esrosedotblog

Today is Father's Day in the US.

A made up holiday but a nice one.

I certainly enjoy the attention.

Phone calls from kids, greetings, a present for "us" from the husband. Beautiful bed sheets, very high thread count. Black on black.

You are never too old for sexy bedsheets.

From Marcus a few trinkets. He is a good boy and knows for sure who is Dads are and what day it is. Every day is Dad's day for him.

And so on.

I know that it is a commercialized initiative but I don't care. There are other fake holidays that are more strongly associated with religion or even the national historical myths.

In any case, if it applies, Happy Father's Day to you. Where ever you are.

I have to think of my Dad who was so special for me. He is still quite alive in my heart.

Labels: fathers, holidays

Today is Father's Day.

Or is it Fathers' Day. Collective.

So many "Dads" in my life.

There is the one true Dad who I still sting around the eyes about. He and I had so many ups and downs and we got through all of it. Happy, so happy at the end. To be able to say goodbye and that I loved him and mean it so much.

Then there are the surrogate Dads. Al who was my Dad's friend and when I had a beef with the real Dad, was willing to sit and listen and advise to give some slack. To listen for the love.

There was Bob who ran the dining hall where I worked at MIT. I had a tough time there academically and Bob helped me through. I ended up running the student staff and I learned a lot about managing from this wonderful man. He was a bootstrapped guy like my own Dad and that has always been a factor in my attraction to father types.

After college, in my first job, there was John who was a maverick, a guy who had been in a lot of companies and had basically pissed off a lot of people with his intelligence and talent as an engineer. When I was with him I learned a lot about being fact based. To not worry about what second rate people said or did.

At the same time I watched and was with John, I had another Bob who was a mild mannered gentleman. A talented guy who had been badly burned by the depression. I learned a lot from him about the power of being nice to people. Combined with the sting of the other guy, John, it was a wonderful bi-style set of relationships.

The big boss, Al, was another self made man who didn't take shit from anyone. He was my interview at MIT when I got that job. He was very tough and painfully direct. When he wasn't direct, he was probably going to fire you. I did not get fired. I was touched that he had tears when I left and had to tell him. He had plans for a lot of his boys but it was taking too much time. He understood. He let me go. I love him very much today and feel so blessed by his example in life.

I began to be on my own after that. Always, sometimes for a short while there were Dads. My own regained ascendancy in my life.

I became a Dad to my real kids. They are still very much in my life. I guess that is a good sign.

I have been able to become a father figure in the lives of many men who I have worked with in various jobs and especially those men and women that I have been involved with in recovery programs.

It is second nature to me.

But it is a learned behavior.

I am a self-centered, highly competitive person and I need to channel that energy. Dads taught me how to do that.

I need to say an anonymous word about all the sponsors that I have had in my recovery program. They have helped me become the man I was meant to be and not take myself out of the action. To live life fully and face into the wind.

Today, I still am the "class president" type. I am the Treasurer of my condo association in the first year on the Board. I wanted to be Chairman right away. Really. But I have learned to be a Dad at a lower level. From this position I can be a shepherd of ideas and the many people who have not a single clue about working with others or asking for help. Our owners. The other Board members.

In my life today I carry the seeds of all my Dads' example. Powerful and potent. I try to be even handed, open and loving to others and to stifle my critic and heavy handed parent who tries to run the show. And, I can also be a source of discipline if necessary. To be a firmer power of example. A guide. And, basically, not to put up with any bullshit especially my own.

Thanks Dads. I am so grateful to you.

Labels: fathers

PASSING

My Dad died today. 1988. Twenty five years ago.

It doesn't seem that long at all.

He is a daily presence for me.

Many experiences that I have touch off a memory of one kind or another.

More and more I find myself doing things his way or believing certain things that he believed. Fervently. He was a strong believer.

He had a level of certainty about right and wrong that he was willing to share directly. He was not a guy for playing softball.

