The Guy You Can Count On

Dr. Spock would not approve.

The picture shown above is my dad and I, taken when I was about 6 months old and he was 19. We're in my grandparents' den (which was also our den, because we lived with them for a few years). My dad is letting me sample his beer.

In Pop's defense, this was the 1970s, when women regularly smoked their way through their entire pregnancies and rubbed Jack Daniels on a baby's gums when it was teething. What didn't kill the kids from this era made us stronger — or marred us for life. Jury's still out.

As proof that my dad was just going with traffic, here's an image taken during that same time period of my grandfather, about to present me with a sip of his Miller High Life ...

... followed by my Uncle Al actually handing over his libation to me, sitting in the EXACT SAME SEAT in my grandparents' kitchen (wait, doesn't every family have a "Ply the Baby with Booze" seat?):

I guess I shouldn't complain. I look relatively happy in all of these shots. I'm also partial to the hops now that I'm of legal drinking age, so God bless my relatives' inappropriate baby-sitting M.O.

But back to my dad. He wasn't the most patient of fathers. He wasn't the calmest of fathers. He wasn't the most fashionable of fathers:

Also:

Yes, it was the '70s. Still. Dad.

My father is what you call a Passionate Person. He reads everything he can get his hands on. He has strong opinions on politicians and sports and — well, on pretty much everything else. Every other person may be an asshole, depending on the time of day and which way the wind is blowing. His contrarian personality (and he will probably argue with me calling him contrarian) mandates that if you are driving him to the train station that you've driven to 50,000 times yourself, following the route you've already surmised is the best one based on years of commuting experience, he will question why you're taking that route and how you're driving and should you even be driving at all — how did you ever get your license?!

* * *

One of my favorite images of my dad is a New York Newsday cover shot from 1970. I had hoped my mom would be able to scan it and send to me in time for this post, which didn't happen because she isn't sure where it is. Anyway, it's burned into my memory, because I've seen it so many times: It shows my 18-year-old father (shortly before he actually became my father), black-armbanded* arm in the air, mouth wide open, hollering something about the Vietnam War to the reporters and photographers and assembly attendees and whoever else happened to be within shouting distance.

Sometimes that unbridled passion can veer into the cray-cray. He once tore all of the shelves out of the refrigerator after becoming enraged about some petty domestic miscarriage of justice. The two of us got into a huge fight one Thanksgiving because I dolloped the mashed potatoes on the wrong side of his plate — my dad yelled, I stormed out and up the stairs, and happy Thanksgiving.

When I was in high school, his van would race into the Rickel Home Center parking lot at 10 every night, blaring Led Zeppelin, to pick me up from my cashier's job, and when I'd complain he was embarrassing me, he'd just start playing air guitar and say, "If it's too loud, you're too old!" At my brother's wedding three years ago, he cornered the 3-year-old flower girl (not related to us) and screamed the lyrics of "Pour Some Sugar on Me" at her on the dance floor. Here is the photographic depiction of that incident:

There were other episodes (these are just the few that popped into my head within two seconds). We had some tough times in my teen years. Partly because I was the oldest, partly because he thought I had potential for ... something, I was afforded no slack. I was expected to do well, and to do well WELL. I once brought home an all-A report card, except for the B+ I got in gym, and all I heard about for days was the B+. He didn't lower the bar for me because I was a girl. My tears meant nothing. I was not one of those eye-batting minxes who had Daddy wrapped around her finger (or if I did, he made sure not to let me in on it). I was a failure at fatherly manipulation.

Of course, I now know it's because he always believed in me. Unwaveringly. He knew I could do anything. When I expressed doubt in my own abilities, he'd look at me not with sympathy or pity, but with a blank stare: It didn't even register with him that failing was a possibility for me, and I internalized that, developing a bizarre self-confidence that would have turned megalomaniacal if not for other external forces that filled me with the appropriate amount of humbling self-doubt. When he noticed I seemed to have a knack for sounding songs out on the piano, he couldn't afford to buy a brand-new Steinway to indulge my musical predilection, but he did salvage a beat-up baby grand with no legs from a local church and suited it up for me.

I know many of our clashes also materialized because I'm a lot like him. I've inherited his temper (my refrigerator shelves are still intact, but that day will come), his stubbornness, his seeming inability to back down when he thinks he's right. I yell more than I should. But I'm also ambitious like him. I work hard. I appreciate a good ribbing like he does, though he tends to beat it into the ground. When my parents are up in New York and my mom conjures a roast beef dinner, he'll still wink at me and tease, "Not THERE!" when I position the mashed potatoes on his plate, because he now thinks the Thanksgiving incident is ABSOLUTELY HILARIOUS.

Sometimes I still don't get my dad. I'm still trying to determine why he freaked out when I served a HoneyBaked Ham on Christmas Eve a couple of years ago. But what I do get: He's always there for me when I need him, even though he's 1,312.2 miles away. I can count on him, and I trust him probably more than anyone else on Earth. I'm pretty sure I could kill someone and end up on his doorstep and he'd take me in BEFORE asking questions (not without harsh consequences, but still). He'd know what to do. Or at least he'd make me think he did, which is just as important when it comes to talking me off the ledge.

He has forged a special relationship with my children over the expanse of the Eastern Seaboard through regular visits up North and weekly phone calls. While my mother and I share the same disdain for phone conversations (i.e., it is a functional technological necessity in which information is relayed and received in as short a period as possible — I'd rather talk in person), my dad effortlessly transitions from a full day of conference calls to gabbing with my kids for an hour about their soccer games or piano lessons. He loves his family more than anyone I know, and he makes sure this is reflected in lengthy phone conversations.

In a few days, he'll be flying up to New York to whisk my kids off for a month to Camp Grandma and Grandpa in Florida. In a few days, I'll start to feel that dread of knowing I will be several states away from my young children for an extended period of time (until I join them in a couple of weeks). But that dread will dissipate when I see the three of them disappearing through airport security, my dad pulling a sparkly wheeled Cinderella carry-on behind him while my kids happily eat the Skittles he just bought them for lunch at the airport newsstand. I know they're going to be OK, because they're with him.

One of my favorite pictures from my brother's wedding is one of my dad and I taking a break from the ongoing festivities near the coat closet (an excellent hangout if you're ever at a fancy event, btw). I'm holding onto a Labatt Blue for dear life, while my father whispers something conspiratorial in my ear, which probably involves me getting him another drink without my mother noticing.

We had a fantastic time at that wedding. Our clan's not a huggy-kissy bunch; I can't remember the last time any of us said "I love you" out loud. That's just not our thing. But when we're together, we make the most of the time we have. Those words are able to remain unsaid, because they're understood.

Attending familial get-togethers (weddings, summer barbecues, even funerals) often replenishes our sense of self. It extracts something out of the nostalgia and injects us with the wherewithal to face the changes in our current lives. That could come from remembering a time from our childhoods when we felt especially happy and secure, or it could come because we remember what we wish had been different — or what we wish we had done differently.

These assemblies also give us the chance to reflect on the things that don't change. In the picture from my brother's wedding, my dad's still got his arm around me. Just like he had it around me in the picture that started this post. I can hold my own beer now. But he's still there. He's not going anywhere.

If you want more of me on Twitter, @WarriorHauswife is where you should go.

P.S. I love you, Daaaaaaad (ssssshhhhhh).

* It was an American flag armband, not a black armband. 'Murica!