Father's Day

My dad Orrin in 1938

My dad was quite a man. Full of dreams, many unfulfilled because he died so young -- only 47 years old. We were not alike and were not very close when I was growing up. But we have bond that seems only to have grown stronger in the 45 years since he died.

He always had too many projects going at the same time. He always looked for a bargain, almost never bought new or full-price. And he always wanted to do things himself, whether it was hand-digging a well, installing a furnace or building new kitchen cabinets. If he didn't know how to do it, he'd find somebody who did and learn from them. For many of his projects, I was his not-so-willing laborer. But now I'm happy with the memories.

When I was eight years old, my dad gave my sister and me "new" bicycles for Christmas. Actually, he put them together from junkyard parts that he hand-welded. They looked great to me, even if I had a hard time to learning to ride mine. He was impatient when it came to teaching me how to do things. If I didn't get it right away, he'd get angry or bored. I eventually mastered bicycle-riding on my own, after he gave up teaching me. The same was true of driving a car and any number of other things.

I was a bookish, awkward kid. Growing up, it seemed as if he knew how to do everything and I would never be as good or smart or clever as he was. It wasn't until I was middle-aged that it dawned on me that I had spent so much of my life trying to show my dad that was I worthy of his affection. Several years of therapy also helped me understand that such yearning isn't unique. Many boys feel inadequate compared to their dads and in striving to be like them or even better they build healthy self-esteem.

Today, I admit that I've become quite a bit like my dad. And, like Al Franken's character Stuart Smalley on Saturday Night Live, I'm good enough, I'm smart enough and doggone it, people like me. And Happy Father's Day, dad.