Thoughts for Father’s Day Weekend

Thoughts for Father’s Day, 2006

It’s a long mile from Plaza del Lago in No-Man’s Land down to the Wilmette Harbor, north of Chicago, Illinois, USA. Mid-June is warm not yet hot, humid not yet soggy. Sandy beach covers my entire route on foot. Young and younger wade and play in 60-degree water on an 80-degree afternoon. Lake Michigan is calm to my left, lapping lightly over clean sand.

I am every kid on the beach. This was my life, growing up a mile further down the road from the harbor. In my invisible attire today of khaki pants, boring t-shirt, and lime green baseball cap, everyone looks at me and no one sees the boy in the middle-aged man.

But the atmosphere is changed. Before, there was Coppertone, transistor radios, frisbees, unflattering girls’ swim suits, all-white suburban spoiled kids and parents, and nasty old beach entry guards in pith helmets with zinc oxide on their noses. Today there is sunscreen, cell phones, iPods, revealing two-piece suits, kids and parents from twenty countries in a dozen shades, and teenage staff without hats, who are afraid to order offenders out of prohibited areas. The Sunfish and Sailfish boatlets of the past are replaced by hi-tech catamarans, and nothing predates the jet skis that offend the horizon and my sensitive ears and attitude.

Ben Stein of the New York Times just wrote that a person is rich who has both his parents. I’m here in Wilmette to help my mother with a little tender loving care following an easy medical test at nearby Evanston Hospital. She’s fine, and thanks for asking. My father is dead two years now, and I wrote a tribute to him at that time.

My mom used to say, “I can’t leave my mother alone on Father’s Day,” and we children used to make fun of her for saying such a dumb thing. I’m glad to be here with Mom this Father’s Day weekend, because our memories of Dad are finally happy, peaceful ones. Life was rough for our family during his late years, and now we are comfortable with feelings of earlier times.

Near Wilmette Harbor, in Gillson Park, is a tree my parents donated to the Park District twenty years ago. It is now well established, providing beauty and shade next to the tennis courts. Underneath this tree is a metal plaque reading: “Forever,” followed by the names of my parents. I was really moved to experience that forever for a few minutes today, calmly, under the tree in the park next to harbor and beach of my youth, forty, fifty, and more years ago.

What became of the kids who played in the sand and water during the 1950s and ’60s, with me and my family? We were students during the landmark Civil Rights and Beatles decade, we ate granola and wore bell bottom jeans with work shirts, we mostly stayed out of Vietnam, went to grad school and joined the establishment, then we put our kids through college, and a bunch of us are now grandparents.

How about these kids today out in the water and burying one another in the early-summer sand? What’s coming for them? I’m an optimistic person, but I’m glad I’m not a parent of young children now. Tomorrow’s middle-aged generation is having a rough time being in their 20s and 30s, and teenagers or younger are jet skiing their way into a future that is pretty scary from my nondescript vista walking south along the beach.

I’m happy and proud to be a dad. Father’s Day is not a big deal in my little immediate family, because of the physical distance separating father and daughter. She’s a terrific young adult, living a peculiar life that wouldn’t suit me well, and fits her perfectly. My dad is gone, so now I’m Dad, and our family, three generations, had a great weekend together last weekend. I’ll take that for Father’s Day, because I’ll be back in Arizona on Sunday.

Nobody on Wilmette Beach wants to pay attention to a geezer, even a frisky youngish one who could keep up with most of the kids for a couple of hours. I’m “home” when visiting this imprinted spot from so long ago, but only for an hour once or twice each year. These kids are rich for having sand and sun and safety and water in abundance, and for having one or two parents in their house or apartment.

You fathers! Cherish your children, however young or old they are. Life is short, and your prime time is ticking. Kids of all ages, be with your fathers and mothers on Father’s Day, and get a glimpse of the old man or woman as a kid, even for a second, playing on whatever beach or ball field or wherever they were when they had young dads of their own.

It is a great honor to be a father, and a greater gift to have a father. Mine was a real character, who could be serious or wacky, but was always there for us kids, and our friends, and Mom. Now he’s a name on a plaque under a splendid tree, and he’s a thousand memories, and I’m back on the beach, and it’s summertime, and it’s hot, and he can’t wait to go home, and I can’t wait to get back into the water.