Happy Father’s Day, dopers. In the spirit of the holiday, tell me one interesting fact about your dad, or somebody that you looked up to as a dad. I’ll go first. When my dad was in the service he worked at the hospital where my husband was born. Lakenheath RAF. Oh, and he’s the best daddy ever and I love him… Your turn!
Mine got a war wound, but it was only a bad sunburn on his tush.
He was stationed in the South Pacific during WWII, and spent some of the time on tiny, deserted islands… where they’d skinny dip.
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Toasting you with an Old Fashioned, Dad! Those drinks you’d make us where you’d fuss over it like you were doing brain surgery.
My dad learned to play the accordion when he was a kid, and he stayed with it most of his life. He had an amazing ear (I inherited it from him) and could play just about anything after hearing it.
He died nearly 20 years ago, a few months after my folks’ 50th anniversary. I still expect to see him when I go visit Mom…
My dad was/is my role model. I hope to be as good a man as he was. I don’t think I’ll be as good. Even though I’ve lived longer than he did, am now older than he ever got to be (same for my mom, agewise and somewhat role model wise too).
He chose to treat people kindly even when it was not reciprocated, yet still stood up for himself and for others. He was accepting of other types of marginalized people long before it was a thing, and demonstrated that in words and actions.
He also changed his views when new facts became apparent. He respected reason and education, despite having left school after the 10th grade.
But he could still be a PITA sometimes, too. But never for very much, nor very long.
27+ years after his death and I still miss him a lot.
My dad taught me to read before I started kindergarten.
Dad, my brother and I made up a game called “Throw Down Toilet Paper” which we were only allowed to play when Mom was out of the house. (She didn’t cotton to the rowdiness.)
I lost my dad 12 years ago and was inconsolable for months. I miss him all the time and very much on Fathers Day.
My father was one of the kindest people I have ever known. He was also my role model for raising kids. And I can’t help adding that my son gave me a father’s day card in which he wrote to thank me for being role model for raising kids.
My father was born in 1922; his father was a mail carrier, and they apparently had a comfortable middle-class existence. Until 6 years later when is father died suddenly and the family was thrown into chaos. A couple of years later his mother re-married, and pretty soon had two more kids (total of 4). They had zero money. They lived on a hard-scrabble bit of land in a shack with no electricity, and an outhouse. He did manage to finish high school, just when he turned 18, and was invited to leave home so as to “remove a pair of feet from under the dinner table” (i.e. leave more food for the others). When he left, he blossomed. He had learned a lot of bad lessons during those difficult years, and spent the rest of his life trying to unlearn them and be a better person. He was often a difficult parent and sometimes I thought I hated him, but he did the best he knew how, and was open to change. We were never close, but I appreciate many of the values he taught me.
My dad was the model of integrity. I still try to live up to his high standard. He was also the best listener I’ve ever known. An upset client (He was an attorney and a judge.) could rave for 30 minutes, during which Dad would give his undivided attention and then sum up the whole rant in a few sentences. He was also kindly and understood kids. When we went to a restaurant and wanted dessert, Mom, ever nutrition-conscious, would try to sell us on the fruit we had at home. Dad would get us dessert.
He’s been gone 34 years, and I still miss him (and Mom, gone 12 years) every single day. The greater the love, the greater the loss.
A complex Dude. Still trying to work out how we all fit in to the world. He did the best he could, I believe. He had huge shortcomings, and spectacular achievements, but was a better man than me overall. I can only hope to… well. I can’t. He did more by 30 than I could ever hope for. And I ain’t catching up.
He said stuff to me that I never understood till I got older. And he was Dead Right Every Time.
I have one of his favorite cars and I do my best to keep it going. It still runs and I love it. I got his M1 Carbine that he rehabilitated. I keep it safe and clean. And ready.
I’m glad my kid doesn’t post here
My father is a man of integrity. I inherited most of his good points and a few of his lesser ones.
It’s not time to make a change
Just relax, take it easy
You’re still young, that’s your fault
There’s so much you have to know
Find a girl, settle down
If you want you can marry
Look at me, I am old but I’m happy…
I was once like you are now
And I know that it’s not easy
To be calm when you’ve found something going on…
But take your time, think a lot
Why, think of everything you’ve got
For you will still be here tomorrow
But your dreams may not
How can I try to explain?
When I do, he turns away again
It’s always been the same, same old story
From the moment I could talk, I was ordered to listen…
When my mother died in 1968, my uncle… who had a low opinion of my father… whipped out his checkbook and asked him ‘how much for the (4) kids, Bob?’ Bruce was completely serious too, nobody in my family is completely sane. Except for Beth.
Hmmm…
My Dad spent a week in jail in 1982 and yet was a legitimate millionaire in 1986, 1987 at the latest.
