I had three fathers in my childhood, none of them very good. Making an effort to see the best in them that I can from this distant perspective, I did gain something from each, though none of them reached even 50% of the complete package. I don't think I ever wondered much what it would have been like to have a good father, but I did notice, almost with surprise, when anyone referenced having a good father, whether in conversation, or in a song or book. Huh. Looks kinda nice.
"Field of Dreams" is not even really about having a good father, but of finally getting something from a bad one, but I couldn't leave the theater the first time I saw it, sitting there weeping. Of course, I have always been able to go from completely callous to sentimentalist in a flash, so maybe that doesn't count.
My father-in-law ended up being the best of my fathers, even though they didn't like me much at first and it was nearly twenty years after I first dated my wife for them to really warm to me. But he was a very decent man, who tried to be kind to everyone, and that would especially include anyone brought into the family. I was the only one missing from the family bulletin board, which I thought was pointed at first but eventually decided was just an unfortunate oversight. At the end they liked me very much.
In talking with my old highschool and college friends during my nostalgia tour, a few have wanted to talk about fathers, and I noticed only recently that I may have been steering the others to talk about theirs. Only this year have I started to wonder "What would it have been like to have that father?" A couple of them would have been nightmarish, but most would have been fine, and a few I think would have been excellent, enough to wonder how my life might have been better with them. I never thought that at the time I knew them, playing in their yards or dating their daughters. I was off on a mission to found my own family. For a long time I didn't much like most men a generation older than me anyway. I did worse with those professors and bosses. All their fault, of course. Grandfatherly types I did great with.
When I was middle-aged I would tell young men hurting about their own bad fathers or lack of fathers that you can get some of it back by being a father. Not all of it - all losses are real, even if better things come of them. But being a father can be an opportunity for repair. I stopped saying that years ago, I don't know why. Maybe just being busy with five sons put me in Garrison Keillor's Civilization mode.
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ReplyDeleteJust because a boy has/had a good father growing up, doesn't necessarily transfer into being a good father himself. Myself as case in point. Not abusive or anything like that, but inattentive and a little bit selfish.
ReplyDeleteRemember Ward Cleaver from Leave it to Beaver, that was our dad in a nutshell, except instead of being an office drone, our father was a mechanic. Also a Scout Master and little league coach, very family oriented. Vacation every summer, usually two weeks where we would go up to the Sierra Nevada mountains and camp out. Although in the summer of '69, we drove from San Diego to Miami, FL.
That's a long drive, Mike. It sounds either hellish or a great adventure.
ReplyDeleteFor three kids, 9, 10 and 11, it was an adventure. Riding in the back of our '65 Chevy pickup truck in a self contained camper it could sometimes get a little boring, although we made stops at Carlsbad caverns and in Houston to watch a MLB baseball game in the new Astrodome. And on the way back, a stop at Cape Kennedy.
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