Whoever determined that Father’s Day ought to be the third Sunday in June did not figure on the cookout factor.
Fathers stereotypically do not cook nine months of the year, but in the summertime — with apologies to the Kinks — they’ve got cookin,’ they’ve got cookin’ on their mind. Backyard cooking, that is.
For some unfathomable reason, at least to this non-barbecuing dad, men who wouldn’t be caught dead near a stove suddenly turn into maestros of the outdoor barbecue in the summer months. Apparently barbecuing is manly; conventional cooking is for the women folks. So why waste a June Sunday taking Dad out to eat when he would be just as happy charring steaks on his backyard grill?
Unfortunately for my kids, I never fit the masculine stereotype very well. We purchased a small outdoor grill and it soon was gathering rust with the hammers, nails, screwdrivers and anything else that can be purchased at a hardware store. There is nothing so funny as the few times I’ve been in a Home Depot and wandered around like an alien on a strange planet.
Many years ago during a summer in Wildwood, my son asked me to take him crabbing. Now I am a big fan of crabs when they are the soft-shell variety, and preferably saut�ed in a good restaurant, but how could I tell him that I didn’t know the first thing about crabbing?
My wife suggested that I take him to a fishing pier in the Crest and someone there would rent me a cage and sell me some bait. My son, having crabbed with my brother-in-law, knew more about crabbing than I did and wound up enjoying himself while I read a book nearby. He casually mentioned to me afterward that the next time, I probably should not wear Brut and a gold bracelet when going crabbing.
I felt that I more than made up for this lack of male bonding a year or two later when we were in the Poconos and threw some rocks into a nearby stream. For a brief instant in time, we were like a couple of guys on the cover of Field and Stream.
My father talked a good game when it came to doing the all-American father-son stuff, but actually he never did those things with me, either. I was secretly glad for the oversight. Dad was a boxing fan. Our highlight together was when he took me to the Kid Gavilan-Gil Turner welterweight championship fight at Municipal Stadium one summer night.
I don’t remember Father’s Day being a big deal back then. He never wanted Mom to cook and he didn’t much like restaurants. His idea of a great time was to drive to Wildwood or Atlantic City (before the casinos) and eat a slice or two of boardwalk pizza.
He and I got along well though we rarely agreed on politics. He was a cop and I was donating to the ACLU. I had a job as a jazz disc jockey and Dad was a narcotics detective who reluctantly locked up some of the same artists. (Dad was a sucker for a great horn player, and never locked the guy up before he was done playing the set.) He loved Nixon, while I secretly rejoiced when Watergate brought him down.
We grew to understand each other better when we grew older. I was fortunate enough to be able to tell him, as he was dying of lymphoma, that I loved him, and even more fortunate to hear him say, "I know you do." It made up for all the years I had wondered to myself whether he was disappointed in me because I hadn’t become a cop like him.
When you become a parent, you try not to repeat all the mistakes that occurred in your relationships with your own parents. You wind up making new mistakes, but that’s the human condition. Despite my initial awe at becoming a father, I enjoyed being more of a playmate with my kids. I loved reading stories to them and making up some of my own.
Sundays were reserved for family outings, which were rarely successful. My kids were unlucky enough to have a non-driving dad, so we made our way to the zoo and every museum and historical sight in the city on the hottest days waiting for buses while the kids cried. Eventually, family day had to be abandoned in the interest of preserving our sanity and keeping us out of divorce court.
Highlights of those days were the time our kids had a fistfight in the Norman Rockwell Museum, poked the lobsters with a stick in the tank at Old Original Bookbinders, and that "quiet" Sunday at a Center City restaurant when my young son set the menu on fire with a lighted candle.
The funny thing is, years later, I wouldn’t trade those awful Sundays for the world.
