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Portraits of Fathers I’ve Known
A study in contrasts
Father’s Day is almost here and I find myself thinking about fathers that I have known. I obviously think about my own dad who died in 2005. It’s been 19 years since I last saw him, though sometimes it feels like I spoke to him just the other day. Time is funny like that.
When I think about him, I remember the times we spent playing catch in the front yard or the times he took me fishing. I remember sitting in his lap in my pajamas watching Jackie Gleason’s “American Scene Magazine” on our black and white television with “Crazy Guggenheim” (Frank Fontaine) and the June Taylor Dancers. After the show, he would carry me on his shoulders and let me touch the ceiling and other things that were too high for me to touch otherwise.
I can almost see him walking out the door with his lunch bucket in hand on his way to work at the local paper mill, or coming through the front door with bags of groceries from his trip to the supermarket. He smoked a pipe for many years and then switched to cigarettes, and when he turned 69 he quit smoking altogether.
I look a lot like my dad and the older I get, the more I look like him. It’s funny, but every once in a while when I look in the mirror it’s like I see a reflection of him looking back at me. I get a warm feeling when that happens. I always…
