Fathers Day Tribute

Dad playing his harmonica that
he carried with him everywhere.

The standard-brand paint religions, whether Jewish, Christian, Mohammedism, Hindu, or Buddhist, are --- as now practiced --- like exhausted mines: very hard to dig. With some exceptions not too easily found, their imagery, their rites, and their notions of the good life don’t seem to fit in with the universe as we now know it, or with a human world that is changing so rapidly that much of what one learns in school is readily obsolete on graduation day.

Alan Watts

The Book, p. 5

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The traditional role of the father and the nuclear family appears to be almost obsolete, today, at the beginning of this century. At least this is true in the West. So many of us seem to have little or no idea of what it is to “Man-Up”.

“The Book” was written by Alan Watts in 1966 to pass on to his son … that era is history for most of us now. After all, my perception is that anything that happened around twenty years before I was born is history (i.e., before my mother and father were born). I remember watching the annual Lilac and Apple Blossom parades (in Spokane and Wenatchee Washington), when I was a kid. There were still a few WWI, Spanish American War, and even Civil War veterans marching, or riding along in convertibles. WWII vets were from the era I was born into but the rest was just in the history books. Ancient history began somewhere vaguely before the Revolutionary War. The laptop on which I type this reflection out on was history years before I bought it even though I tried to buy the most recent model.

            To the young, today is present time; but for some of us in our sixties, today was already history before we ate breakfast. It is a perception of time tempered by age and the passing, or soon to be passing, of those who sired and gave birth to us. Today is a day put aside in which I honor my father and show a token of gratitude for the sacrifices he made on his children’s’ behalf. For others it is perhaps a day to forgive his failings or to see our own part in the context of our failings.

            My dad isn’t likely to read this because he has been around for over ninety years and his eyesight is failing. But I honor him because he gave me life… taught me standards… showed me what it is to be a man. I regret that I didn’t completely follow his example but, what I did catch on to, has been so much a blessing… I like to brag him up while I have the chance. I will call him today to tell him... "I love you Dad."

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