Don't get me wrong. I love my dad. He's a great man. However, as I've always said, our family put the funk in dysfunctional. We just do NOT, as a general rule, get along. You can put two of us in the same room, and we'll get on fine. Any more than that...look out.
I'm sure dad wanted to be there for us. The reality of it, he was too busy working 16+ hour days, 6-7 days a week, saving lives. Dad was a cardiologist...and the only one in the area. Generations of big-eating steel worker families gave dad more work than he could handle!
This left dad a grumpy, exhausted mess most of the time. I often joke that dad was the grumpy SOB I'd see every other Sunday. As a kid, I didn't understand all of this. He could seem distant. Reality was, he was exhausted and seriously overworked. By age 5, I knew I wanted nothing to do with being a doctor. People would ask if I wanted to be a doctor, like dad, when I grew up, and my answer was always the same. "Hell no!" For years I wanted to be an actor...that is until I had a taste of what making movies was like. Screw that! Too much standing around while the tech crews, camera crews, etc., did all the real work. Music completely took over my life...and that's still where I am.
Dad did do a helluva job though. I can't speak for my siblings, but he taught me a lot, whether he knows it or not. He taught me the value of hard work. If you want something, work for it. You'll enjoy it a lot more. He taught me not to suffer fools. He taught me how to read people. He taught me to play my cards close to the chest. He, many times, tried to pass on his love of wood work. I'm sure he realized early on that handing me a sharp object was not his smartest move. I am, and many will back me up on this, the least mechanically inclined human on the planet. An ex girlfriend saw me with a screwdriver once and fell out laughing. When she realized I was planning to "fix" a light socket in her bathroom, she made me put the screwdriver away!
My dad and I are a lot alike. The bad part is, for the first 30 years, all we saw in each other was the parts of ourselves that we didn't like. Tough to base a relationship on that. We're both stubborn, intelligent, and short-tempered krauts. We get along pretty well any more...but we can still push each other's buttons like no one else.
Dad has always been a hobby musician too. Unfortunately, he loves bluegrass. He's all about the banjo, and dulcimer, and hammered dulcimer, etc. While I can enjoy playing bluegrass, listening to it for more than 10 minutes, to me, can be classified as cruel and unusual punishment. While a teen, I mostly listened to punk and blues. Dad was listening to Appalachian music and loads of other, equally obscure, stuff. One day he'd be listening to bagpipes, the next some gal wailing in Gaelic and stomping her feet. And he thought the punk bands were awful! I'd try to find common ground for us...I figured he'd dig Neil Young. Nope. Wrong. Guess again. I remember showing Dad a Neil Young concert on TV one night. His reply? "If that guy can make a living in music, you're a shoe in!" Dad felt pretty much the same about The Talking Heads. He would, however, show interest when he'd hear some of the garage tapes my friends and I would make. I tended to be a bit experimental back then. Lots of effects (they hide a multitude of sins)...I could make my guitar sound like a cello. Dad dug that.
Dad always taught me to have something to fall back on...in case music didn't pan out. Oddly enough, music has been what I've always fallen back on! I worked in the mental health field for 25 years, and whenever I need to supplement my income, it was music that made it happen. Music took me around the world. Music paid off a lot of my bills. Now that I'm no longer in the mental health field, music - and writing about music - is what is keeping me afloat. Dad had the right idea...just the wrong way round.
None of my siblings are close with our dad. Like I said, we don't get along well. One thing I wish dad would've taught the whole family was to just get the fuck over things. I can get mad as hell...but 5 minutes later, I'm usually over it. My family tends to hold grudges. I dislike that. These grudges have kept our family broken for years. I've been working behind the scenes, trying to fix it...but damn, I'm not a miracle worker. I think it's safe to say, though, that we all do love each other...and do love our dad.
So, that said, HAPPY FATHER'S DAY to our dad, your dad, and all of the dads out there. I've been a surrogate father to many. I was privileged to be that. Being a parent isn't easy. Too many people think its about being your kid's best friend. Wrong. It's about teaching them to be good people. It's a helluva lot harder than trying to befriend a tiny person who doesn't know much. Its a parent's job to teach kids right from wrong. Good from bad. Gotta teach them how the world works. Its not about appearing 'cool' in your kid's eyes. They'll understand how cool you are later on in life. When it counts.
This is a photo of my dad, sister, and I...taken after I played at a music festival. It took me 20 years to get these two in the same place at the same time! Next step: getting all four kids AND dad in the same place at the same time. Wish me luck!
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