The Fourth Annual Father's Day Repost
Reading over this entry, I rue slightly some of the original choices I made. The tone does at moments sound juvenile. Maybe it's because the mood this year was made more somber by the death last Friday of Tim Russert. I haven't read his book about his father, Big Russ and Me, but I would like to now, from hearing about it over the last 2 days more than I ever wanted to. I have a natural aversion to books and narratives like that, because they tend to fall into the superficial and dubiously existential category populated by Tuesdays with Morrie or the more recent "Last Lecture" by Carnegie Mellon professor Randy Pausch.
Tim Russert's passing connects with me a little more, though. I heard MSNBC anchors pay tribute to his relationships with his father and his son, and the responses that he received from readers that Big Russ and Me was exactly about their fathers. Knowing what I do about Russ and Big Russ, I can't say that either is a reflection of my father. But I am struck by what did resonate.
Like Big Russ, my father personified the stoic self-sacrifice that's nearing extinction with today's narcissism. He complained occasionally about his lot in life, but pulled back when asked about it, wanting to protect his family from the burdens that he thought were his alone to bear. Best of all, he hated "phonies."
And like Tim Russert, my father gave me both an interest and a clarity of perspective for politics. He earned the loyalty of everyone worked for him, and found uncommon joy in children. But like Tim, he had his excesses, and was taken in his fifties, in the middle of a great year.
"Hey pa, you really need to get us to confirmation class on time," I pleaded.
"Nah," he said as he drove us to get Sunday's lunch.
"C'mon, man, we're always late, and the teacher scolded me today."
"It's nothing."
"What do you mean, nothing? He said that if I continue to show up late, that I won't be confirmed."
And this was when my father laid one of the shiniest pearls of wisdom that he ever did on me. "Look, they're never going to not confirm you. The church wants members, there's no way that they'll turn anyone away."
Holy shit, he was right. The world started to become so clear after that, this is how bureaucracies work, this is how they keep people in line. And more importantly, it explained why my father, the classic lapsed Catholic if there ever was one - he whose only education took place in Catholic school, who was an altar boy so hard core that serving in Latin masses actually taught him the language, whom no one less than the Archbishop knew by name - couldn't give a shit about getting my sister and I to catechism on Sunday mornings.
I sometimes think about what if anything in how I was raised led me to choose academia. My mother was a elementary school teacher, so that explains a lot. But what was dad's part?
He wasn't the most involved parent. He looked at my college applications and said, "you did all this in school?" Nor was he the most affectionate human being. I can remember hugging him no more than a handful of times, and every one took place in an airport.
But boy did he teach me about how the world works and how to spot a moron, especially one in a suit. He'd drive me to political rallies in election season, stand at the back taking it all in, and mock the candidates on the drive home and laugh our fucking asses off. We'd do impressions of their bullshit speeches through the night. He'd bunk on the floor of my bedroom and we'd laugh ourselves to sleep in the dark.
He grew up dirt poor. His grandfather was pious, struck it rich and built churches that still stand today. But my grandmother depleted the fortune by helping new immigrants build their lives. Dad couldn't go to college because the family needed income, and he saw his friends who did go to university climb the social and economic ladder with double steps.
He got a job, bought a house, started a family, and saved like a motherfucker enough to send both his kids to private colleges of their choosing. But without a degree in a bureaucracy that prized paper qualifications, he hit a glass ceiling and found himself carrying the load for incompetent graduates who would eventually be promoted over him.
The Guinness gene skipped a generation. Dad had a liver problem that prevented him from drinking. But he never kept booze from me even as a kid, and as a result, I learned how not to abuse alcohol. Or how to abuse it correctly, at least. But he smoked a pack a day for forty years, and taught me that cigarette taxes are a tax on the poor, because no one else is stressed out enough to need to smoke.
During Christmas vacation of my senior year, as we were watching television late one night, he gave me a lesson on substance abuse.
"Anything new with you?"
"I don't know," I said. "Not much... I started smoking cigars occasionally."
"You better not. You'll get addicted and never be able to stop."
"But it's only cigars, and I only do it once a week."
"That's all it takes. That's how it starts. You'd better watch it, it's a dangerous habit."
"C'mon."
"I'm telling you, you should stop. It's going to happen, you'll get addicted."
"Only once a week?"
"Yes!"
"Whatever."
Gee, I guess he thought smoking is bad. After a few seconds, he asked: "Anything else new with you?"
