Happy Fathers Day

Fathers Day is always a strange day for me. My Daddio has been gone for twenty six years. I think about him every day.

He was very involved with the neighborhood and its people. He was always helping people out when they had a problem. He was an accountant and he built up a big practice of people from the neighborhood. He knew everyone and everyone knew him. We couldn’t walk down the street without someone stopping us to say hello or to ask a question. Now that happens to me. I know all the old timers and have met a lot of the new people in the neighborhood. But I don’t have the patience that my Dad did for some of these people. I mean I am always polite but I don’t want to hear everyone’s problems. Because that is what they want to tell you.

Because my Dad was always helping people they came to expect it from him. When he got sick many of them dropped him because he couldn’t do anything for them anymore. Not everyone but plenty of them. I tell you it was an eye opener for me. But he taught me well. He used to tell me “When you do something do it because you want to. Don’t expect any credit or gratitude because that is few and far between. Do it because it is the right thing to do. The charitable thing. Always help out if you can. But do it because it is in your heart. Then you won’t go wrong.” The funny thing was that the more powerless someone was the more they appreciated the help. It was the big shots that were the ungrateful bastards.

I took his advice. That is why I am very friendly with all the working people in the neighborhood. The deli clerks. Waiters and waitresses. The dude who washes the vegetables in the Gourmet food store. I had to run to the stores this morning to get the food that the wife was going to bring over her father’s house. I have to stay in the store and I wanted her to go spend some time with her Dad. Everyone wanted the good ravioli’s and bread and cookies from Brooklyn so I went to the stores before they left. The funny thing is that I knew every worker in each store and they knew by name. They asked how I was feeling and if there was anything they could do for me. One of them offered to cook me up a big batch of prosciutto balls if I could eat them since nobody was making them anymore. It made me feel great. Because it reminded me of my Dad and how people used to act toward him when he was out and about.

I take it all with a grain of salt but I still am glad that I can have that relationship with the little guys. The owners of the stores and the yuppie hipster assholes that are in line I could give a shit about. It is the workers that I care about and am proud to call my friend.

Just like my Daddio. I miss you and I love you and I think about you every day.

 

Happy Fathers Day!

My Dad was a church guy. Back in the day in the 1960's you basically had two different types of Dads. The ones who would go to church with the family and the ones who stayed home to watch TV. Now a church going Dad might not go first thing in the morning. My Catholic School had mandatory 9AM mass for all the kids where attendance was taken during the school year. So usually your Mom took you or you went with a group of kids from your block with one or two Moms watching over you. The rest of the year you could go anytime you wanted. I thought I was cool stuff when I went to the 12:15 mass with my Dad. Most of the fathers would be at that Mass and then would either go home for Sunday Dinner or go to their club to play cards or whatnot. My Dad would introduce me to his friends who were at Mass. They were all dressed in suits and ties and wore fedoras like they were on the Untouchables or something. That's what it meant to be a grownup. You wore a suit and tie and a hat to church.

He never missed a Mass on Sunday. Rain or shine he would get dressed and go. He was a big wheel in the Knights of Columbus, the Parish Council and the Holy Name Society. Since he was an accountant he always would have people who had questions about taxes or a letter or something and he would help them out. They would stop him in the street and he always had time for them.

You see the thing was he always had time for me. He would take me and my buddies up to Yankee stadium even  though he was a big Met's fan. He would use a weeks vacation to go with us to Boy Scout Camp at Ten Mile River. He was always there if one of the other kids had something they needed to talk about and didn't want to talk to their own Dad about.

Today in Church Father Chris had all the fathers stand up and get a hand from the congregation. There were a lot of guys with their families. But also a bunch of guys by themselves who were my age. They proably went to church with their Dad and kept it up even after he had passed. Fathers Day is a great day to go to Mass and celebrate your Dad.

I think of you every day Daddio. Happy Fathers Day.

Belated Happy Father's Day

I didn't do our annual Father's Day Post because we were out celebrating a new "Father."

Our cousin Anthony has become a priest and he celebrated his first mass. About 400 people went to the church in Long Beach where he used to go as a kid and where he celebrated his first mass. Appropiately on "Father's Day." He became Father Anthony.

He had a long and varied career before he got his vocation. He was a NYC cop, a DEA agent, an agent for the State Department and an FBI agent. So he was all over the map. As were the guests. There were family members of course and people from the State Department and FBI agents and mobsters he had arrested or was related too.
The whole magilla.

We went to visit the wife's father first who wasn't feeling too well and couldn't come to the party. My Dad has passed of course but I was thinking of him. So while I was in Mass a said a prayer for them and all you fathers out there.

Happy belated Fathers Day.

Happy Father's Day!

To continue a Father's Day tradition I hope youse guys will write a short reminiscence of your day and I will happy to front page it with an appropriate illustration. We kicked it off with a great story by Michael H below.

If you are too busy or just want to enjoy the day....well Happy Father's Day!

Snapshots from Father's Day!

Michael Hasenstab said...
My dad and Fred McMurray attended the same high school in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. My dad knew McMurray fleetingly (there was a age difference) and whenever I asked about McMurry, the answer I'd get was always "he was a stand-up guy."

My old man is still alive. He's 86 and let's himself into my house a couple of times a week; usually to drop off a magazine he thinks I'd like, bring a sub for lunch (at 9:30), or just talk. I'm always glad for the company.

Three years ago at Father's Day he gave me two brown mugs; plain, unadorned. I said thanks, of course. He said let me tell you about these mugs. Here's his story:

"In spring of 1942, I was fresh out of basic training for the Navy and home on leave. I knew that I was going to be shipped out for Guadalcanal that summer. Guadalcanal was going to be rough, a lot of guys weren't going to come home from that one.

"My dad had stomach cancer. Medicine back then wasn't what it was now, and we knew he had a hard fight in front of him.

"Either way, we thought the day I left would be the last time we saw each other on earth. My old man brought these two mugs home from work. (He worked as a brewmaster at the Pilot Brewing Company in Beaver Dam). We sat down at the kitchen table, filled the mugs, toasted each other and drank.

"sat there all night, an old man dying of cancer and a kid going off to war. We talked about life, our neighbors, how hard it was to scratch out a living as an immigrant, women, living a good life, how to beat my brother at sheepshead, and everything else we could think of to avoid talking about what was ahead.

"I left the naxt morning, on a bus for the Navy base in Waukegan. I hugged my old man, hard, before I got on the bus. he hugged back and said "I'll see you again.""

"I shipped out in June, 1942. The battle began in August, 1942. I received word in December that my old man had died.

"After the war I met and married your mom. A few years after you were born, your grandmother gave me these mugs to keep. Now they're yours. Go have a beer with your son."

I have them now, kept safe where they won't break, to be handed down to my son after I've passed.

Happy Father's Day, Dad.