Growing up with Goethe

Before my son was born, I thought I knew how the whole fatherhood thing worked. Ah-hah! Like a crash, boom, bang, it was a wake-up call that it was time for me to start adulting. I never factored in that I brought no skills for the job at hand and quite often felt like a bumbling idiot in the changing and feeding departments. By the time my daughter was born, less OJT was needed, but other challenges emerged, and I had to master a new learning curve.

Through it all, I learned one true thing: there’s no right way to be a father. I mean, there’s just what works with each child and adjusting your expectations accordingly.

If you hadn’t noticed by now, Father’s Day is coming up Sunday, and although I’ve always liked to brag that advertising doesn’t work on me, I must confess that every time an ad for Dad comes on, I, well, try not to get a little weepy.

Although it’s been 30 years since my dad entered the spiritual realm, I still wish, to this day, I could have one more conversation with him. He was a veteran of World War II, but although he spent most of his enlistment in Taft, California and Marfa, Texas, he didn’t let that stop him from entertaining us kids by acting out stories from his days as a radio operator in the Army Air Corps. Education and literature were his fortes, and he kept a marble bust of German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe on the mantlepiece as if to oversee that we were doing our homework.

That may have been atypical in the 1950s, but basic fathering back in those days was probably not much different from today unless you put stock in the umpteen family sitcoms of that era.

The TV dads in the fifties and sixties were well-adjusted and happily married with no more than three children, tops. They had nice houses and usually worked at some office job that required a briefcase. They wore suits. When they came home they would change into a sweater before dinner. They smoked a pipe, never cigarettes, and you’d never see them with a can of beer.

And they never yelled at their kids. Except for Danny Thomas in Make Room For Daddy. Likewise, it’s probably a good thing Ralph Kramden never had kids.

Those TV dads were the ones we – mistakenly – wished we had. I add “mistakenly” because I don’t believe they existed in the real world, just in the minds of scriptwriters. I would sometimes catch myself wondering what those dads might’ve been like after the episode was over, when the cameras were turned off. What were Tim Taylor, Mike Brady, Steve Douglas, or Ozzie Nelson like in the intervening week?

Would Ward Cleaver take his belt and whup the daylights out of Wally and the Beav? On Father Knows Best, did Jim Anderson have a drinking problem? Did Andy Taylor have a second family up in Mt. Pilot? And don’t get me started on the secret life of Cliff Huxtable, god forbid.

Hopefully, all real-life fathers possess at least one good trait depicted by dads on TV, but I would guess most have a flaw or two that aren’t suited to situation comedies. There are dozens of other paterfamilia characters in movies and TV besides sitcoms, but for some reason none were ever quite like my dad. Unless, well … I’m tempted to say a cross between Frank Costanza and Ben Cartwright, but also a dash of Hal from Malcolm In The Middle and Hal’s alter ego, Walter White.

Digress for one Dad joke.

What did the buffalo say when his son left? Bison!

End of digression.

When it comes down to it, we can appreciate all the daddies, fathers, papas, steppapas, father figures, or whoever takes on that role. It’s not easy, at least not as easy as being a grandfather, and sooner or later, we all succumb to saying the same things to our children, e.g.:

When I was your age...

Money doesn’t grow on trees …

As long as you live in my house...

Because I said so...

They don’t make ‘em like they used to ...

You’ll understand when you’re older...

If I were to go and pull up memories of my father, there’s no reason I couldn’t pick out the best parts, the times “the cameras were on.”

Those TV dads had common sense, and were understanding and patient and made me a little envious. But in a way, they made me appreciate our own dad because they weren’t living in our house with my mother and brothers and sisters.

All told, he was certainly no Atticus Finch, but when the metaphorical TV cameras were turned on, he did the best he knew how. Not to mention having the ghost of Goethe as a backup.