"I guess I smoked the ganja!"
"You better be careful with that," he said. And that was all he said about it.
Classic.
On that break, we talked about his upcoming retirement, and the family's trip to my college graduation. He'd bought a suit for it, the second one he ever owned. He married my mother in the first.
We hung out, mocked the world's bullshit, and laughed like hell. I almost pissed myself when he told me about how he was run over by his car. The man's 5'5", about a buck and a half. He'd pulled in the driveway, forgot to pull the handbrake, and was doing something behind it when it started to roll down, trunk open, towards him. He ran up to try to stop it, but tripped and fell underneath.
Brump-ump! - the back wheel went over his chest, then Brump-ump! - the front wheel. The car kept going and was eventually stopped by the curb on the other side of the street. Brother man, 5'5", buck and a half, just picked himself up like nothing happened. As he told it, it was the funniest thing I'd heard in my life.
Christmas and New Year came and went. We ordered many late night pizzas even while in the middle of food comas, and laughed ourselves to sleep again. Leaving for college had brought us closer during my vacations. At the airport, we hugged.
When he'd call me in my final semester, he talked about my graduation. He was excited about it, more than he was about any trip, about anything in his life.
In the final days of March, just three months after his retirement from a job that had been complete drudgery for at least a decade, and six weeks from when his first-born would be the first one in the family to graduate college, my mother found him on the floor of the bedroom. Apparently putzing around in the middle of the night, he'd collapsed from a heart attack.
I remember the phone call in the middle of the night. To this day I jump when the phone rings unexpectedly after 2am.
He was buried in the suit that he planned to wear to my graduation. I wrote his eulogy, and included a jab about how he was unappreciated at work. When his old bosses came for the wake, my uncle read it to them, and made sure they heard the line. The secretaries who bawled when he retired, were completely devastated.
In a way, he probably hastened his own death. He stressed himself out a lot, and kept it in like a good repressed Catholic. He hated doctors because he dreaded bad news. But he was also scared shitless of "Uncle Charlie" and is probably glad that he went so quickly.
He never knew me as an academic, never heard any of my stories. He almost never verbalized any affection, though I knew that he'd do anything for his kids. He wished that I'd become a doctor. I always wonder if he'd be proud of me.
He was a savage critic of hypocrisy, hated pretension, was a man of his word and knew what was important. Sometimes genius, sometimes a moron (in both good and bad ways), but never, never, a douchebag.
Tim Russert's passing connects with me a little more, though. I heard MSNBC anchors pay tribute to his relationships with his father and his son, and the responses that he received from readers that Big Russ and Me was exactly about their fathers. Knowing what I do about Russ and Big Russ, I can't say that either is a reflection of my father. But I am struck by what did resonate.
Like Big Russ, my father personified the stoic self-sacrifice that's nearing extinction with today's narcissism. He complained occasionally about his lot in life, but pulled back when asked about it, wanting to protect his family from the burdens that he thought were his alone to bear. Best of all, he hated "phonies."
And like Tim Russert, my father gave me both an interest and a clarity of perspective for politics. He earned the loyalty of everyone worked for him, and found uncommon joy in children. But like Tim, he had his excesses, and was taken in his fifties, in the middle of a great year.
"Hey pa, you really need to get us to confirmation class on time," I pleaded.
"Nah," he said as he drove us to get Sunday's lunch.
"C'mon, man, we're always late, and the teacher scolded me today."
"It's nothing."
"What do you mean, nothing? He said that if I continue to show up late, that I won't be confirmed."
And this was when my father laid one of the shiniest pearls of wisdom that he ever did on me. "Look, they're never going to not confirm you. The church wants members, there's no way that they'll turn anyone away."
Holy shit, he was right. The world started to become so clear after that, this is how bureaucracies work, this is how they keep people in line. And more importantly, it explained why my father, the classic lapsed Catholic if there ever was one - he whose only education took place in Catholic school, who was an altar boy so hard core that serving in Latin masses actually taught him the language, whom no one less than the Archbishop knew by name - couldn't give a shit about getting my sister and I to catechism on Sunday mornings.
I sometimes think about what if anything in how I was raised led me to choose academia. My mother was a elementary school teacher, so that explains a lot. But what was dad's part?
He wasn't the most involved parent. He looked at my college applications and said, "you did all this in school?" Nor was he the most affectionate human being. I can remember hugging him no more than a handful of times, and every one took place in an airport.
