A Father's Day Appreciation

I never really knew my father, but this is not a story about a man who left when I was little.  He neither would nor did.  It’s a story of parts of him I never saw while he lived.  Today’s fathers are expected to be warm, approachable and caring.  The primary expectation of the 1950s father was to earn a living.  He was an astounding business success, but we called him Dad not Daddy.  He was demanding and set high expectations.  I benefitted greatly from that, but he was not a hugger. In truth, I never fully grasped his depth until I had lost the opportunity to thank him for all he gave me.

Were it not for his niece, who near the end of his life sat him in front of a tape recorder, he might still evade my understanding.  Somehow he was comfortable showing her the softer self he felt he could not show his sons.  No single story can capture all of him, but one illuminates the depth of his character and soul.

In the 1920s, still quite young, my father sold newspapers on a street corner in downtown Rochester, New York to help support his family.  As he told my cousin:

“Now, I always took all my money home to my parents, down to the last penny, so I never had any extra to save.  But there was one big thing I wanted with all my heart. It cost $48.00, a sum as impossible to grasp as the moon.

I used to watch my mother scrub her clothes in the old brass tubs with a scrub board.  It would drive me crazy.  The woman who lived next door had a washing machine and it seemed to me that her life was much easier because of it.  I decided I was going to get my mother a washing machine, too.

So, instead of bringing home all the money I earned, I learned I could put some away – “cheat,” if you want to call it that.  Now if I had a good day with extra tips, I would hold back fifteen or twenty cents.

I don’t know how long it took me but certainly a couple of years.  There was a Greek confectionary store near where I lived.  I went there and asked if the owner would hold my money for me.  I had learned the cost of the “Easy” washing machine.  It wasn’t a spin dryer but a tub that moved around and had an attached wringer.  It still meant much work but was much better than the tub and hand scrubbing and wringing my mother did.

Finally, I had enough money.  I could hardly wait for school and work to be over on the day I knew the delivery would be made. I came home, but I didn’t know what awaited me.

My father.  He wanted to know where did I get this money for a washing machine?  But before I could say anything, I took a barrage of lickings from him and he had never hit me before.  In tears, I finally told him and he went with me to the Greek, and the Greek confirmed that I had saved it up.  Nothing more was said.

Now, with that behind me, I went to school and asked to enroll in a class to learn how to wash and iron clothes. I was the only boy in a class of about sixteen or more girls.  Then I spoke with our neighbor.  I asked her if she would help me learn how to hang clothes on a line.  She thought it was funny but she said she would.  She got a box I could stand on and showed me how to spread the clothes out and how to use the clothespins.

Ironing was harder to learn.  The irons had to be heated on the stoves first and then used.  But before the semester was over, there was an assembly of all the classes.  One person was chosen from each to represent it.  The girls selected me.

I’ll never forget getting up in front of the whole auditorium and shouting, “I belong to the washing and ironing club.”  Being a newsboy, I shouted at the top of my voice, just as I did when I sold newspapers.  Everyone started to laugh and I am sure that I blushed and I stammered.”

My father, whose hidden heart was full of love, had a mild heart attack on the November evening before my parents’ golden anniversary celebration.  During his hospital stay they discovered his stomach cancer.  We buried him on Valentine’s Day.  As I stand by his grave when I return to my hometown, I am struck by what he gave me, not just in the lessons of father to son but by his deeper humanity. My wish, as Father’s Day approaches, is that all children learn their fathers’ stories and fullness in time to say, with deep love, “thank you.” I didn’t say it often enough.  Now I only get to speak it in the silence of a cemetery.

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