Being a Dad

My Dad and I in 1959 on the back porch of my Grandpa & Grandma's house

On this Father’s Day I’m incredibly pleased to be able to have my Dad around. He’s 85 years old and still going strong, but after my recent road trip—where I spent considerable time thinking about Lewis & Clark, pioneers and the average life expectancy of men, census-measured in 1860 at a mere 41.8 years old (vs. today’s 78.2)—it’s amazing that he’s still doing so well. Miracles of modern medicine, great nutrition and solid genetics all play a role, but I also think it’s him and his ability to stand fast and just keep going.

He’s been a great Dad. As I said in this post about him last year:

“I remember being that little guy looking up to this giant of a man with hairy arms who was always physically and morally strong, someone who taught me the imperative of marital fidelity, telling the truth and always “doing honest work”, and taking my hat off in the elevator when ladies were present (when I was 9 or 10 years old, we were in an elevator and I had on a baseball cap as it stopped on a floor as we headed down to the lobby. Two older women stepped on the elevator and he lightly elbowed me and looked at my head. I instantly got the message and removed my cap!).

Sitting in the back seat of the car on family vacations while my mom and sisters were sleeping found me often staring at the back of his head as we drove for hours and hours, always feeling a sense of safety and security with him in control that he was probably oblivious to at the time. It was a sense that carried over in to every part of our lives and I knew that everything was always going to be “all right” as long as he was around.”

My daughter, son and I on a family trip to New York

My own two kids are amazing people. They are this way in no small part to my bride of nearly 25 years, Michelle. She’s embued them with a rock solid sense of stability that I hope to have matched. I’ve tried to pass on my Dad’s sense of morals, justice, fidelity and commitment, telling the truth and so on, and both of my kids have far surpassed my hopes and dreams for how they’d turn out. I’ve always intended to leave the world a better place than when I arrived, but I didn’t think my legacy would come in the form of fathering two amazing spirits who are already well on their way to moving the human race forward.

None of us are perfect, but if my kids feel as warmly toward me as I do toward my own father as I near the end of my time here, I’ll feel like I’ve done my Dad-job well.