Comments on: For tomorrow: Happy Father’s Day!

By: RigelDog

RigelDog — Wed, 21 Jun 2023 03:54:52 +0000

I love that poem about fathers, Neo. It made it into my hand-written Poem Book a long time ago (as did some of the poems that Gerard featured on his site).

The line that gets to me every time is “What did I know, what did I know….” Such regret at the time lost, the ignorance and arrogance of youth. Feeling the deep gratitude now, but too late.

Sundays too my grandfather rose in the blue black cold to stoke the coal furnace in the basement….Monday through Friday, he went down into the blue black cold of the mine to bring the coal to the surface and to put food on the table. What did I know, what did I know then about the love he performed with his hands and his back and the breath in his blackened lungs?

By: RigelDog

RigelDog — Wed, 21 Jun 2023 03:48:17 +0000

Huxley, thanks for that poem. Do you think when he speaks of the hurt that will inevitably come in the future that he is anticipating the pain of separating from them as they become adults? Especially the fact that, in their leaving, they will almost certainly say and do many things that are cold or hurtful in order to find some emotional distance from their parents?

By: huxley

huxley — Mon, 19 Jun 2023 00:55:18 +0000

Here’s my favorite poem about fathers. I’m no authority on the subject, but it strikes as deep, true and beautiful.
_______________________________

Step On His Head

Let’s step on daddy’s head shout
the children my dear children as
we walk in the country on a sunny

summer day my shadow bobs dark on
the road as we walk and they jump
on its head and my love of them

fills me all full of soft feelings
now I duck with my head so they’ll
miss when they jump they screech

with delight and I moan oh you’re
hurting you’re hurting me stop
they jump all the harder and love

fills the whole road but I see it run
on through the years and I know
how some day they must jump when

it won’t be this shadow but really
my head (as I stepped on my own
father’s head) it will hurt really

hurt and I wonder if then I will
have love enough will I have love
enough when it’s not just a game?

— James Laughlin (1914-1997)

By: windbag

windbag — Mon, 19 Jun 2023 00:40:14 +0000

Another version of Stayin’ Alive that perhaps you haven’t heard.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRNGVi0gTxk

By: Tom Grey

Tom Grey — Mon, 19 Jun 2023 00:25:22 +0000

Thanks, Neo, for good wishes, since I’m both a Dad to 4, and already a Grandpa to a couple.

Here’s a small gift to you and all here, Stayin’ Alive like you’ve never heard:
https://boingboing.net/2023/05/29/the-bee-gees-stayin-alive-but-on-a-church-pipe-organ.html

(Got to boing boing from Don Surber — haven’t looked at the b b cool stuff for awhile for some reason.)

I’m sad my own sad alco Dad remained disrespectful for all of his only 56 years, dying in the same year as his own father, my Grandpa, died at 86. Was a bad year for me. All years since have been better. Glad my kids have a Father faithful to his wedding vows.

By: miguel cervantes

miguel cervantes — Sun, 18 Jun 2023 22:29:48 +0000

https://johnkassnews.com/theres-no-fathers-day-without-a-mom/

By: Richard Aubrey

Richard Aubrey — Sun, 18 Jun 2023 22:20:53 +0000

I appreciate the poem.
But I’d also like to add “role expectations”.
Hypothetical: My wife and daughter are in the house along with a couple of our daughter’s friends, call it junior high age.
Old times. Coal furnace in the basement.
Who leaves the warm bed to get the fire going? Me. It’s my job. I’m a guy. It’s what we do. I’d do it if they were all strangers, although a hypothetical putting that together escapes me at the moment.
Ditto answer the door at two in the morning.

Various reasons including that guys are supposed to be able to do such things better, endure cold better or at least put up with it, and any incremental reduction in expected life span is part of the job description and not to be remarked upon.

Love would be involved in certain circumstances, but role expectations including expectations of oneself also apply.

By: John Guilfoyle

John Guilfoyle — Sun, 18 Jun 2023 20:04:00 +0000

In Oz the official celebration is in September. But given the blessings of fatherhood… for me every day is Father’s Day. And I miss mine regularly. He was an incredible honorable man and would have been delighted by his grandkids and great-grandkids. His was a daily faithfulness that never wavered.

By: Jim Nicholas

Jim Nicholas — Sun, 18 Jun 2023 19:05:12 +0000

My father wrote one letter to me during my college years–a letter of advice. I still have it seventy-five years later. Its ending began my gradual realization that he was the wisest person I have known: ‘And finally, advice is to be considered, not necessarily taken.’

By: Levin

Levin — Sun, 18 Jun 2023 14:47:04 +0000

I’m blessed with two wonderful adult daughters.

The whole schtick about tending the fire, checking that the doors are locked, digging out of blizzard while the ladies stay inside is built into my identity. Having been divorced and then a failed long-term relationship, but then having a great second marriage gave me insight as to the added value that a father can have on kids when they are young if they live with them, and what kids lose if they don’t.

Generalizing, too many boys and girls lack a father figure, and it shows. And once they reach adulthood it is especially evident in the young men.