Father's Day. In my cynical View Father's Day is just another way to merchandise and already existing individual/event to the benefit of the capitalistic USA and America. It's truly a nice settlement for those fathers out there I guess who deserve it. Again I think we try to convince ourselves that our fathers were the best there was in many cases they were. I know mine was pretty good. As a father now I look back and know how hard he must have tried to be a good father and overall he was especially adopting as many kids as he was part of that adoption process cuz as they say it takes two to tango. My mom wanted the kids and she was a forced to contend with and my dad more or less took the easy way out just kept going to work every morning to feed the family and his little farm. Interesting however, and took me a lifetime to figure this out, a good portion of the kids in my family are all related like in real life there like cousins I think second cousins since my uncle which is my dad's brother had kids or daughters who kept having kids out of wedlock which, fortunately for my mom, was a constant source of new children. I think my dad was doing what he thought was best by keeping the blood kin in the family one way or the other. Either way he certainly increased our family size and his ability to be a dad at least fourfold. I was kind of in the middle and to be honest my dad terrified me for a good part of my life. I always felt most comfortable when he was away from the house. He worked on call at his office so that even passed his 40-hour week if there were problems with furnaces or air conditioners he was on call so he would be gone on those days like Saturdays and even Sundays getting the work done. I always seem to breathe a little easier when I saw the service truck leave in the morning. That sounds bad I know but that's true. It seems like my dad's idea of a good time was working. He lived on a farm so that means we worked a lot. We had cows that needed to be milked and fed and watered and then we had hayfields that needed to be tended, watered, cut, rate and then brought into the stack. This could take a major portion of the summer and it was hot and tiresome and certainly cut into my play time with my friends. Again, looking back I would have gladly pulled weeds, watered the garden and took care of things if I had better understood but my dad was trying to do for me. And if we just buckled in, my brother and I, we could have done the hay probably in a third or 2/3 of the time faster than we did just dallying around trying to get out of much work as possible. If we just knuckle down through the hay out of the wagon empty it as fast as we could and got it all done we could enjoy this Summer's heat a lot less guilt and fear. I love my dad I appreciate all that he did for me and I think I miss him too just as much as I think the other kids do. Am I bad?
No comments:
Post a Comment