Sunday, June 16, 2019

Happy Father's Day!

HALLIE EPHRON: It's Father’s Day, so let’s talk about our dads.

Mine was a gifted and flawed creature.
A screenwriter who'd been president of his senior class at Evander Childs High School in the Bronx. His father owned a rug store on Fordham Road, but it was his mother who saved the family from bankruptcy during the Great Depression because she'd been secretly investing in real estate.

He was the youngest of four brothers. The only one who went to college, he got himself thrown out of Cornell in In 1934 in his senior year for stealing books. He landed in Hell's Kitchen and talked his way into a job as assistant stage manager, met my mom, and talked her into writing a play with him which was produced on Broadway and led to them moving to Hollywood to write screenplays.

He was mercurial and charming. A storyteller who loved to take center stage. On the down-side, he was bipolar and alcoholic. You never knew, when you arrived at his NYC apartment and knocked, which version of him would answer the door.

And yet the one thing he got right was to make every one of us, his four daughters, feel loved. Adored. We were the cleverest, the funniest (even better), and the most adorable. It didn’t patch over his ‘issues,’ but it gave me resilience I needed to meet the inevitable road bumps in the real world.

Tell us about a dad in your life.


JENN McKINLAY:
My father was a brilliant artist and a deeply troubled man. He was handsome and charming and a fabulous storyteller. He had a smile that lit up rooms and when he laughed at something I said, I felt like I was brilliant, too.

He was also angry and terrifying and hurtful and scared the bejeezus out of me on a regular basis. My relationship with him taught me about establishing boundaries and loving someone despite their flaws. He died three years ago and I miss him still.

As flawed as he was as a father, he was an excellent grandfather. As my oldest hooligan just said, "Pop pop taught me about second chances -- from the stories you've told me about who he was to the man he became that I knew and loved." I am ever grateful that my dad had that chance and that my boys remember him well.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: My dad grew up on a cotton farm in Sulphur Springs, Texas, one of eight kids. He never finished school, but left the farm in his early teens and came to Dallas to find work. He adored his youngest sister, but otherwise did everything he could to distance himself from his family and his background.

He worked three jobs during the depression, started his own business, married, divorced, then married my mom when he was forty-four and she was twenty. They adored each other for the rest of their lives.

He had a creative streak--he always wrote his own advertising for his businesses--loved to read, and was incredibly proud of me. I think if he'd had the education he could have done so much more. He was quiet, kind, incredibly generous, and also suffered from depression, which he never spoke about. Interesting and complicated, my  dad. He died in 2004 at 96. I still miss him.

LUCY BURDETTE: 
My dad was a metallurgical engineer and devoted father and husband. He went to the University of Michigan and left in the middle of college to sign up for the army to fight the Germans. I think that those years he was in Europe with his 1057 engineer cor​ps​ ​were the most meaningful in his entire life.

He loved camping and teaching and supporting us four kids, and he put up with the menagerie of animals that my mother encouraged.  I suppose his fatal flaw was that he simply could not be alone.

After my mother died too young, he was married fo​u​r more times. He would tell you that th​ree​ of his five  wives died before he did, and therefore he should not be​ held​ accountable for those marriages ending! The other two I think he fled into in order to escape the inevitable loneliness that comes after losing a spouse.

Even as diminished as he was in an assisted living at the end of his life, he asked me for the money to buy a diamond ring. He planned to propose to one of the caregivers he adored. He was funny and charming and I miss him terribly!​ ​And PS, my sister Susan Cerulean has written a memoir about caring for him at the end of his life. It will be out next spring and I will make sure she comes here to talk about it. It’s a wonderful book!

Rhys Bowen:
My dad was a lovely man. Really kind and generous. He had dreamed of being a doctor but had to leave school to support his mother after his father died when my dad was a child. He had an aptitude for everything mechanical, landed a job in a paper factory and went on to run the place.

He also studied at night to pass his engineering professional certification. When WWII came he went to volunteer, even though he was in a protected occupation and spent four years in Egypt and then Palestine. Although there were battles and obvious hardships I believe he looked back on the time fondly, enjoying the camaraderie and makeshift sports. He was a really good athlete and had played soccer for junior London. I think his life was wistful thinking of what might have been.

He really wanted me to be the doctor he dreamed of being but alas I did not like the thought of all that blood. He would watch every medical program on TV, exclaiming in delight "Look, Margie. He's got the heart in his hands and it's still beating!"

My mum was the tough one. He was soft. And very proud of me, although he didn't like to show it. "IS that what you are wearing?" he'd ask with a grin when I was going out as a teenager.  When I was going to a party he'd ask what time it was over. If I said eleven o'clock he'd say "I'll be outside at ten thirty."  Daddy! I'd wail but he never wavered. 

