I’ve had this notion, over the past few years, of convincing a glossy, extremely well-paying magazine to run a Father’s Day feature of mine. The concept is simple. I’d get a lot of different people to tell me good stories about their father. The stories could be about anything, but they would all be more interesting—more complex, more revealing—than the sappy “my Dad taught me this important lesson” stories that we usually get for Hallmark holidays like Father’s Day.
For instance, a gay friend of mine once told me the story of coming out to his father, who was a very devout Christian. “I don’t really understand that,” said his father, who’s since died, “but the Bible teaches us to judge not lest ye be judged.” And that was that. They never talked about it again, out loud, because it made his dad uncomfortable, but when my friend brought his boyfriend home for the first time, his Dad just came up and gave both of them a big hug.
It’s that kind of story that I want. And stories about dads who were assholes, and stories about dads who were good guys but kind of ineffectual. You get the idea.
If anybody has such stories that they’d like to share with us, pass them on, but I just wanted to say that by way of offering up some preliminary notes on my father (I haven’t thought of the right story yet).
Once in a while, as a surprise for my Mom, my Dad will arrange the bananas and oranges in the fruit basket into an obscene sculpture.
When my Dad is uncomfortable talking about something, which is to say pretty much whenever he’s talking about something emotional or personal, he tends to make circles on a nearby surface—a table, the arm of a chair, etc.—with his hands.
He usually gets to the airport, before flying somewhere, at least an hour and a half before he really needs to be there.
He’s just recently taken up tap dancing, and has set up a studio (which is to say a piece of linoleum and a TV to play his instruction video) in the basement of my parents’ house.
He’s the guy who came up with this idea.
He used to get very frustrated with me when he’d ask me to do the dishes, after dinner, and I’d do them but wouldn’t wipe down the countertops as well.
