Any male can sire a child but only a Dad can be a father. My Dad was a father. He died in 1992 of anger, resentment, fear and low self esteem. It's hard to keep those feelings stuffed down and in without something exploding like a heart attack or some other bizarre symptom of stuffed emotion. He slapped me around, maybe worse so it is said, but I do not remember. He knocked my Mom around and berated all behind our closed doors. I saw him cry once, at his Mom's funeral. I heard him cry once on the phone in a drunken stupor.
And, he was my Dad. He took me to the pool hall and to work with him - I loved to follow him around, and sometimes what he won at pool is how we ate. He taught me to throw and called me "Rag Arm" as I learned to be the pitcher and play shortstop. He coached my teams from age six onward and then he coached my brother and the girls. He sometimes drove a hundred miles to see my basketball games and wrestling matches even though I lost every one.
He found my first car for $400, taught me how to change the oil, sand it for painting and install my eight track player with customized speakers. Many times at night I stole a dollar out of his pants pocket until one night I found instead a note saying, "Take two". I never did it again - not from him. I came home drunk and he was waiting. Didn't say anything except,"Son if you ever come home drunk I will take you down and sit on you while I pour a fifth of Jim Beam down your throat." He didn't say the word "again", but I never came home drunk again.
Sometimes I got straight A's in school. He was a high school drop out who could do complex math in his head. He didn't read very well and his singing in church scared the organist but no one said anything. I read alot, graduated from college and I still sing in a band in my head. He didn't say much about that stuff, rarely was I good enough, and yet I always knew he was proud of me.
He furiously compared himself to others, falling short to the day he died, and yet well over 300 people in our little home town came to his funeral. I guess we all disagreed with his estimation of himself.
Especially I think of him every Father's Day, remembering the good stuff and feeling sad about the bad. He grew up with the bad stuff, but I think he ad-libbed the good. He was my Dad and I miss him.
Bill
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The night before he died, he talked about how great it had been to have you there, spending days together, sharing time, getting to know you all over again. He was proud of you! You may not have been at your best at that point in your life, but your father loved the man he'd come to know.
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