He had a major heart attack when he was 60 but when he and my mother moved to Australia he perked up a lot, proud of his garden and taking long walks on the beach. Unfortunately his heart gave out when he was seventy five. I still miss him.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: My biological dad died a couple of years ago. He was the music critic for the Chicago Daily News when I was born, and as sensitive and talented and intelligent and intellectual as anyone could possibly be.
It was completely crazy--my mother always talked about this--that this thoughtful peaceful tolerant poetic person was drafted into the infantry for World War II, and fought in the Battle of the Bulge, and was taken prisoner of war, and got the Purple Heart after he was released from prison camp by the Red Army at the end of the war.  He would never discuss it.

He taught me all about music, and poetry and  art and reading, and even though my parents were divorced when I was six, we still stayed in constant touch, and when he joined the foreign service and spent much of his life as a diplomat and  out of the country with a new family, (every one adorable), we still were close. He wrote two nonfiction books about American music, both published by University of Chicago press. And did a radio show on music for what turned into NPR.

I read one of his favorite poems at his funeral at Arlington National Cemetery.

My stepdad? Equally brilliant, but a tough and brusque corporate lawyer, who absolutely knew right from wrong, in every way, even philosophically, and would make sure you knew it too. If you dared to disagree with him, then you were simply wrong. Some of his favorite quotes were “what do you represent?” when I showed up in a too-short skirt. And “ It is a matter of supreme indifference to me” when we asked a question he didn’t have time for. He did not allow us to speak or interrupt during Perry Mason. Nothing we could do was good enough.

But he taught me to be inquisitive, and determined, and skeptical, and a persuasive speaker. And I am truly grateful for that.

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: My birth father was a USAF pilot who died in a plane crash when I was only six months old. Some thirteen years and one bad marriage later, my mom renewed her acquaintance with her college boyfriend (also USAF) who had recently been divorced. Shortly after they wed in 1976, he adopted me, one of the great events of my life.

After losing my mom last year, I'm increasingly aware of how lucky I am to still have my dad around. He's a quirky guy - a brilliant engineering type who never met anything he couldn't fix who lives on take-out and restaurant food now my mom's not around to cook for him. He's very introverted, but was the calm center of a blended family of eight kids. He's the old-fashioned kind of man who says what he means and stands by his promises, and although they were so different in many ways, Ross had that quality too, and it's one of the reasons I fell in love with him.

I think the great gift my dad gave me, my brother and my sister was to show us, up close and personal, what a good man, a good father and a good husband looked like. Having kids myself now, I realize what an incredibly important role that is.


HALLIE: So on this Father's Day, who are the dad's in your life and how are you celebrating?

33 comments:

  1. Neither of our dads are still living. The girls will call; we’ll probably have dinner out, so a quiet sort of celebrating.

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  2. Thank you for these stories, Reds. My father was a shy intellectual, a writer of long typed letters, a teacher and reader, a man whose beaming smile made you know you were loved. He died way too young, when I was just thirty-three and newly pregnant with my first son, whom we named Allan after my father. I think Daddy's soul jumped into my Allan's, because they are remarkably alike in all the best ways.

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  3. My own birth father died a month after my high school graduation in 1969. He was a complicated, difficult person, also an alcoholic. However, he left me with a rich store of quirky, weird sayings, some either obscene or scatological, but all very colorful. I was thinking of one this morning as I was trying to wake up: He is dumber than owl shit. Yep, that was typical of my dad.

    He was also quite intelligent, and apparently a very good pianist, but alcohol robbed him, and his family, of all his real potential.

    Luckily, I've had other, better examples of fatherhood, including my beloved father-in-law, who was very touched when I celebrated his being part of my life longer than my own dad had been. Even though Karl was also a colorful speaker, I don't think I ever heard him say a curse word, and the only alcohol I ever saw him drink was a single sip of champagne on his 90th birthday.

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    1. "Dumber than owl shit" is pretty great. Of course I relate to the down-side.

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  4. I've talked about my Dad in past posts here on Father's Day and other times. He was just a great dad. He had at best a crappy upbringing as a kid and yet he provided a stable home for my mom and the three kids.

    He was a police officer who helped instill right and wrong into us without being an ogre. So you can imagine how little I care for people who denigrate law enforcement. When he was in the hospital for what turned out to be the final time, he had someone that he had arrested show up and thank him for helping get his life turned around. I can think of no better testament to his career as a cop than that.

