A FATHER'S DAY SPECIAL FEATURE

I – It may be Father's Day Week,
but I still have a bone to pick with my Dad.

I don't mind that when Dad came home from the war, he gave his baby girl a baseball glove instead of a sewing kit. I don't mind he and Mom bought a ping-pong table for the basement of their newly purchased bungalow, and that even though he worked hard not to, Dad always beat me at the silly game. In the end, I was the winner. That table supported my early tries at roller-skating.

I appreciate the swing set Dad screwed laboriously together so my sister and I could perfect our skin-the-cats, and pretend to be circus performers. Later, Dad perched a basketball goal in the persimmon tree, and our squishy court became the center of activity for all the jocks in the neighborhood.

Thanks, Dad. That was nice.

Fact is, our yard was probably one of the first sports complexes in America. Kids, growing tired of H-O-R-S-E, could challenge one another to a game of badminton, throw horseshoes, shoot bows and arrows, slam each other with a tetherball, or scrimmage as the Green Bay Packers.

We often chalked out hopscotch and foursquare on our concrete front porch, too. We depended on Dad to help us get a sweat, because Mom's favorite game to play with us was jacks.

My friends and I didn't need organized sports — we had my Dad.

Dad looked the other way when we mountain-climbed the apple tree and race-drove our bikes until his grass was dirt. He'd rather we children were thoroughbreds running the Kentucky Derby than for our family to have a pretty lawn. He didn't scream when we started digging a swimming pool in his garden while he was at work.

You name a sport, and my Dad provided me a chance to play it, except for one, doggone it, and there's the rub. Oh sure, he got me a croquet set, it's kind of a similar game. He even treated me to Cool Crest where we practiced this game in miniature. But Dad never took me where it really counted, to a golf course at a fancy country club, so I could become a golfing-prodigy like Tiger Woods and go on to fame, fortune and a round at getting even with the guys in the PGA.

See, when you don't start golf until college, forget ever becoming a regular par-shooter, even if you do major in physical education at William Jewell, and have Coach Darrell Gourley as your instructor. Trust me, if you haven't made your last whiff by the age of 10, you'll never cut it at Colonial, the Masters, or any place else that matters in today's athletic arena.

Given the opportunity, I know I could have been another Annika Sorenstam. Instead, I'll never be more than my Daddy's little number one tomboy. But on second thought maybe that has been trophy enough. No bones about it, Dad. I love you.

Happy Father's Day.

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?BRD=1452&dept_id=155079&newsid=8286059&PAG=461&rfi=9

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II – Father's Day memories of a quiet man

I did my Mother's Day column, and now it's equal time. Sunday is Fathers Day. Papa has been gone for a long time. But I remember everything about him.

And that is easy because my papa did very little in his life to warrant any printer's ink. The only time my father's name appeared in a newspaper was when they wrote his obit.

Papa was a hermit-type recluse by choice. Not that he didn't like or respect people. He just chose to avoid them. But that was hard to do because he had seven children, and Mama had legions of friends, and ours was an "open" house. But Papa managed to find solitude in a corner of our upstairs living room listening to his many albums of opera, and his Saturday afternoon operas from New York Metropolitan Opera.

As a kid I saw all those Andy Hardy movies where Mickey Rooney had those father-son talks with his dad, Judge Hardy, played by Lewis Stone. And I always wished that I could do the same with my father, but my father was a man of very few words.

Papa spoke only when giving orders, advice and council, mostly to his seven children. And his words were usually laced with morals, to lend emphasis. And they were delivered mostly in Italian, which always sounded more important and dramatic. "Tell me who you go with, and I'll tell you who you are." Or "Remember, the early bird catches the worm."

The other times he spoke was to give commands to his children -- mostly to me, the eldest of the boys. "Raise the store awnings," or "Put out the ashes." And "Don't forget to do the windows."

In retrospect now, I often wondered if my father ever enjoyed his life. He never cared about "dressing up." Didn't care about sports. Never went bowling. Didn't dance. Didn't sing or play an instrument. Seldom embraced or kissed, except at the kids' birthday, or Mother's Day. Thought it was unmanly.

Papa didn't have one man friend; never joined a club; didn't drink or play cards. And even though his father was in the winery business, Papa may have had a glass of wine to go with his favorite rigatoni. But that was it.

My father hardly ever traveled, except to go to Wildwood Crest, where we had our summer home. And he loved to raise tomatoes and peppers in our little garden behind our house. I carry one picture of papa in my wallet showing him smiling while he digs in his little patch garden.

And so there's little I can say about the relationship between my father and me. Papa never took me to a ball game. He never went fishing. He never won any trophies, medals, citations or honors of any kind. In fact, my father never even had his 15 minutes of fame, as the saying goes. But you know what? He was a good man, and a good father. And that's about the best thing any child can say about, his dad.

Happy Father's Day, Papa. And yes I did the windows!

By Joe DeFeo
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?BRD=1725&dept_id=45406&newsid=8285065&PAG=461&rfi=9

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III – "Man, Dad, you call yourself a man?"
Heartbreaking Father's Day cards from kids in juvenile hall.

Salon Editor's note: This year, Salon honors Father's Day with poems and writings by incarcerated teenagers. The writers, aged 13 to 18 and detained in Bay Area facilities, paint a bleak picture of family life without strong fathers, bleaker still because they were written from lockdown. But beneath the rage and longing, they also write of the love they feel for the men they've lost, the men they miss, the men they never met.

The writings are reprinted courtesy of The Beat Within, a weekly newsletter that publishes the writing and artwork of boys and girls incarcerated in the Bay Area. For their protection, contributors to this story are only identified by their first names or nicknames.

Stranger in my eyes

Man, Dad, you call yourself a man?
You been my enemy since the start
with your bullshit abortion plan.

Weren't there for the first steps that I walked.
Weren't there for the first words that I talked.
It's funny 'cause if we passed each other on the outs,
You'd be a stranger in my eyes without a doubt.

It feels wrong to say I'm half you
'cause the only fatherly love I got
was from da homies in da crew.
Sometimes, it feels like I couldn't raise my own
Because of all those father-son experiences you stole.

I've been deprived of a God-given right.
You should think about that because mom cries at night.
Hope that haunts your cold ass heart till da day you go out.
Until the next time.

— Da Fatherless Nicoya One

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To be real

To be real, on Father's Day, my mom is going to be the one to receive a card full of love, 'cause my father was never in my life. He was the type to disappear and call moms, saying he need some money. I really don't feel him 'cause he put my moms through hell and back. All I got to say is fuck my dad. Happy Father's Day, mom, I love you.

— Britt Boog

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Daddy didn't love me

I don't think you'd wanna call him a man, if you knew the dude. All he used to be for me was money, but he won't even help us out no more, and we're struggling. My mom calls him party boy. All he does is smoke weed, drink, and party all the time. He is a professional bartender. He's probably a pro-bar hopper too. He's gay, but he calls himself bisexual, just like my two exes — who are now together. He molested me when I was two years old. This is a dead issue. I have a dead beat dad. Daddy didn't love me. Daddy wasn't there.

— II Far Gon

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Clean for eleven months

Dad I remember growing up as a kid, which I still am. You were never really there for me. Every time I saw you it would take another six to seven months to see you again. Every time I would ask my mom if I could go to see you, she would try to turn me against you, which was not wrong of her. You would always ask me when I saw you, "why don't you call me?" But you should have been the man and called me to see how I was doing.

But to make up for all the days, months, and years we were apart you are making up for that.

I give you two thumbs up for being clean for eleven months.

— Joseph

http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2003/06/13/beat_2/index_np.html

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