The Fathers In Our Lives

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Sunday is Father’s Day, and it’s going to be a different one for lots of folks. Where normally you might have made a trip to Dad’s house, or had the family over for a BBQ, that’s the last thing you want right now, with older people being the most vulnerable population to Covid-19. As for younger fathers who still have kids at home, they’ve probably been seeing more of their offspring than they might like, and are wishing for a break!

I’m fortunate to still have my dad around. He’s a healthy 84 year old who’s finally getting out more now that Gov. Cuomo is easing restrictions in upstate New York. Only one of his eight kids is close enough and quarantined enough to see him in person - the rest of us will call. I always thank Dad: most of us are assigned fathers by fate, but he chose me. He married my mom when I was 14, and adopted me shortly afterwards, changing my name from Julia Spencer to Julia Spencer-Fleming (although I was always called “Julie” at home…) He couldn’t legally adopt my sister and brother - their birth father was still alive, unlike mine - but he raised them as his own. There was never a difference between the kids he had had since birth and those of us he picked up later.









The Spencer-Fleming-Lent family,c. 1980



And of course, on Father’s Day I think of my own kids, who have lost their dad. Ross’s big thing for the day was to have the kids make homemade cards. He didn’t care about presents, or being taken out to dinner (we did hit a few Sea Dog games over the years, which was nice) but he adored those homemade cards. And thank heavens for that - after he died, we went through his “memory bags” - totes where I would stuff everything he wanted to keep - and there they all were, to make us laugh and remember what a good father and man he was.

Okay, Reds, now that I’ve made myself get all misty, tell us about the dads in your life.


LUCY BURDETTE: My dad was a keeper--I was lucky, so lucky to be his daughter. He loved having a family and being a father, loved taking us camping, reading and singing to us, and was very proud of everything we accomplished. I will always miss him and can’t wait for you to read my sister’s memoir, I HAVE BEEN ASSIGNED THE SINGLE BIRD, which is coming in August. The photo is my mother, my sister and me, and my dad, probably around 1954. My father-in-law was terrific too as a dad, and so is John. I hit the jackpot in the fathering department.











RHYS BOWEN: My dad was a lovely man— gentle, kind and very generous. He adored my mum and always put family first. He did love to tease, however, which I hated as a teenager. He was an engineer by profession and there was nothing he couldn’t fix. He was always redecorating and improving our house. My fond memory? It was the year small transistor radios came out. I really wanted one but I was being given a ticket to Germany for my friend’s wedding as my Christmas present. On Christmas morning I opened my stocking and found a battery. What would I need a battery for? Unless… wild hope surged and there at the bottom of the stocking was my radio, thanks to my dad.







DEBORAH CROMBIE: I was lucky in the father department as well. He was quiet, kind, generous to a fault. He grew up poor in east Texas, had very little formal education, and was determined to give my brother and me the things he hadn't had himself. He was creative, writing his own advertising for his business and a little bit of poetry. I think if he'd had different opportunities he'd have been a writer. He loved travel, and food! (I wonder who he passed that one down to?) One of our family jokes was that Charlie always planned any trip around meals.

He adored giving presents, which you can see in this photo, one of my very favorites.

HALLIE EPHRON: Talking about my husband now, who is a superb dad. He did his duty, humiliating our daughters by wearing socks with his sandals and pens in his pockets (he’s a physicist). One of my daughters had a nightmare that her dad showed up in his artichoke T-shirt and sequined shorts, with his bird binoculars hanging around his neck. She wrote about it for a college essay (she got in). She’s come to appreciate him (as I type they’re playing Words with Friends) and she even has (and uses) her own bird binoculars and Peterson Guide. I’m not sure what happened to the artichoke T-shirt but I’m sure it’s somewhere in his closet.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: My dad. In this photo, doesn't he look  like Arthur Miller? He was a composer, and a musician, and he and my mom married when she was 19. And had me. But before that, he was drafted into World War 2, and fought in the Battle of the Bulge, and was taken prisoner..and ah. Was in prison camp with Kurt Vonnegut. But later, he became the music critic for the Chicago Daily News, and told me his mantra which I think of today: "There's always another typo."
Isn't that great?
He then became a diplomat, and became the cultural affairs officer at embassies around the world. He retired from his job in the foreign service after serving his last post at the court of St. James. He's buried at Arlington National Cemetery. Until the end, he loved music, and poetry, and taught me about Pogo and Mozart. That is quite a legacy.

Hank's father..circa 1955 

Now it's your turn, dear readers. Tell us about the fathers and father-like men in your life. And in honor of Jerry, and his artichoke T-shirt, here's the actual Giant Artichoke Restaurant of Castroville: