My Father

It is often said you can choose your friends but you can’t choose your family. My parents are the typical Boomers. Born after the war, raised in the Ozzie and Harriet era of the 50’s and 60’s, they grew up experiencing the life and times of their generation. The cold war, mutually assured destruction, Truman, the Kennedy assassination, Vietnam, Men on the moon, Flight as the norm, Muscle cars, the martial arts, computers, free-love, drugs, things that were not a regular part of their parents generation became accepted.

I know about this generation, as a child knows its own parents. Things are kept from us that are not ‘any of our business’, other things are shared in an effort to help us understand ‘who they are’ and maybe a little of who we are in the process. Of my parents, it has been my relationship with my father that has been the most difficult for me.

As a small child my memories of my father are limited. I recall going to the dojo to learn Judo from my father. I have memories of what had to be the fastest car in the world, a 1967 Chevrolet Camaro. I also recall one late, late night waiting for this student, father, instructor, to come home and build a home made of Lincoln Logs. There is also the day at the hospital not knowing I almost lost him to a motorcycle accident.

Then we moved back to St. Louis and in a short time many things changed. The Camaro and motorcycle were sold replaced by a number of funky cars including the Chevrolet Vega. Our house went through a sprucing up to be placed on the market for sale. And property was sought after to build my parent’s dream home. There was another change in the family the addition of a beautiful black haired blue eyed sister.

Shortly after her birth and our visit to the Magic Kingdom my father left. Moved across town to an apartment above a cleaners and filed for divorce. I know that after he left we had to go spend quality time with him and his friends. These visits were not fun as I can recall yet like any kid placed in the midst of a bad situation we made the best of it. Sure there are pictures with smiles and showing good times but remember this is the 1970’s not 1870’s… the catch phrase before every picture is SMILE.

He would later move to Paducah, Kentucky and we would be required to visit by law. Once I believe was Memorial Day. The next was 6 long weeks spent with two babysitters, sisters, my father had hired to watch my brother and I. These sitters sat in my dads bedroom and told us not to bother them. They also left us with their mother on the wrong side of the tracks. Two white boys from the suburbs in a low-income black neighborhood. Yet, as kids will do we made the best of it. Even the trip we made through the drive through liquor store so the sitters could purchase some ‘cowboy cigarettes’ I thought was cool because only in the John Wayne movies did I ever see anyone roll their own cigarettes. John Wayne was very cool to an eight-year-old.

Things didn’t change much in subsequent visits except they were longer and the location changed to Ponchatoula, Louisiana. The one bright spot of these visits was my father’s new wife and her family. While I was terribly shy to strangers they were very welcoming and took in three kids who were not pissed at them but at their father. I don’t believe I have ever thanked then for their kindness and acceptance but I will now. My only regret is that her parents are not alive now to know how much I greatly appreciate what they did for me. Thank you.

These visits with my father were a time to watch him work long hours and try to be a father on the weekends when he was off. We were babysat by the sports club my father joined. Then by a girl down the street from his house, I was later to find out mental illness ran in her family. The father committed suicide and she suffers from bouts of depression. I felt isolated because after every summer away for two months I had to remake friends at home. The friends we made at my fathers were never more than summer flings because kids move on.

There were more court battles, one brought on because when my father arrived I refused to go. I was not going to lose another summer to being isolated on 10 acres waiting to go back home. That was a glorious summer I did as I pleased went to the pool not the pond. Went to Six Flags on my season’s pass with friends. I even finished the baseball season with the team I played on for half of the previous summers. I earned money mowing lawns for friends and family and used it to fund my summer of freedom.

I don’t recall much of what I did that summer other than I did not spend it sitting in the house doing nothing or isolated outside of Ponchatoula. Also that the summer ended with a trip to the courts and telling the judge why we didn’t want to go down and visit my father.

I know now, that had my father spent more time with us while we were there… less time on work. Taken a vacation not related to a business trip with us, and maybe gotten us involved in some summer day camp these visits might have been less stress and more productive in building a better relationship with us. I know he never had much for a role model as a father except the occasional visits with family and his grandfather. This only goes so far because he is highly intelligent and could have attempted to learn to become a better father.

Even to this day he portrays how he lost out on his children’s lives and is not included. His inclusion always has a price. Don’t get me wrong there is also a price for my mother’s inclusion in things. Yet, his always comes with lectures and the world according to how he views it. He wants to pass on all his wisdom all his knowledge. He wants to have a legacy live on in his children. I guess he is not unlike many other fathers he wants to know his life his name will be remembered and passed on.

I am not a father myself and this may be for good reason. I have not been exposed to the best role models. From a sons advantage I know what I want to be as a father. I want my children to know that I love them, I want them to know my history, but ultimately want them to know what I have searched for almost thirty years. A father who helps them grow and become better people, citizens, and parents than I am.

I stand alongside my father; I have received very few things from him I do not stand as other children do on their parents’ shoulders and move on. I was handed nothing and have worked for everything in my possession. My life is not better or worse than others just different. I live by my choices but I also regret the wasted relationship I have to this day with my father.

I know he will never fully accept my choices and he will always view me in a suspicious light. I will never become the success he envisioned. All I hope is at the end of my time my legacy will be I left the world and any children I have better than when I entered.