took numerous trips to the museums and used a small telescope to look at the planets. I have a fond memory of us building paper maché solar systems. — Neal Solomon

Our generation is big on hugs but my dad expressed love by setting examples. I watched him set his own responsibilities and meet them. Sure, his family was most important, but paying the monthly mortgage was also his top priority. — Chris Walker

My father developeda serious illness in midlife. He taught me that it takes the guts to hang in there — Pat Shiplett

Two things my father told me: The purpose of life is to have a positive effect in those who are in one’s life. And, seemly impossible goals can be achieved through perseverance and patience. — Ed Wang

The things a boy, especially a boy, needs to learn from his father — respect for women, the value of work and education, sobriety, dealing with anger and jock itch, etc. — are critical to his growth. And nothing does more good for a man than to teach those virtues to his children.

On this Fathers Day, 2015, nearly one out of four American fathers is not living with his children, and it’s not just in poorer communities. There are theories about why this is happening but one thing is sure, we’re all poorer for it.

Who better to teach the game of War to a four-year-old than a man who managed to avoid blistering agents in Europe? That man would be George.

George and the boy turned the cards week after week until the child recognized every number and every face in the deck. George explained that you play the cards dealt to you and that a card’s power depends on the one it goes up against. He taught the boy that loss can turn to victory, and vice versa, and that you shouldn’t count your chickens before they hatch. “We don’t have chickens” the boy replied.

George and his wife Mary Jane would have made wonderful parents but that wasn’t to be. They found prayers of fertility to be tricky. Across the street the prayers of a couple with more children than they planned were answered with even more babies, each more beautiful than the other.

Mary Jane and George began to borrow the boy next door. Saturday
mornings became a ritual. The boy would watch for Mary Jane to raise her kitchen blinds as a signal that he should come over for a second breakfast.

Mary Jane hailed from Kentucky where hams, sausages, eggs, biscuits, syrup and canned fruit grow on trees. The boy, a runt with the puffy eyes of the chronically malnourished (he wasn’t), would knock off everything Mary Jane could throw at him. She also introduced him to his coffee, mostly steaming milk and sugar.

Mary Jane would sit the boy next to her on the couch and they would “visit” over her candies (this was decades before Forest Gump, mind you). Each chocolate sat in a neat row in its own paper doily. Fussy tissues separated the layers. She taught the boy to identify the shape and color and squiggle on top of each one, then guess what was inside. She never reached for his favorites, he could only assume she had bad judgment in chocolates.

These were the first times the boy was allowed to venture out of his house on his own. It was only a few yards between back doors but it was as heady as stepping out of a spacecraft. Unlike the astronauts who came later, he wasn’t aware that his every step was being triangulated from those two kitchen windows.

The couple knew that time and maturation was working against them. They knew the boy would eventually cross the street and go off kindergarten. Families had begun buying television sets and the Funks would never be able to compete with Ramar of the Jungle and Sky King. They knew that Mighty Mouse was on the way.

It didn’t show up on the mobile apps or the weather channels, Doppler missed it completely. Only he and his wife and their daughter knew the storm was coming.

It showed no sign of changing course. Pressure was building with every conversation, text message and passing in the hallway.

Their daughter had her talking points down cold: I’m an adult! (She turned 18 days before.) I’ve pulled God knows how many all-nighters! I aced my APs! I earned this! A tradition! Once-in-a-lifetime!

There was a group of mothers who not only liked the idea but set it in motion. The plan was to rent a resort unit a hundred and some miles away and turn it over to a handful of recent high-school grads for a weekend. Enough kids had their own cars so getting there wouldn’t be a problem.

One mother in particular fielded calls from other parents. No, she wouldn’t actually be there in person. But, yes, she would be somewhere. She would definitely, you know, have her cell phone on. There might be alcohol but what else would you expect from our amazing “work-hard, play-hard” overachievers?

She danced around every question but on one she was perfectly clear. Even though she would sign for the rental, she would in no way be responsible if something happened. “They’re legal, you know?”

None of this surprised the new graduate’s parents. There were homes that were open for sleepovers every weekend. Tweens would curl up, catch a few hours sleep (or not) and wait for a ride in the morning. Their daughter often begged a sick day the following week until, mercifully, a groundable offense put an end to her sleepovers.

With the slash-and-burn adolescent years behind her, she was someone you could do business with. But on this question, she had filled sandbags and hunkered down.

It had been on a Saturday night forty-five years earlier, that her father woke his own mother to tell her what a fire hydrant had done to his friends.

They had been playing poker, the nine of them, townies and part-time students a year out of high school. They didn’t have an ounce of fat among them so “three-two” beer was enough to get them drunk. But it was the whisky that sealed the deal.

After poker they piled into cars and raced on a deserted suburban lane. The heavy, Detroit-made family sedan couldn’t hold curves as well as the Triumph or the Chevy coupe. Wayne lost his life. Dan lost the use of a leg. Johnny, the driver who slammed into the hydrant (and the sweetest kid in the group), would walk away tortured and inconsolable for years.

The graduate’s father can recall visiting the ICU several times a week — as long as Wayne was alive. He remembers sitting with Wayne’s family. He is fairly certain that he went to the graveyard with his mother, and that she drove.

What troubles him is that he doesn’t remember being properly devastated. He doesn’t know if he had suffered enough to be absolved for bringing the whisky that night. The right to cry wasn’t forbidden in his family — his factory-worker uncles openly wept when his grandfather died — but he couldn’t say if he had cried over the loss of his friend.

He told his daughter and her brother about The Accident many times. He didn’t condemn the evils of alcohol absolutely. After all Jesus turned water into wine to please his mother.

He and his daughter were close and they were anxious to settle their standoff. They walked to a wooded stretch of the Lake Michigan shoreline. He hoped he could convince her not to go away that weekend. He was reluctant to issue commands to a daughter he could no longer consider as just a child. (He had enlisted at 17.)

She allowed him to relive the details of the accident once again, looking out at the lake as he spoke. But this time she noticed something different in his delivery.

His breathing wasn’t right. His pattern of speech was off. There was a pause that had never been there before. That’s when she saw, rolling down her father’s cheek, a tear that had been held in reserve all these years, waiting for a time when it might make a difference.