Posted on Monday, September 28th, 2009
Happy Father’s Day “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” — Henry David Thoreau, Walden, 1854
(I know. It's not Father's Day. But it doesn't hurt to celebrate special things out of the blue. I just felt like it. I wrote this as an editorial years ago.)
A job can be the ultimate sacrifice, a surrendering, perhaps, of boyhood dreams. Men can spend a lifetime working for their children. Women, too. But that is another story, for today is Father’s Day. There is much that goes into putting food on the table and shoes on tiny and not-so-tiny feet. Every morning, a face greets the man in his bathroom mirror. The face changes over the years, yet still is familiar. Etched with worries and lost battles of swallowing pride and freedom for a paycheck, the face matures and ages. Today we salute something taken for granted: Fatherhood. Well. Good fatherhood. The bad ones can pretty much rot, or at least come around for several more lifetimes until they start to get their acts together. A good father has broad shoulders for carrying small creatures too tired to walk or just preferring a better view of the world. A good father comes with an enlarged throat from swallowing grief or inappropriate responses. Men are looked upon for wisdom they frequently don’t possess. It takes a moment, or sometimes years, to find the right answers, and that is more than okay. Like everything else in Nature, men are works in progress. A good father doesn’t necessarily need the correct response for an algebra quiz or have those magic words to mend a broken heart. He should be able to listen. And comfort. He should have a proper lap for rocking. A good father gets out of bed at two in the morning to chase away nightmares and at three in the morning to bring a glass of water and at four to make room for a small, cold, wiggling and lonely body. Sometimes before dawn he stumbles out of bed again, this time to go to work. In all these years of interruptions to blessed sleep, there are rarely any thank you’s, and that’s all right. One wouldn’t want to be startled into a heart attack by a surprise burst of gratitude from the angels in their charge. Some fathers will never get that Corvette. Adventures will be postponed, perhaps forever, to pay for braces or dance lessons, football clinics or law school. But, in those best of days, there will be the simple blessings. Hugs. Laughter from another room. A piece of crayoned artwork or the clarity of youthful insight. Alone in the kitchen, a man will pause to glance fondly at a cheesy photo. Out of the blue, a son or daughter will say, “I love you, Dad.” That can melt the most acrimonious problem into its proper nothingness. It’s a good job, fatherhood, with questionable benefits. Odd, isn’t it, all the changes in the Santa Clarita Valley over the thousands of years? We’ve gone from a primitive hunter-gatherer society to a complicated suburbia on an ever-shrinking planet. Over the centuries, good men — good fathers — have passed on wisdom. It may be how to start a campfire or build an airplane. The best of men will teach their children how to find the way home in the dark. So they, in turn, can teach their children how to find the way home in the dark. Let's raise a glass — be it a sippy cup or champagne flute — and wishes you good, harried fellows a Happy Father’s Day.
o o o o o o o o o o o o John Boston hosts a weekly radio show called "The Former Friends of John Boston" on KHTS-AM 1220. Visit www.hometownstation.com and do a search for John Boston. You can listen to his show Mondays at 2 p.m. or pick up any of the webcasts. o o o o o o o o o o o o Also, check out Boston's other commentary and his Santa Clarita Valley history column, The Time Ranger, on The West Ranch Beacon. That's www.westranchbeacon.com © Copyright 2009 by John Boston. All rights reserved.
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