Wow. I have not been here for a while. Been busy with a million other projects. I am glad about that. Guess I will just sleep when I am dead. All of a sudden, it's Father's Day. Well that crept up on me!
I don't do much on Father's Day anymore. I tell other Dads I know to have a great day. I truly hope that they do. I wish I could tell the young children of dads I know to appreciate and savor every moment.
I thought about what we would have done today as a family. My parents and my brother would have come over to our house. We would have barbecued. My husband and my brother, both of them guitar players and frustrated rock stars, would have proceeded to discuss a new tune, band, or guitar just out by Gibson, Les Paul, or another guitar maker, and it would have been kind of fun to sit and watch my dad watch them talk about something they both love, and not know what the hell either one of them was talking about. But he would make sure he looked interested.
In case no one has figured it out by now, we are a political family. My brother and I were taught to pay attention to what was going on around us, and in the rest of the world. It has made us care. We would talk about things like the Middle East, health care, and just the President in general. My dad was a Conservative from the Reagan/Buckley school of Conservatism. He was never afraid to let that be known.
He would ask about our jobs, how our cars were running, and my husband would have at least one household repair that needed the knowledge and expertise of somebody who had been self taught in the ways of do it yourself home repair. That knowledge was usually spot on, and I know was invaluable to a guy whose first talent is not being a handyman.
After dinner, we would gather in our family room, around the TV. We would have channel surfed, and no doubt would have stumbled on an old movie, or TV show. The musicians in the family might have commandeered the remote before anyone else, and promptly switched to VH1 Classic, just to make my dad, an old school jazz man in every sense of the word, listen to Led Zeppelin, RUSH, or some obscure 80's hair band that has been forgotten. I think they just liked to torture him.
I was always sad to see the day end. Like everybody else, I was always busy with work, or something else that would make me put off just stopping by to shoot the breeze with my dad. But instead of feeling bad or guilty about that, because he would not want that, I think I will just remember the warm summer Saturday afternoons of my childhood. I was 7 or 8 years old, my dad would spend the day working on cars. When you could actually still work on your own car. Cars were his passion. He would wash his or my mom's car, change the oil, or do what ever it was that needed to be done. The garage door would be up all day, and strains of the late Jim Bolen's Saturday afternoon jazz show, "Jazz Comes Calling", live from "Jazz Central" could be heard on his garage radio.
Those Father's Days, and those Saturday afternoons only live in my memory now. I wouldn't trade them for the world. I think about my dad every day. Maybe that makes, at least for me, every day Father's Day.
Happy Father's Day Dads, from The Conservative Cauldron!
I don't do much on Father's Day anymore. I tell other Dads I know to have a great day. I truly hope that they do. I wish I could tell the young children of dads I know to appreciate and savor every moment.
I thought about what we would have done today as a family. My parents and my brother would have come over to our house. We would have barbecued. My husband and my brother, both of them guitar players and frustrated rock stars, would have proceeded to discuss a new tune, band, or guitar just out by Gibson, Les Paul, or another guitar maker, and it would have been kind of fun to sit and watch my dad watch them talk about something they both love, and not know what the hell either one of them was talking about. But he would make sure he looked interested.
In case no one has figured it out by now, we are a political family. My brother and I were taught to pay attention to what was going on around us, and in the rest of the world. It has made us care. We would talk about things like the Middle East, health care, and just the President in general. My dad was a Conservative from the Reagan/Buckley school of Conservatism. He was never afraid to let that be known.
He would ask about our jobs, how our cars were running, and my husband would have at least one household repair that needed the knowledge and expertise of somebody who had been self taught in the ways of do it yourself home repair. That knowledge was usually spot on, and I know was invaluable to a guy whose first talent is not being a handyman.
After dinner, we would gather in our family room, around the TV. We would have channel surfed, and no doubt would have stumbled on an old movie, or TV show. The musicians in the family might have commandeered the remote before anyone else, and promptly switched to VH1 Classic, just to make my dad, an old school jazz man in every sense of the word, listen to Led Zeppelin, RUSH, or some obscure 80's hair band that has been forgotten. I think they just liked to torture him.
I was always sad to see the day end. Like everybody else, I was always busy with work, or something else that would make me put off just stopping by to shoot the breeze with my dad. But instead of feeling bad or guilty about that, because he would not want that, I think I will just remember the warm summer Saturday afternoons of my childhood. I was 7 or 8 years old, my dad would spend the day working on cars. When you could actually still work on your own car. Cars were his passion. He would wash his or my mom's car, change the oil, or do what ever it was that needed to be done. The garage door would be up all day, and strains of the late Jim Bolen's Saturday afternoon jazz show, "Jazz Comes Calling", live from "Jazz Central" could be heard on his garage radio.
Those Father's Days, and those Saturday afternoons only live in my memory now. I wouldn't trade them for the world. I think about my dad every day. Maybe that makes, at least for me, every day Father's Day.
Happy Father's Day Dads, from The Conservative Cauldron!