His opinions covered a wide range of experience. On the outside, he was a life long Democrat with an inherent suspicion of any other affiliation.

He had a strong belief in God but not the one that people keep all tightly wrapped up in their churches. He was not taken in by the devout or the interpreters of God's word. He did go to church in his later years to please my mother but it was clear that was the deal.

He had no patience for the "mealy mouthed". Most usually described as those "mealy mouthed bastards". He liked people who were clear and honest.

He had all the virtues. Most acquired through experience. Lying was unknown. It was also not tolerated.

My kids think, perhaps, that I invented the idea that "life is not fair". That was my Dad talking. He didn't think life was unfair either. It was just life. Fair was something we went to in the fall and looked at the farmer exhibits. Maybe it had to do with some form of honor but I think that he believed those concepts to be bullshit.

He was a self made man. Ass kissing was not in his DNA. While he worked for a large company and did his job as a manager as best he could he would not suck up.

He believed in work for its own sake. A good job done.

He was not taken in by the relatives just because they were of the same blood. He helped me to see that family didn't necessarily coincide with the designated parties but could include people who had no branches whatsoever with the family tree.

My Dad could swear better than any other man that I have ever met and I have had some real virtuoso friends. It wasn't so much the variety of his words but the intensity.

He was a patriot. He went and joined the Navy in 1943 because he had to do his part. He had a deferrable job but he couldn't sit on the sidelines. He saw stuff that stayed with him all his life. Bad dreams kind of stuff. And he was a Sailor. The Marines like to think they are lifelong, a fine tradition. They got it from their naval cousins.

When he met my husband and found that John had been in the Navy, the pictures came out and the stories began.

I fought with him much of my life and, at the end, he told me how pleased he was that I was happy. That I had fought for and gained an identity and purpose he was deeply proud of. And this was with my husband in the next room.

It is highly unlikely that he used those words. But that is what I got. It was all there.

I told you he was clear about his opinions.

Best of all, by the time he was dying, we had learned to really hug one another.

On his last day, I was able to get into the hospital bed with him and hold him tight. I got to tell him that it was OK to go. And that I was so proud and happy that he had been such a wonderful father to me.

I know he heard me.

Labels: fathers

FATHERS DAY

I think of my Dad today.

I always got him the cliché stuff. A card. Some Old Spice shaving lotion which he used for years. Gallons.

I know this is mostly a made up holiday. But I like that Obama made yesterday's weekly talk about Fathers and their importance.

I am a Dad. I have been for a long time. It is pretty good.

I have to admit that even though the day is sort of manufactured, I like the cards, the calls. The wishes. Happy Fathers' Day. Let's make that plural. To all the Dads.

And especially to gay dads.

I am one of them but I mean the guys, already couples, or single, who want to be dads and are blazing the trail as openly gay men doing the work to sign up and get started. They do it a lot of ways. Surrogates, adoption. I know a few. They are aces.

Labels: fathers, holidays

I D

I went through my jewelry box this morning.

A search and dispose mission.

I didn't dispose of much. A couple of old watches that I held onto for some reason.

I am keeping my class ring from MIT. My Seiko gold watch I bought once in a duty free frenzy. It is nicer than my standard black plastic Casio GShock. I just don't go anywhere that needs a nicer watch. And the battery has run down.

I have a shitload of cufflinks and shirt studs. Gotta save them. They will be good heirlooms for grandkids who do not have a clue about late 20th Century costumery.

I have a few silver chains. Quite tarnished. No peace sign pendants left. There is an enameled ring that comes from my hippy period. John has our various commitment rings.

The most important part of the hoard is the few thing from my Dad.

His good watch (Hamilton), his work watch (Timex) with a busted band and a thing I could never figure out. It is like a little flask that couldn't possibly be for booze. Maybe scent. I just don't get it.

There weren't many unanswered questions between us when he died but I never did ask him WTF the little flask thing was. Slipped my mind.

The kicker is the ID bracelet he wore in WWII.

