Father's Day

Break out the ties, bottles of Scotch and novelty t-shirts, it's Father's Day. I had a Poppa and a Step-father. Poppa was the Father of my childhood, and my Step-father was the father of my teen and adult years. I never quite got the gist of what being a father was about; Poppa wasn't around a lot after I was seven and by the time Bill came into the picture it was all a mess. Bill tried to straighten out the mess with a very heavy hand, which resulted in our being alienated until just before he died.

Among my older brothers only one stayed through it to raise his son, and he's gone now. This is their first Father's Day without him. My eldest brother was entirely irresponsible for both of his sons, and he died leaving many hard feelings. And my closest brother's ex-wife and son moved far away; he paid child support for all those years, but nobody saw them again. We don't really know where they are. So scratch this generation's fathering skills, for the most part. One out of three ain't good.

In the next gen, my eldest brother's sons are fathers themselves now and seem to have it right. God knows how, as they had so little good modeling from their own father. But their mothers are very strong people. They learned a thing or two about bad parenting from my brother and are avoiding recreating the cycle. It helps that they both have wives that totally rock. They're good guys. They love their kids and would do anything for them. They are Fathers. Even more, they're Daddies.

Happy Father's Day to all the Daddies. You know who you are.