But boy did he teach me about how the world works and how to spot a moron, especially one in a suit. He'd drive me to political rallies in election season, stand at the back taking it all in, and mock the candidates on the drive home and laugh our fucking asses off. We'd do impressions of their bullshit speeches through the night. He'd bunk on the floor of my bedroom and we'd laugh ourselves to sleep in the dark.
He grew up dirt poor. His grandfather was pious, struck it rich and built churches that still stand today. But my grandmother depleted the fortune by helping new immigrants build their lives. Dad couldn't go to college because the family needed income, and he saw his friends who did go to university climb the social and economic ladder with double steps.
He got a job, bought a house, started a family, and saved like a motherfucker enough to send both his kids to private colleges of their choosing. But without a degree in a bureaucracy that prized paper qualifications, he hit a glass ceiling and found himself carrying the load for incompetent graduates who would eventually be promoted over him.
The Guinness gene skipped a generation. Dad had a liver problem that prevented him from drinking. But he never kept booze from me even as a kid, and as a result, I learned how not to abuse alcohol. Or how to abuse it correctly, at least. But he smoked a pack a day for forty years, and taught me that cigarette taxes are a tax on the poor, because no one else is stressed out enough to need to smoke.
During Christmas vacation of my senior year, as we were watching television late one night, he gave me a lesson on substance abuse.
"Anything new with you?"
"I don't know," I said. "Not much... I started smoking cigars occasionally."
"You better not. You'll get addicted and never be able to stop."
"But it's only cigars, and I only do it once a week."
"That's all it takes. That's how it starts. You'd better watch it, it's a dangerous habit."
"C'mon."
"I'm telling you, you should stop. It's going to happen, you'll get addicted."
"Only once a week?"
"Yes!"
"Whatever."
Gee, I guess he thought smoking is bad. After a few seconds, he asked: "Anything else new with you?"
"I guess I smoked the ganja!"
"You better be careful with that," he said. And that was all he said about it.
Classic.
On that break, we talked about his upcoming retirement, and the family's trip to my college graduation. He'd bought a suit for it, the second one he ever owned. He married my mother in the first.
We hung out, mocked the world's bullshit, and laughed like hell. I almost pissed myself when he told me about how he was run over by his car. The man's 5'5", about a buck and a half. He'd pulled in the driveway, forgot to pull the handbrake, and was doing something behind it when it started to roll down, trunk open, towards him. He ran up to try to stop it, but tripped and fell underneath.
Brump-ump! - the back wheel went over his chest, then Brump-ump! - the front wheel. The car kept going and was eventually stopped by the curb on the other side of the street. Brother man, 5'5", buck and a half, just picked himself up like nothing happened. As he told it, it was the funniest thing I'd heard in my life.
Christmas and New Year came and went. We ordered many late night pizzas even while in the middle of food comas, and laughed ourselves to sleep again. Leaving for college had brought us closer during my vacations. At the airport, we hugged.
When he'd call me in my final semester, he talked about my graduation. He was excited about it, more than he was about any trip, about anything in his life.
In the final days of March, just three months after his retirement from a job that had been complete drudgery for at least a decade, and six weeks from when his first-born would be the first one in the family to graduate college, my mother found him on the floor of the bedroom. Apparently putzing around in the middle of the night, he'd collapsed from a heart attack.
I remember the phone call in the middle of the night. To this day I jump when the phone rings unexpectedly after 2am.
He was buried in the suit that he planned to wear to my graduation. I wrote his eulogy, and included a jab about how he was unappreciated at work. When his old bosses came for the wake, my uncle read it to them, and made sure they heard the line. The secretaries who bawled when he retired, were completely devastated.
In a way, he probably hastened his own death. He stressed himself out a lot, and kept it in like a good repressed Catholic. He hated doctors because he dreaded bad news. But he was also scared shitless of "Uncle Charlie" and is probably glad that he went so quickly.
He never knew me as an academic, never heard any of my stories. He almost never verbalized any affection, though I knew that he'd do anything for his kids. He wished that I'd become a doctor. I always wonder if he'd be proud of me.
He was a savage critic of hypocrisy, hated pretension, was a man of his word and knew what was important. Sometimes genius, sometimes a moron (in both good and bad ways), but never, never, a douchebag.
posted by Teach | 5:13 AM
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