My mom and I bought it at Community Jewelers in Stroudsburg Pennsylvania (the County Seat) when I was 8 years old.

I cannot touch this bracelet without crying. Hot tears. Loss. Gain. History. Love. Very hard times. He went away to the War for several years. It was awful and wonderful too.

It was the best and worst time of his life.

He never got over it. But he did come back eventually. So much history in a little silver chain.

I can't wear it.

It is too small for my wrist.

I know that my Dad was smaller than me in stature. But I can never get that he was. He seems so big. So good. So important to me in my life.

I am pleased to say that I have become my Dad, with some embellishments here and there. I am proud to say that too.

Totally unexpected. But there it is.

My identification.

Labels: fathers

1988

My Dad died 22 years ago today.

He had been sick with occasional pneumonia. It kept coming back.

I got a call while I was working with a group in Houston.

His lung had collapsed and the Docs thought it was the end.

I called one of my partners, it was his client, and he got on a plane.

I stepped off the platform as the group went to work in a session. There would be lunch after the group did its work.

He stepped on the platform when they came back from lunch.

I was on a flight back to Boston where I hoped to get a car to drive to Pennsylvania.

Fog closed the Boston airport and I spent the night on the floor in Windsor Locks airport (Hartford). I got into Boston about 7, John met me with the car, I went home and took the car to my Mom's house and was with my Dad that afternoon. Late.

We spent a couple of hours together. He was on a respirator and not conscious to the eye. But I knew that he knew I was there. Or, I was certainly willing to assume that he did.

I told him that I loved him and that it was OK to let go. I was there. I would be there for my Mother. No worries. No regrets.

I mentally forgave him for anything I still thought he had done that I was pissed off about. I told him that.

I forgave myself for stuff that was unfinished between us.

There wasn't a lot. We had been through all that.

A year or two before he told me that he knew I was happy in my life and that he was pleased about that.

That took away all the stuff about me being gay, about my doubts that I measured up for him. All that.

When I was done with the small crumbs of regret, I got into bed with him and held him tight.

Then I went to my Mother's house.

He died during the night.

John and my son Dave drove down the next morning. It was raining hard.

We did the arrangements. Got the funeral guy all our family had used.

We made it a family only thing.

Most of his sisters and a cousin came. It is the first that I saw them in thirty years. And the last.

The "girls" were in their nineties by this time.

And then, he was gone back to the earth.

We got him one of those veteran stones. I have not been to visit him for quite awhile. He is in my heart. I visit often there.

There is still an ache.

My Dad was a wonderful man. He grew up with nothing, left school in the 8th grade, found a job with a food chain and became a manager. He stayed with them for 45 years.

He ended up in some politics. He was Treasurer of the School Board and when I graduated from High School he gave me my diploma.

He saw me through MIT and into my married life.

He was upset at the gay coming out but he held his position as my Dad. He loved me through it as I loved him back.

He became a wonderful grandfather. Beloved by his grandkids.

He did for and with them what he somehow could not do with and for me in the affection department. Open and joyous. I was happy to claim part of it as my own as well.

That's it.

Thoughts about my Dad. God love him.

Labels: family, fathers

VETERANS

I am not a veteran. I was in the US Army Reserve, ROTC. But I didn't serve two years of active duty.

I was a 6 month wonder and then spent 6 years in the active reserve. But I didn't even do that. I have written here about my sparse service to my country. I am not proud of it but there it is. I did correspondence courses and meaningless summer camps to fulfill my obligation. Not much experience. And no vet benefits. Good. I don't deserve anything.

My Dad is the veteran of the family.

He was "too old" to be drafted at 39 so he volunteered for the last half of WWII.

He enlisted in the Navy and was put through all the same training as the young guys. He passed with flying colors.

Then he went to radar school. Radar was new then.

He took his learning to the little radar shack at the top of the bridge on a destroyer escort.

The USS Ebert.

