On Fathers' Day, many remember their fathers with sentiments such as "World's Greatest Dad" or impossible superlatives for the men who raised them. My dad was no such man, but he was good enough, at least for me.
I was the sixth of seven children born to my parents at, as my father would often tell me, "the worst time in their lives." If my birth was the high point of a horrific season, I never really knew, but the sentiment became the source of feelings that contributed to poor self esteem, from which I have never fully recovered. Three months after I was born, our family moved 150 miles away from the border towns where my folks had lived their whole lives, and where my grandparents, and the uncles who shut my dad out of the family business, remained. My memories of that place are few and rather dim, as five years later, we moved again.
I grew up in what I often describe as "sublime poverty," an economic state which ensured I had the basics--food, clothing, shelter, but very few luxuries or non-essentials. Hardly spoiled, I now know that such a situation contributed to my spiritual character and helped me identify with those in similar and far worse conditions. We didn't think we were poor, we believed we were solid middle class--as were most of our friends and neighbors.
My father was a brilliant man, a voracious reader and incessant talker. Passionate, hard-working, gregarious, he was well liked by his friends and loved by my mother and siblings. He yelled--a lot-- and when my mom would tell him to lower his voice, he would respond, "I have to yell to be heard!" No doubt this was true as his children all inherited his gift for lively and sometimes contentious dialogue--and an uncanny ability to engage in several conversations at once.
There were a lot of "dadisms"--clever statements which became part of his lexicon. Among them, "when you've got kids, you've got nothing else" and "I wouldn't say 'sh**' if I had a mouth full of it" My favorite was an assessment of American political parties: "When the Republicans are in office, they keep everything on the table for themselves, the Democrats drop a few crumbs for the rest of us."
My father was a Democrat and to say he disliked the rich is an understatement. In his view, they got that way off the backs of the poor. He was Catholic and some of my earliest memories are attending the very early "low masses" with him, while my mom went with perhaps my older siblings who liked to sleep in on Sundays to the later and much longer "high masses." And while his faith shaped his moral character and sense of justice, he was neither preachy or pandering. He did the right thing, always.
But what I remember most about my father is his teaching me to ride a bicycle, the innumerable picnics, Sunday drives and taking us swimming; as well as countless rides to school and to friends' houses. When I was 18 he made me get job and bought me a car so I could attend the local community college and drive myself to work. He taught me how to drive it. My favorite memory was his reading my valentines with me as I lay sick in bed. When my sisters and I would sing and make noise long after our bedtimes he would slap the steps leading to our bedrooms with a yardstick and we would tremble in feigned terror. My father never raised a hand to us and he was fond of giving us "whisker rubs" and dimes and nickels from his nearly empty pockets.
I was fascinated by the way he could take the several run-down houses we lived in and make them beautiful with paint, wallpaper and fresh coats of varnish on the hardwood floors. Our houses always smelled like the tools of his trade. My father, for much of his life, was a humble house painter. When that did not pay the bills he was a salesman for paint manufacturing companies--the last one he worked for relocated us when I was 11 years old. When I was 16, he had had enough of being on the road and sleeping in motels several nights a week, and he returned to his roots and took up a paintbrush again. I hated him for it.
My younger sister and I made this second to the last move with him and my mom. It was here that his penchant for having a cold beer and snifter of brandy after eight hours of work daily, gradually progressed into full blown alcoholism. A tendency toward negativity often resulted in incomprehensible rants about the state of the world, the country and his own life. I remember playing gin rummy with my mom, both of us praying he would fall asleep until she roused him to move to their bed.
When I was 22 years old, I married and moved to Alaska. I was the "old maid" of the family, my older sisters marrying at 18 and 19, my younger sister at 21. A college education seemed out of reach for us as we were too poor to afford one and my father wouldn't take a dime from the government. He never did until my husband-to-be convinced him to apply for financial aid so I could attend Michigan State University. He did so, reluctantly, and he did so again for my younger sister who earned a degree in nursing.
My parents made one more move--back to a town where there had lived previously and where my older sister resided. My mother would often reference a song that must have been popular in the 60's or 70's "My Elusive Dream." It details a similar saga of moving from place to place in search of what always, for him, I believe, was out of reach, unattainable.
While some, including my husband, would say I inherited his negative outlook on the world, I would say I inherited much more positive things: my love of history and books, a eye for decor, and a knack for climbing ladders to beautify a space. He left this world a far better place than he found it, having graced it with seven children who became responsible, productive and involved citizens. He taught us to think for ourselves and to think critically.
Perhaps his saddest legacy; however, was his dying words: "I was a lousy father." Nothing was further from the truth and I don't know if he really believed it. No, he wasn't the "World's Greatest Dad," but he was, a good enough father. He was my father, and he contributed immensely to making me the woman I am today, and that is good enough for me. Love and miss you, Dad.
