Father's Day

Below is the column I wrote in honor of Father's Day this year. It appeared in print June 13, 2007.


Amid all the budget bluster and end-of-school chaos this Sunday provides an opportunity to honor our fathers with home made cards (or Hallmark), precious gifts like crafty pencil cups or the ubiquitous necktie, and perhaps a hearty breakfast or round of golf.

This year I want to honor my father, a man of few words except when the talk turns to politics or football (particularly the University of Maine team), a man who took me fishing as a little girl and inspired a love of it in my son. A man who professes not to like dogs but cannot stand if a dog does not like him. A divorced Dad, he never missed a weekend visit.

I think fathers are supposed to be known for their advice. In some artificial social construct once a man has a child he is supposed to wise-up and share his collection of lessons learned with his kids. That’s a lot of pressure, and I’m sure some enterprising group of parenting experts/satirists/psychologists has the best methods and wizened nuggets ready to go at a moments notice. Or not.

My father only ever gave me one piece of advice, or perhaps it’s the only one I ever listened to. Over the years I’ve picked up a few more out of observation rather than being told.

1. On a cream cheese run Sunday morning, avoid speed traps.
2. A good game of cribbage cures many ills.
3. Teach your children to drive in a blizzard; it could save their life.
4. Keep your mouth shut and your eyes and ears open (mostly I have trouble with the first part of this cherry rule).
5. And finally, Do what you love and the money will come.

The first four on that list come from specific instances during my youth. My first ( and only) speeding ticket came while on trying to roust some cream cheese out of our rural community one Sunday morning to go with the very fine, authentic bagels we had on hand.

In the wilds of Maine, cribbage is a clever way to prevent insanity, pass the time during power outages, and gather with friends. I got so good I beat everyone I played my first year in college (including a few Texas braggarts).

Yes, my father made me drive in blizzards to return movies. And we’re not talking a 5 minute trip to the video store. This was semi-rural Maine, people. A video store run took the better part of an hour just to drive there.

The last sentence is that one piece of advice I ever really listened to and its one I share with my own kids. Well, I will when it makes sense. Right now my son seems to think that it means he can choose his own chores. Not so much.

Do what you love and the money will come. For an MBA, that was radical advice from my dad. He saw the value of pursuing one’s passion, that living what you love makes life infinitely sweeter. Toiling at a job you hate, even if the money is good, makes for a life of hard time. Choosing a path early on that allows you to do work you enjoy as well as care for your family is even more sanity preserving than cribbage. Hard to believe, I know.

Plus, loving what you do makes it easier to be an expert, to become the best in your field. Though he always wants the best for us and wishes us success, I always felt my dad would rather I was happy whether in a big or small way.

There is only one hard thing about that statement, finding what you love. Some are blessed to know at a young age, such as my husband, that he loves engineering and physics and building stuff with Legos. Others are not so sure what they love. Perhaps the hardest part of all is believing in yourself enough to trust that whatever you choose, you can make it work.

Maybe it’s a coincidence that graduations and father’s day tend to run pretty close to each other, tripping over each other in the card store racks. Often at graduations dads bestow their best guidance. Along the way, my dad stopped giving unsolicited advice, opting instead to offer up counsel whenever I asked for it, a trait I am grateful for. Nothing sours a relationship quicker than an uninformed parent giving outdated or irrelevant advice does.

So Dad, I will watch out for speed traps, especially on cream cheese runs, try to keep my mouth shut and my eyes and ears open, and keep doing what I love. Thanks, Dad.