Can you imagine? They have the ship in Wikipedia. Some old grizzled vet has gone through all the ships and made an entry for them. Good for him.

There were "countless" North Atlantic crossings. Rocking and rolling. A number of sub attacks. Depth charges.

Then to the Pacific for the finish of the war where they were hit by a kamikaze with a few deaths and no damage to the ship.

My dad had a piece of shrapnel in his neck when he came home and a lot of bad dream material which he worked on for many years.

He never told much about the War until the end and then not much.

It was hard at home being without him. I can still remember seeing his bus off in the early morning dark. Leaves stirring in the wake of the bus.

But that was nothing compared to his own experience.

He may have, like most men who enlist, a limited view of the reality of war. It was a lot tougher than anyone I know, who went, could have imagined. He never looked back. Never complained. He did his duty.

After the war he joined the American Legion and had a good time with it. He wore his hat, marched in the parades, served as a Commander of the local post and followed the news about other men in other wars.

He was not a right winger. He was a liberal, loving man with a lot of strong resolve to do the right thing. And, in that war, going off to fight was the right thing for him.

I may have resented his being away, particularly the volunteering part. But I saw a lot of other guys, draft dodgers, who sneaked through and they never got over that either. For whatever personal reasons they skipped out and paid a different price.

My dad never spoke against any of these people. He knew in his heart that he did the right thing and that was enough.

For me, I had the reward of pride in my Dad. He was a great guy. He had a great life.

In a way, I also know that he didn't want to miss out on the chance to get "into something" that was way bigger than he was. This is a different kind of thing than patriotism but it is admirable nonetheless. Adventurism. Courage.

My Dad had that in spades too.

My hero.

Labels: family, fathers, nostalgia, patriotism

DOWN AT THE HENGE

We missed it again this year.

We didn't get to be with the gang at the henge. Watchin' the sun come up.

I love the pictures. You can make the sun come through the stone "holes" if you put the camera in the right place.

It is all in good fun though.

I wonder what the druids make of the jet streams in the sky?

My main thing about the summer solstice is that the evenings will start to get darker early again. Booker and I wait and wait at the evening walk for the sun to go down. We don't want to burn our toes.

And, this year, the solstice coincides with Father's Day.

I will be looking at the sun while I sit around and wait for phone calls from everybody. Keeping score and all.

If you are a Father, have a great day. If not? Have a great day anyway even though you missed something really wonderful.

Of course, if you have a father, call him.

Some people have two Dad's you know.

Labels: fathers, seasons

MEMORY

My Dad died 20 years ago today.

I was in Texas doing some work and got word that he was near the end.

My partner Dave rushed out so I could leave the Program.

I left the platform, the group went on an exercise and when they came back, Dave was in charge. Magic.

My plane got fogged out of Boston and I spent the night in Windsor Locks' CN airport, sleeping on the floor, but I made it into Boston the next morning and on to Pennsylvania.

I got there in time to be with my Dad in the hospital and to let him know that it was OK to let go.

I got into the bed with him and held him.

It was a wonderful moment in our lives. Mine. His, now over.

He was a great guy.

The other day I got one of those flashes, as we do, about how much he has given me. I am a lot like him. I can see that now. It makes me happy.

We had our arguments. The usual stuff.

He even came to realize that my being gay was not the big deal that he thought it would be. He told me he was glad that I was happy.

What else could a son ask? Forgiveness and happiness.

I love him very much and miss him every day.

Labels: fathers, life

CONFLICT

Today's film was

The Beat That My Heart Skipped (2005)

Not on the best list. Just a film I wanted to see.

There is a genré of films about tough guys who have an artistic side. Beauty and the Beast.

It is hard to pull off.

John Garfield played roles like this several times in the Forties.

This one is based on a James Toback film, Fingers with Harvey Keitel which I will see later in the week.

This one has a strong father/son thing going on.

Dad is a small time real estate scam artist tough guy. Mom was a concert pianist. Dead and gone.

Don't ask about how they ever got together.

