Book of Days

I think my dad would not put up a fight if I told you he is not the most patient man in the world. And then who does he get for a kid but me, a kid who at times required an extra measure of patience. And still does. Dad will watch me fumble with screwdrivers and wrenches, or he will stand above me at the open hood of the truck while I am beneath it, on my back, reciting aloud “righty tighty, lefty loosey” (and which way exactly is lefty when you are on your back beneath the truck, anyway?) praying to God, hoping to God that I am not about to make the oil filter even tighter than it was the last time I turned it the wrong way. He shakes his head and no doubt thinks, “Where did this kid come from?”

And it has always been thus. One of my earliest memories of Dad/Son quality time is of Dad setting up my electric Aurora race car set. We got the tracks laid out, the hairpin curve, the traffic light, the whole works, and then he said, “Okay, give me some juice.” I went to the kitchen, poured a glass of orange juice, and brought it to him. There was some head-shaking that day, too.

We all have our strengths. Dad’s strength––his superpower––is knowing all this stuff, knowing how tools work, knowing instinctively which way to turn the oil filter for an oil change. And they are our superheroes, from the start, our dads. Today, Father’s Day, we honor them all: the dads we were given, the dads who chose us, the dads we have chosen ourselves, for they come in many varied types. Sometimes they are our grandfathers, or our uncles, or brothers or old friends who just seem like dads to us. The definition is loose, but the shoes to fill are large.

These days, Dad says “thank you” a lot to me, and to Seth, the other son I gave him. I always say “thank you” in return. He stood there at our wedding, and I imagine that is not at all something he would have pictured himself doing if you had asked him years ago. But he did stand there for us, and I know he was proud of us, and completely welcoming and loving. At least Seth knows how to handle a socket wrench. Perhaps Dad figures I’ll be all right, after all. He did a good job. And so to my father, to Seth’s father, to all our fathers: Happy Father’s Day.

Image: My cousin Maria found this photo taken in the basement (“a bass’u cell,” in my grandparents’ dialect) of our old family home in Valley Stream, New York. That’s my dad on the right in the striped shirt; to his left is Doc, then Grandpa, and at the far left is Frank. Great guys every one, all worthy of happy Father’s Day wishes. There is Grandpa’s cuckoo clock; he pulled the weights up each morning. This was the same room as the race-car-juice incident.

My dad’s got quite a few long standing jokes that he’s been telling since, oh… time immemorial. His favorite, though, is probably the joke he uses in reference to Father’s Day: He calls it “Jack Ass Day,” distinctly different from the way he thinks of Mother’s Day. A special day just for him is not something that sits comfortably for Dad, and so he takes shelter in humor.

The holiday itself has its roots in Mother’s Day traditions, and if you follow these Book of Days chapters, you’ll recall from last month how Anna Jarvis was the key figure in establishing Mother’s Day. Well, the Anna Jarvis of Father’s Day was Sonora Smart Dodd, who, after hearing a sermon about Anna Jarvis and her mission to establish a day honoring mothers, sought to do the same for fathers. This was in 1910 in Spokane, Washington, and the first Father’s Day celebration took place in Spokane that June, on the third Sunday, just as we celebrate it now.

Where Jarvis chose to battle the forces of commercialization for the holiday she championed, Dodd did not, and instead welcomed the commercialization of Father’s Day as a way to help establish the holiday, which was not gaining much traction on its own. The backing of trade groups worked, but it took time. The presidential proclamation designating the third Sunday of June as Father’s Day did not occur until Lyndon Johnson did it the honor in 1966, and it was Richard Nixon who made Father’s Day a permanent national holiday in 1972.

Sonora Smart Dodd died in Spokane in 1978, and for all we know, she died content and at peace with her creation, which was not the case with Anna Jarvis, who spent her life and her fortune battling the commercialization of Mother’s Day. And maybe there’s a lesson there for all of us: We create things, we nurture them and give them wings, and they become what they will. We can either fight them and grow weary trying to change them into something they are not, or we can accept them as they are and love them no matter what.

To my dad and to all the fathers out there: Happy Father’s Day.

That’s me and that’s my dad, in a photobooth somewhere, circa 1968. Not much has changed: He still has a great head of hair, and my haircuts continue to be goofy.