Father’s Day thoughts

Today is Father’s Day, so here’s a photo of me and my dad at Niagara Falls, circa 1957. I was 12 and dad was 47.

This is probably the coolest my dad ever looked, at least I can’t find a better photo: slim and trim, pleated slacks, stylish belt and Pendleton shirt, natty tweed jacket, cap and shades. And he’s smoking a cigarette – almost certainly a Winston.

I, on the other hand, was going through that horrible awkward geeky phase that pre-teen boys often have to endure. I think I still have the black-and-gold cap with the D for Delphi.

The waist-level camera point of view tells me my mother shot it with her twin-lens reflex Kodak. A lot of the classic Depression Era photos by Dorothea Lange and the other greats of that time were shot from that POV with more sophisticated twin-lens reflexes and they have a quality I think is often more interesting than what you get with eye-level view finders.

But I digress.

This my 12th fatherless Father’s Day. I miss him every day.

On the other hand, this is my 41st year as a father and my eighth year as a step-father.
We got our dates crossed up and initially thought last Sunday was Father's Day. Consequently, my stepson Austin dazzled me last Sunday morning when he returned from his morning run in Craighead Forest Park with a Father’s Day gift for me – a Blu-ray copy of Clint Eastwood’s “Gran Torino.” What a good kid.
Today is also the first day of summer. As I write this, the heat index is somewhere above 100 degrees. The weather here is definitely in synch with the calendar.