To all the fathers out there, Happy Fathers Day. I recently watched the documentary on HBO by Adrian Grenier, Shot in the Dark. The star of HBO's Entourage, made this movie in 1999. It is a search for the father that he never knew. Throughout the film they ask the question, what is the definition of fatherhood. To me this was an easy question, role model. Doesn't matter, good or bad, your father is your role model. I happen to have had a great role model, it may have taken me a long time to realize this but my father was the kind of man that I only wish I could be. This is said all too late, my dad passed away in June of 1980. My dad had his faults but the memories of those faults are the first to be forgotten in time. My father was 41 when I was born. As I grew up and did the things young boys did, little league, Pop Warner football, I wish my dad had coached those teams ( yeah you remember the coach's kid always got to play and got to play the best positions) but my dad left the coaching for the young dads. My dad was always there to watch( at a picnic table past the outfield fence with a beer or two) and when in my first four years of little league and Babe Ruth baseball the league had four homes, my dad was always one of the fathers that helped build the fields. All of this while watching possibly the worst baseball/football player ever ed. note: if my kids are reading this that is a bold face lie, your father was the best player on every baseball team he ever played on and in football the only reason I was last in running laps was to make sure that all my teammates made it, I was and still am a team player. I will never forget the first time I went into a bar with my dad and he ordered beers for us both, I still get that warm feeling whenever I am out with my children.
My only regret, ok regrets, I had a few but then again too few to mention, sorry got a little Sinatra there. My biggest regret is that I never told my father I loved him enough times. Then one day it is too late. I am not writing this for my kids to see. This is just for me. This is just my way of making amends for my lacking while my dad was alive by making sure he will never be forgotten. I think that the measure of a man is in the smiles and laughter in the faces of people when they talk about him. A couple of months ago when I was in Baltimore with family, Sean and Sara got to hear a few Uncle Jack stories from my cousins. I sometimes wish that my dad had lived long enough to have seen all of his grandchildren. I know that they would have loved to have been spoiled by grandpa because that's what grandparents do. Bill Cosby said, "This was not the people that raised me these are old people trying to get into heaven. My father, who when you asked for 50 cents would tell you his life story, now walks into the room and says, who wants money". So all you fathers out there spend today with your kids and grand kids, and everyone else spend time today with your father, see him if you can, call him if you have to and at the very least, think of him, and smile.
If you need to know the meaning of Father's Day just look at these photos. Notice there are none of my father. Please mothers take the camera every once in a while so Dad can be in the pictures.http://picasaweb.google.com/saratogairish/FatherSDay