    He had his likes and dislikes just as anyone does, but for all his lack of interest in sports or rock music, he was the one who took me to my first Red Sox, Bruins and Celtics games. He also took me to my first rock concert way back in 1986. He was a tinkerer, a ham radio operator, builder of bookshelves, cabinets and backyard sheds, loved to read which both he and my mother instilled in us kids and was endlessly curious about anything that happened to strike his fancy.

    He's been gone for 13 years now but he's still missed each day. I'm proud to be his son.

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    1. What a lovely tribute, Jay - your dad sounds like a gem.

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  5. You all are bringing tears to my eyes this morning. Aching loss eases over time, but the missing never ends. I miss my dad, too. He was a humble man, he instilled a strong work ethic in his children, he loved my mom beyond measure. He had an extremely hard upbringing with a father who ruled by fear. Then a devastating WWII experience as a tank sergeant in New Guinea and the Philippines. He definitely suffered from PTSD and it affected us all in various ways--there is a legacy of anxiety and/or depression in a number of his children.

    But, he was frequently called upon to attend the dying members of his church. The unexpected calls would come, and he--who had endured so much death--never hesitated to go. He was a proud proud grandpa to nine little boys, and one of my sweetest memories is of my mom's last day--when her hand crept across the coverlet to find his and they sat there entwined without speaking, for what was left to say? I miss him and think of him every day.

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  6. My father was my best friend, one person supporter & non-judgmental with all of my considerable shenanigans. A young Marine in WWII, he could make all of us toe the line & that was an important life lesson-to be accountable for one’s actions & not to lie and so it goes, those life lessons. He was loving & kind & gentle, but with an amazing good humor. Even in troubled times-stuff w business-he said when his head hit the pillow, that’s it -sleep. He was an Insurance Broker most of his life, talked with everyone. Spoke with the high & low-all the same with respect and love. He helped our community-often. I love him & miss him so much it hurts. I cry with the loss of him & have never gotten over his leaving this life too soon.

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    1. Peter C Cosmos -Cambridge, Massachusetts
      Father of Jeanne K Cosmos, Cambridge, Massachusetts

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    2. Oh, Peter - he did set the bar high, didn't he?!

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  7. My dad was typical of his generation: WW2 veteran, organic chemist, sailor, a stern father and grandfather. As his Alzheimer's descended, he wrote a few short memoir pieces and planned to write more. Most memorable quote: "Your mother is the gardener in the family, I just do her yard work."

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    1. That's so great that he got to at least get some of his thoughts down. Sounds like he had an excellent sense of humor.

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  8. This is so touching—thank you for these moments, Hallie.
    I also love watching my stepson, Paul, with his two kids. Especially when they’re together with Jonathan. It’s so inspirational.

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    1. You're making me think of my son-in-law Jack, dad to two of the best grandchildren anyone could have. He's a winner in so many ways.

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    2. Yes, isn’t it so interesting to see? Such a different perspective…

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  9. I'm appreciative of the memories you've all shared today. Happy Father's Day!

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  10. My Dad was the scapegoat of his family, the youngest son, he was neglected by both parents. However, he was a lovely gentle father. When asked by someone, how did he parent he replied "I remember what my parents did to me, and do the opposite." A lover of Husky Football, the strong steadying presence in Mom's life, and also like others, one whose excessive drinking robbed us of the real person. He died 28 years ago. In my memory, it could have been yesterday. Happy Father's Day Daddy.

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  11. "Do the opposite"! For those of us with flawed parental units, it's great advice.

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  12. Love hearing everyone's stories. Thinking of my son-in-law, and what a great dad he is. And that I should tell him so!

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  13. Thanks for this post, Hallie. I love hearing about the great loving, generous, and self-sacrificing dads. It gives me hope.

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  14. It is interesting me that so many of our fathers served in WW2. My father was a first generation German-American, a German professor, and, well, German. He was a brilliant man, well read in several languages, but German was never spoken in our house, not in my hearing. It was a sign of the times. As a naval officer he applied to the UN as an interpreter, German being his first language. So the navy made him a gunnery officer on a ship in the South Pacific, our tax dollars at work.

    He also was an ordained Lutheran pastor who never had a church. I didn't know this until I was in my teens when I discovered a box of sermons stored in the attic. His parents, poor Kansas dirt farmers, managed to send him away to private school at 12, and then to seminary and university. He had to pay for his masters and PhD on his own though -- during the dirty thirties yet.

    He's been gone so long that I barely remember him, more than fifty years. He adored my mother and me too although his stern upbringing didn't allow him to tend to a lot of expression of affection. I do think of him often, wondering how he would have enjoyed his grandchildren and their children and how proud he would have been of them.

