Well, Father's Day is here again. Actually, I took my family to lunch last week when they were in town. Condering the past I have had with my father (or lack thereof), it is amazing that I even came this far.
As I have mentioned before, my dad wasn't wanted by his mother, and my dad didn't want me. I was raised by my mother, and her husband was not my father, but an enlisted man in the United States Air Force. My dad was on loan to Uncle Sam for the first almost 19 years of my life. My dad only had one simple rule while I was growing up: do not do anything that could potentially remotely embarras him in the slightest. He was super aware of his reputation, and he did not want anything to destroy it by anyone.
Growing up in North Dakota, my dad was rarely around. I remember in Cub Scouting, other kids would go to the Father/Son campouts or the Father/Son cake decorating contests, and my dad would have nothing to do with it. The only time he would show up to Pack Meeting is when I achieved a rank, and then he was only there for his own reputation. When I had my achievements in Mathcounts, my dad came out of the woodwork again to be by my side, but he was rarely there, except for the photo ops and interviews.
When my dad informed us we were moving to California, he told us about all of the exciting places we would go when we were out there, such as San Francisco to see the Golden Gate Bridge and the Cable Cars, the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, the Santa Cruz Boardwalk, Monterey and Carmel (my dad is a big Clint Eastwood fanatic), Hearst Castle in San Simeon, the Los Angeles Zoo, Magic Mountain, Disneyland, Knotts Berry Farm, the San Diego Zoo, and San Diego Sea World. We would also see the big Sequoia trees, Yosemite National Park, and see the Grand Canyon.
When my dad got the promotion, and we moved to California, my dad was even more conscious of his reputation, and he put additional restrictions on my life, such as a 7pm curfew. Even though I was a good kid, he could not take a chance that I might screw up. My life under my dad was a script. I was always told what to say, who to say it to, and when to say it. THe only court of honor my parents attended while I was in Boy Scouting was when I achieved the rank of Eagle Scout, and that was because they were required to be in attendance, although I had a second set of parents (my mom and dad's friends) ready to step in.
All of these places my dad told us about, we didn't go to many of them. HIs excuse was he went there and he didn't want to go back. We never went to San Francisco, never went to the Winxhester Mystery House in San Jose, never went to the Santa Cruz Boardwalk, or to Hearst Castle (my dad said it was just a big house, and he had been there many times). We never went to the Loa Angeles Zoo, or Knotts Berry Farm, San Diego, or Yosemite National Park.
As a family, we did get to go to Disneyland once, after mom did enough pressuring on dad, and we did get to go to Magic Mountain once as a family. One Memorial Day weekend, we did wind our way up to Carmel and Monterey. We went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium and Cannery Row. We did get to go on the Queen Mary (only because I had a math competition on the boat), and my mom, dad, and sister saw the Spruce Goose when it was in Long Beach.
Through Scouting and school, I did get to go to Disneyland one more time (for graduation), Magic Mountain twice more (Scouts and Physics Day), Sequoia/Kings Canyon National Park (Scouting), Dodger Stadium to see my first professional sports game (school), and Monterey (for Spanish Club). But, it was my father who told me not to trust anyone in life, and then steals my scholarship money, and blackmails me for another 4 years of my life during college.
The reason I had SA for the first twelve years of the disease was because of an overactive imagination, and the reason I have had SA for the last seventeen years was because of my father.
During my move from California to Missouri, at one point, we were 45 miles from the Grand Canyon. I asked dad if we could go see it. My dad said "No, it's just a hole in the ground". He used the same excuse when were two miles from the Meteor Crater in Arizona. My dad's philosophy was that if he had experienced it, he didn't want to go back.
Father's Day weekend always elicits memories of Day 1999. I was in Phoenix, Arizona working out of our Phoenix office working on a project for the City of Phoenix. I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do on Father's Day, and I had the idea to take a train ride from Williams up to the Grand Canyon, and spend the day at the Grand Canyon. The reaon I wanted to go was that I could call my dad from there and wish him a Happy Father's Day from a place he never took us. I ended up being sick that Father's Day, so I was not able to go to the Grand Canyon.
The odd thing was that during my professional career, the more success i had, the more angry my dad was. He didn't like the fact that he had to earn his way to the top, and I just did it with a piece of paper. He hated the fact that I was living better than he was. The main reason there was because he was a blue collar man in a blue collar world, where I was a white collar man in a white collar world.
Three pivotal events in his life have improved the relationship between us over the last five years. Things started to change after the passing of his father in December of 2003. He realized now he had no more time with his father, so we have spent more time together than in the past. Second, in 2006, he became Director of Human Resources and Information Technology for a manufacturing company. He was now in a white collar position. All of the struggles I would mention to mom and he would laugh and blow them off, he was now experiencing. He finally got to experience the issues I was experiencing. Third, during our Fourth of July picnic in 2007, my dad in a conversation stated the reason he didn't know how to relate to me that much because I showed alot of fear growing up. Considering the way he ruled the household when I was a child, it was a "Duh!" moment.
Now, over the years, I have been places and seen things, some of which I can never do again. I have seen a sunrise on the Atlantic Ocean, witnessed up close the beauty and majesty of Niagara Falls, climbed 14,110 foot Pikes Peak, walked across the Royal Gorge Bridge, seen the tallest peak in North America, Denali. I got to take a private tour of the US Air Force Academy, and I got to go "inside the mountain" by visiting the NORAD base at Cheyenne Mountain.
One of the things I think about is when I have kids, I want to be a father who is always there for them, and I want to go places and do things with them, and be the father that I never had.
That is what Father's Day means to me.
