Father's Day

Yesterday I read a lot of tributes to fathers on Father's Day.  People on FB also shared old family photos of their dad.  So many have lost their fathers, and often times their mothers as well.  I am a rarity at my age (63) in that both my parents are alive.  They married young - and had three children by the time mom was 25.  Imagine!

This guy in the photo with Dad is his oldest friend on earth.  They've known each other since they were four years old.  They had many adventures during their summers in high school, hitch hiking up and down the state of California doing odd jobs.  Sometimes they got home by the skin of their teeth.  It may surprise you to know they are polar opposites when it comes to politics.  They don't often talk about it, but in private Max will tell me that one day we shall convert my father (wink).  Max, like many of my dad's best friends, is a musician and artist, as was his father.  My last night in North Carolina almost a decade ago, Max and his wife drove me to a friends house deep into the woods, for a jam with all the regulars.  Banjos, guitars, fiddles and an upright bass -- these people drank and played old-timey music into the wee hours.  A memorable evening.  I was a hung over, bleary eyed passenger on the airplane the next day.

It's always been a wonder to me how my dad can be so conservative and rigid in behavior and appearance and have so many bohemian friends.  He always has.  It might stem from his Great Aunt, who was an out-loud bohemian and artist herself. He used to rock the chemical trays in her dark room on Orange Avenue in Coronado, California.  She photographed celebrities who came to play on the beach and lounge by the pool at the historic Hotel Del Coronado back in the 1930s and 40s. 

He took on a lot at a very young age -- marriage and children by the time he was 28.  After a lifetime of living with a couple of step-fathers or his grandparents, he longed for stability.  I don't remember him as a fun dad, he was a disciplinarian and mostly we children walked on eggshells around him.  He regrets that now, and wishes he could have had a more relaxed relationship with us.  He still has an extremely controlling nature, and things must go his way or things get very uncomfortable. 

Until I moved to Colorado last year, I had spent the previous nine years living close to my parents (sometimes with them).  It was difficult for me, I felt duty bound but also newly constricted after a lifetime of living on my own and not under his influence.  It was out of economic necessity that I lived with them for two and a half years.  We had many blowout arguments, which distressed my mother greatly.  I went out for walks -- frequently.  Only way to blow off steam.  When I moved into my own place, we joked with each other that no one had died.

I'm sure that I, like so many adult children, have a very mixed view of my life with Dad.  I love him dearly and sometimes I also hate his guts.  He has been terribly hateful at times, and then he does something wonderfully loving.  My husband also had a difficult relationship with his children, and they kept their distance as adults.  It took me a couple of years after we married for me to fully understand how damaged those relationships were.  This was their first Father's Day without their Pop.  Just like my dad, Steve could be a lively and interesting friend, but he was very chilly when it came to his children.  It's sad.  His kids are great and his missed out on so much.

And this is how it is between fathers and their children.