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  15. My dad was born in 1919 and was the youngest of four boys. His dad was a taciturn Swedish emigrant and his mom was a very strict Scotch Presbyterian who criticized and chastised a lot but didn't praise much. Dad's college years were interrupted by WW2. He was in the Army Air Corps and was a meteorologist and master sergeant. He would have loved to be a pilot but had poor eyesight. He was stationed on Galveston Island when he met my mom. After they were an item Mom said he proposed by saying he had calculated they could afford to marry between his earnings and hers. Not exactly a romantic! They married and then he was shipped to the Aleutians. He used his GI bill to finish college; my older brother was born shortly before graduation. They moved to Houston where he went to work for Humble Oil & Refining as an accountant. Mom said he had considered remaining a meteorologist but had decided not to. Dad was generally on the quiet side, compared to my friends' fathers, but he could make us all laugh. In the summertime he came straight home from work and took us kids to the pool almost every day. He moonlighted for years doing the accounting for a local business so there was money for vacations and summer camp. He loved all kinds of music, everything from Bob Wills to Herman's Hermits. I still remember his singing falsetto and doing The Freddy. He had a temper but his went the Scandinavian route: disgusted looks and silence. I remember catching a week or two of the silent treatment for some stunt I pulled. After retiring, Dad and Mom got to do some international travel and would have continued if he hadn't had a stroke in 2000. It left him with aphasia. He couldn't deal too well with that and his deafness so he withdrew from all but family. He died a couple of days before my birthday in 2014. He was a multi-faceted person with a reputation for being strict but fair. And funny. I still remember his seeing a woman with a far out hairdo. His comment? I've seen a better head on a beer.

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    1. Ha ha ha ha! I think we could generate a book: our dads' book of witty insults.

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  16. My father was very creative. He would have loved to live in the medieval era when men were knights, had swords and created things with their hands. He did not like the computer nor the phone. He created a globe out of leather for blind people so they could locate continents on the global map. When I finally come home after a summer hospital stay (spinal meningitis), I had to learn everything again like learning how to walk again. He put up gym bars in doorways so I could use my muscles again.

    That was my father. When I was a kid, people said that I looked like my father. I asked why I did not get his yellow hair (my hair was dark red). LOL

    Diana

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  18. My father was born in 1901 and was 96 when he died in 1997. He turned 53 a couple of months after I was born. My mother was 43 when I was born. I was the youngest of five children, one of whom died as an infant, and although my parents were the ages of some of my friends' grandparents, they kept up fantastically with all of my activities. One of the extra duties my father had was to drive all of his children to their many activities, as my mother didn't drive. I have to give him credit because I don't ever remember hearing him complain about that. Of course, we all got a car when we got our license, so I'm sure he was glad to be relieved of his chauffeur job.

    My dad was truly a self-made man. He started out on a farm, one of six children, and was expected to pull his weight, which he did. But when he became an adult, he decided he didn't want the life of a farmer and tried out an insurance career. He did stay with that for a short bit, but then after he married my mother and started a family, he switched to real estate, a good move. He was somewhat of a visionary, as he developed the first subdivision in our county, actually the first two. He was a born real estate man and did well with it. He did actually incorporate the farm into his life, as he owned a couple of farms, mainly for the tobacco base back in the day. One of the interesting things about my father is that he was a water witch/diviner. He always carried a special forked branch in the trunk of his car to find a water source when he needed to. He had his own real estate business and worked in it until he was around 92, 93. He was involved in the Methodist church, being the district treasurer for many years.

    My father worked hard and we never wanted for anything. However, I can't say we were close. He wasn't a particularly affectionate person, not cold, just not cuddly. Because he finished school by the ninth grade, not an uncommon path in his day for boys on the farm, and my mother had a college degree (teaching), I felt like he was always a bit uncomfortable with his children's academics. I know he was proud of us, but I think he felt like he had to defend his own path. I was a real academic achiever, with being valedictorian of my high school class and having a 3.93 in college, and, yet, he said the statement to my sister-in-law, who also didn't go to college, that college degrees didn't mean as much as hard work and getting the job done (words something to that effect). He said it in front of me while I was in college doing well. Hurtful, but I now know where it was coming from. And, my mother was proud enough and delighted enough for the two of them. Education meant more to her than to him because of their different paths. It was my mother who helped me find my love of reading. It was my father who helped me appreciate that not all learning is book learning. Oh, and one more thing, my father loved cheese, just loved it. When we would go to Cincinnati, there was a shop we always stopped in and got cheeses, and he was forever urging me to try a bite of one. So, I guess I have to thank my father for my love of cheese. Hahaha!

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  19. A water witch diviner?!?! Is there really such a thing? Very useful for someone in real estate I’d think

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    1. In the sixties, while building our cabin, my father found where to dig a well with two forked branches too. It was not the first time he used this useful skill.

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