Hmmm… click on the link for more. It was a wild ride.
My father was most likely a narcissist and sociopath. He was the youngest and only boy, and his mother doted on him. He could do no wrong. Dad grew up to be a handsome man with wavy hair and an affable personality, at least on the surface. My mother met him when they were in high school, and from then on, even though her family disliked him, he was the only man for her.
It was during the summer of 1934 that he got my mother pregnant. It was the depths of the Depression, they didn’t have jobs couldn’t afford to get married and couldn’t afford a child. Somehow Dad scraped together the money for a back-alley abortion that nearly killed my mother. She suffered with health problems for the rest of her life.
After Mom recovered, she and Dad eloped. They barely scraped by on part-time jobs, sometimes having nothing to eat but beans, but they were happy. When World War II broke out, they both got war jobs and could finally afford to buy a house. Mom had trouble carrying pregnancies and lost two, but finally after 10 years of marriage she had my older brother, then three years later, I arrived.
When I was 9 months old, my father was badly burned in an explosion at work. He spent four months in the hospital and nearly died. My mother nursed him back to health while caring for a baby and a toddler. Then Dad paid her back by having an affair with her best friend. She kicked him out. In retaliation, so he accused her of adultery (she had met my future stepfather by then) and won custody of my brother Jim and me.
At one point, when we were still living with Mom, Dad kidnapped us from our beds in the middle of the night and kept us for ten days in a house where he lived as a boarder. There was a lock on the phone so we couldn’t call Mom. Dad did a weekend in jail for that little stunt.
It wasn’t that Dad thought he was the better parent. It was because he wanted to get revenge on Mom by doing the worst thing you could do to a mother, taking away her children. Also, he was a cheapskate and didn’t want to pay child support. To prevent Mom from suing for custody, Dad dragged us from one place to another, eventually moving hundreds of miles away. We moved from one rental to another, once on only a few hours’ notice. With every move some of my toys would disappear because Dad couldn’t be bothered to pack all my things.
Jim and I changed schools eight times in six years. We were strictly forbidden to tell Mom our address or even what school we attended. We were lucky if we got to see her for a couple of weeks in summer and at major holidays. Once I didn’t see her or talk to her for three and a half years. Dad had brainwashed me to fear her and to believe that she was an alcoholic (she wasn’t). By the time we were finally reunited, I was taller than she was, and her hair had turned gray.
My brother and I grew up as latchkey kids with little supervision and even less affection. But we had a pet white rat that I was very attached to. One day when I was 10, Ratsky turned up missing. I searched all over the house for days but never found him. My brother eventually revealed the truth: that the rat had gotten out in the night and crawled into bed with Dad. Dad had picked the rat up, gone to the front door, opened it, and hurled the rat as far as he could throw it. Jim found the rat lying dead on a neighbor’s lawn.
When I was 11 Dad remarried. Dolly was a divorced woman who had three young children. Dad didn’t bother to prepare my brother and me for what was to come, he simply brought Dolly to the house one day and announced “This is your new mother.” Dolly was busty with an hourglass figure and red painted lips and nails, and she was 20 years his junior. It wasn’t hard to figure out that he married her for himself and not for us. It was also obvious that my stepmother didn’t like either me or my brother. My brother soon fled to live with Mom; I would not see him again for four years. Meanwhile, I was pressed into service as an unpaid babysitter and household helper while being emotionally abused by Dolly. I left home at 18, as soon as I could get a job, and never looked back.
Some years later, when we were both adults, my brother and I were talking about our crazy childhood. Jim told me another story about Dad’s cruelty that made me feel sick. He said that Mom had given Dad money to take their dog, Blackie, to the vet. My brother, who would have been about five at the time, rode along. But instead of going to the vet, my father pulled over, took the dog out of the car and clubbed him to death.
For the rest of their lives I maintained a cordial relationship with Dad and Dolly but kept my distance. You can’t imagine what it was like trying to find Father’s Day cards that didn’t say what a great dad he was.
Kind, accomplished and naïve. Worked at a small religious college, and taught History, English, foreign languages, Archeology, and Geography. Also wrote textbooks. Often drove hundreds of miles to preach or give presentations at churches across the midwest, and slept in his car to save the college money. Played piano, sang loudly, typed like a mofo, and was a decent artist. He believed the world was less than 8,000 years old, and worked many archeological digs to find the evidence.
He voted Republican all his working life, but when he moved to the retirement home, my sister programmed his TV to skip Fox News, and he voted for Hillary. He told us Trump was “a rascal.” All four of his kids grew up to be atheists, but we were proud and fond of Dad.
Dad was complicated. He was intelligent but had a fondness for booze. He and I clashed a fair bit as he did with his father. Funny thing was, I got on great with his father but I was the only grandchild who did. I think Grandad had high expectations of his son which suffocated him so he rebelled. He went to boarding school, got a job with a bank but left it to do manual work and usually had little money. Lucky Mum worked and was good with money, she was the main provider.
Growing up, we didn’t do father/son stuff. He never taught me any sport skills or many skills at all, I had to learn those myself. I played junior footy from age 12 til 17, he never saw me play a single game and I had to bum lifts to away games with other kids parents.
When I was about 17, we had an argument one night, I can’t recall what about, he was half cut and came at me swinging a fire poker. I beat the shit out of him but don’t remember doing it.
I left home at 19, moved to the city with a white collar job. By the time I was 20 I was earning more than him. I still went home most weekends in the first few months to get Mum to do my washing and collect cooked food to take back and freeze, and our relationship changed completely. As an adult, we got along. I think back that maybe his upbringing and relationship with his father just didn’t equip him to be a father, but he became a bloody brilliant grandfather. Both my kids loved him.
He had surgery for skin cancer on his face in 96. End result looked like a blindfolded and drunk Leatherface had attacked him with a chainsaw. After a short period of convalescence, he needed to do 6 weeks of radiation treatment. So he did weekdays in the hospital getting burned everyday and I’d pick him up Saturday morning, bring him back to my place and he’d spend the weekend with me and the kids. It was about then that the dynamic shifted and the parent-child relationship reversed.
He died nearly 20 years ago. My favourite memories are:
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Him banging on the bedroom door on a Sunday morning, telling me I needed to get moving as I needed to take him to the pub by 11am. With no breakfast, I’d take him to the pub and we’d drink 20 pots each then I’d drive him home in time for Mum’s Sunday roast lunch
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Him playing in the backyard pool with my kids when they were little. Mangled face like a bashed crab, diving under the water and them yelling, screaming and loving every second of it.
I miss the old bastard.
My dad had a subtle sense of humor. I remember him driving somewhere with a guy following who had no idea where we were going. My dad didn’t like the guy following us for the 45 minute drive.
Every time we had to make a turn, my dad would slow down and use his turn signal, but always the wrong one. I noticed this early on in the drive and it was consistent; right signal for left turn, left signal for right turn.
On arrival at the destination, the guy following us ran up and told my dad his turn signals we’re screwed up. My dad acted incredulous. The guy was certain it was due to a wiring issue and crawled under the vehicle. After much poking and prodding, he had my dad try his signals and they worked!
I never told him I was “in on it”.
He played hockey in an amateur league and was recruited by the Pittsburgh Hornets, a minor league hockey team. When I was born he gave up hockey.
My dad is 96. His mother died in childbirth when he was eight, during the Depression, and he was raised in warm poverty by his maternal relatives, Jews who had escaped from the pogroms in Europe to Flatbush NY. He always wanted to be a newspaperman. He was the editor of the newspaper on the aircraft carrier heading for Japan, which turned around and went home, after Hiroshima. He was the editor of the college paper at U of Wisconsin where he went on the Gl Bill and met my farmer’s daughter mother. They went to California seeking opportunity, totally broke with a new baby, in an ancient Studebaker. He started a newspaper out of the old house they were renting in a tiny cow town called Milpitas, because the Ford factory in Oakland was relocating there and he figured the town would grow. He was always a good guesser. He and my mother built that into a small newspaper empire of weeklies that covered the whole of what is now Silicon Valley.
He was a born entrepreneur, loved foreign travel, opera, classical music, modern art, modern literature, and his children. He made friends everywhere, from the lowliest press boy to state senators. He would take us kids to San Francisco, to see A.C.T. plays, and to City Lights Books, telling us, ‘get anything you want’ and we would come home with boxes of books. He would skip down city streets with us while my mother walked grimly and disapprovingly behind.
He is still living in the historic house in a county open space preserve, which he rebuilt from an abandoned wreck, in return for free rent for the rest of his life. It was the home of a famous crusading newspaperman, who had the architect Julia Morgan design his ranch house.
A one of a kind guy, my dad.
That you know of.
I was the only one of four kids to be there & hold his hand when he died.
i think that’s all I want to say, besides that he always did his best for us.
My Dad is a retired Postmaster.
How do I describe him beyond that?
I’m a grandfather myself and I’m still asking my Dad for help(not really) and advice(yes really).
There are layers and depths of humanity to the man that maybe nobody but my mom will ever know.
That’s my Dad, a deeply compassionate and kind and caring person. Competent with a ruler, saw, or multimeter or wrench and screwdriver.
I never really “met” my Dad until my brother died and I saw how it affected him.
I’m still gaining new understanding of him even at this point in my life.
“Very well, where do I begin? My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My father would womanize, he would drink, he would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Some times he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy, the sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament.”