By Todd Lancaster
Washington Times-Herald
WASHINGTON —
I’d like to think that Father’s Day is the one day of the year, when many of us fathers get to act like laying on the couch and watching golf or racing is a brand new experience. We often look at that 24-hour period of time as a harmonic convergence, when dogs don’t bark, grass stops growing and children come with a mute button.
It is a time when patriarchal prominence is displayed with aprons emblazed with phrases like “Thrill of the Grill” or “No. 1 Dad (graded on a curve).”
Mountains of fishing gear, golf towels and Brut cologne are heaped on the altar of fatherhood. For that short 24-hour period, catch phrases like “Close that refrigerator door, I’m not raising penguins in here” or “What part of ‘Cut the lawn’ means ‘Please continue playing video games’” boom down from above, reminding all that father truly knows best.
So what gives a father this right to 24 hours of uninterrupted bliss? It is the other 364 days a year.
I look around at so many of my peers, whom I see coaching Little League, basketball or just taking the time to be present when they are needed the most. It is more than just playing catch, but being the role model that Charles Barkley reminded us “are the real role models.”
A couple of years ago, right before Father’s Day, my friend Mike Chestnut and I planned on doing a column about his father Bud, who had been a big part of Little League in the northern part of the county for many years, and what a big influence he had been on so many players in the late 1960s and 70s.
Sadly, his father passed away only a few days before we were going to sit down and work on it. Schedules didn’t quite work out, and we weren’t able to find the few minutes it would have taken to make that column happen. I wish we would have. But it does remind us about how important it is to honor our parents when we have the chance.
I was lucky enough to have my parents move to this community several years ago, where their daily influence on my family has been immeasurable.
As my father currently passes his through his 75th year, it is amazing to look at the changes in society since the early 1930s when he was born. Although he considers himself “old school,” he is never that far away from his iPod and smartphone. He and his generation fit into that group of Korean War vets who simply kept the country going during the time when America was tearing itself apart. When the rest of the nation was “turning on, tuning in and dropping out,” he, and so many like him, worked, saved and tried their best to keep America on track.
He has always been the crew-cut type, a former Marine who never missed a day’s work. He is someone who has always preached to do it right the first time and you won’t have to worry about doing it again later.
I have plenty of uncles and a father-in-law, all of whom have since passed, who were the same type — from the same generation. They supported their country, raised families and felt what they had to say was important — so you had better listen.
I hope as Father’s Day arrives, people can see the broad strokes of their father’s influence and realize how important it is.
People often joke when they say everyone eventually turns out exactly like their parents — I can only hope to be so lucky.
nTodd Lancaster’s most recent rant concerned having to pay $1.79 for ice water in a cup at a fast-food drive-thru. It didn’t take him long to get the then-vacationing regional manager, who was trying to relax in Florida, on the phone.