The son got both sides.

Romain Duris is totally convincing in a role that demands suspension of disbelief.

The inner and outer battle is played out quite skillfully.

The supporting players are wonderful to watch.

There is real rapport.

The film is 'noir' in feeling. It looks great.

I enjoyed it immensely.

I will give it a 4 out of Netflix5.

Labels: fathers, films

GOODBYE

I took my grandson to the airport this morning and saw him off on his flight back to Boston.

We did OK. Security and all.

An 'unaccompanied minor'. I heard the guy say 'I got a UM here!'

We got there early and the lines were light.

We had a nice chat.

Then they did the early boarding and he was gone.

I waited until the plane left.

They ask you to but I would have anyway.

The plane went out on the tarmac and I saw it take off.

That is when it hits for me.

They are gone.

There is something so 'not turning back' when those wheels leave the ground.

We had a great visit.

It was his first time traveling alone.

Everything worked so well.

We are grateful to his parents for sharing him with us.

Labels: family, fathers

FODDER'S DAY

In a way, I am not interested in made-up commercial white bread middle class holidays.

Nonetheless, I always participated in the holidays when I was a son.

As a father, I am ambivalent.

On one hand, it does not matter to me. Every day is a dad-day for me.

My kids treat me special enough on a regular basis. I don't need added or compensatory attention.

On the other hand, I sort of sit and expect the phone call from each of them all day long.

One cannot ignore the inner insecurities that make us want even more attention than we already get.

Fortunately, none of my kids make a big deal about it.

There is no fuss.

It is just a phone call with a 'hi', a report of the day, and an 'I love you'.

The 'I love you' part is very important actually. As an orphan I can report that we never, ever say it enough when the parent is alive and kicking.

I don't feel guilty or anything but I do wish that I had been more frequent in my saying that I love my Mom and Dad.

They knew anyway just as I know that I am loved.

It is just that saying it makes it stand out in bolder type somehow.

So. It is just another day but it is not just another day.

I am thinking about my own Dad right now.

A great guy.

I am just now looking at a few of his pictures.

His love still warms me even though I have not been with him for almost 20 years.

And I love him back.

So I suppose that this day is important if it prompts such exercises in love.

Happy Fathers Day.

Labels: fathers

99

Today is my father's birthday.

We would be 99.

A nice round number.

I miss him.

He is here every day. I know that I have some of his stuff.

I can see it in my kids.

He influenced a lot of people.

When he was a kid he had to quit school in the 8th grade and go to work.

That is what most boys did then.

He made up for his lack of education in many ways.

He learned his math and writing and eventually became a manager of a food market for A&P.

He joined the Navy in WWII when he was 'too old' and didn't have to and learned about the world and life and death and the horrors of war on the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans as a radar man on a destroyer-escort.

He got wounded.

He came home and brought the War with him for awhile but eventually he and it calmed down.

He had the wisdom of living.

He took every bit of experience and distilled it into the moment when he needed to say or do any particular thing.

He was a member of the school board. He gave me my diploma when I graduated from High School.

He was on the volunteer ambulance crew. He had some great and grisly stories to tell about that.

You would be amazed what people will call an ambulance for!

Well, maybe not.

We struggled the father-son thing like everyone else and eventually love won.

A good ending to any contest.

I was able to be with him at the end, to let him go and to say goodbye.

Well, I thought it was goodbye. But it was not.

Like I said. He is still here. I have a few pictures of him near my desk. I get to say hello on a regular basis.

It was a family joke that he was born on St. Patrick's Day.

We are all krauts. German to the core.

I would always try to find the one or two St. Patrick's Day birthday cards in the drug store.

So, today it isn't just hello. It is "top o' the mornin' to ya'" and "Begorrah" whatever that means and "Happy Birthday"!

Labels: birthdays, family, fathers

BIG DADDY

Take a look at this.

Sperm Donor Father Ends His Anonymity

What a wonderful story.

Labels: fathers