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It does my hweart good to read such wonderful stories of your fathers. I did not have a good father and it is hard for me on father's day. But I do take some solice in the fact that I had a wonderful husband who was an excellent father to my daughters.
For you who have lost loved fathers, I hope you will be able to recall the good times with them this Father's day.

My father was shaped by the events of his time, as we all are. He was born in 1929, so he “missed” the Second World War by a year, arriving in Germany in 1946. Though he “missed” combat, he was no stranger to hostility or death. His own father died in 1940, from cancer, when Dad was 12 years old. Both his parents were deaf and dumb because of a fever that went around in 1903. His father, John, struggled with the depression, then succumbed to the ravages of a hard life. This left the twelve-year-old to be raised by his mother at the tail end of the depression. Life was hard. His mother had two other children, neither of whom lived more than two years. Dad was the lone survivor.
There wasn’t a social safety net; Roosevelt and the Dems were inventing it on the fly. Living in New York City, the Civilian Conservation Corps was a far away dream in the west. He tells me he used to ride the subway, and his mother would talk to him in sign language. People would stare at them. He would stare back until they stopped. That stare, which I experienced many a time myself, was chilling. He never said what he was thinking when he stared like that. You just knew they weren’t warm thoughts. His mother had no place to live so she moved in with her mother in law, and his grandma’s second husband didn’t want a kid around, so when he was home from sea, Dad would have to hide in the attic. He would take hot water bottles to keep warm, but in the dead of night they grew cold. He told me all this, to let me know life was hard, and my petty wants, the same clothes as the other kids, the garbage I saw on TV, weren’t important. He was providing me what was important. Heat, food, shelter, a good Catholic education.

Yes, Catholicism was a big thing. It saved their family. No social safety net, handicapped in the social Darwinism of the early 20th century, the little family depended on charity from the church. My grandmother and grandfather learned sign language in a school run by the Church, where they met. Grandma Cunningham maintained social contacts with these classmates for her whole life, until she was in the nursing home.

When Grandpa, Dad’s dad, passed away, after the stint in the attic, he went to school to be a “Brother”, but fortunately for us kids, that didn’t work out. Dad hints that this school was at times brutal for the slow learner, or, especially, the recalcitrant. The brothers had ways to get their points across. Discipline was necessary for survival, in Dad’s world. It wasn’t an easy world.

When the cure for the depression, World War Two came and went, and there was money to be made in the service, that full employment program for the lumpenproletariat, Dad joined the Navy, at age seventeen. They shipped him out to Bremerhaven, Germany, where the de-Nazification (defenestration he called it) was going on. He played ball in the Navy league, where Bob Cousy of the Boston Celtics played. He was good. He has hinted that discipline for young sailors was harsh too. Hints, lots of hints, never any clear statements of delinquency. He told me when I was very young that Marine guards made you scrub the floors of the brig with a toothbrush and when you slacked, they hit you with rifle butts. This made an impression on me at a tender age. The world was a brutal place. If you didn’t believe Dad, all you had to do was look at the television and watch people die by the thousands in old war footage. We didn’t have “Sesame Street.”

When the late sixties came and I was an adolescent, these pansies with long hair and peace signs made Dad sick. That’s what he said. When I became one of them, in the wave of conformity that called itself non-conformity, it was troubling to Dad, very troubling and so, we didn’t get along to well and I began hitting the road, at his suggestion, and the likes of Ken Kesey and Jack Kerouac. Groovy, baby. I sold the Berkeley Barb on street corners for a quarter, dropped acid for the first time in that city, and blew my mind. Bye-bye, high school, bye-bye, grades and all that uptight stuff. In the summer of 1970 I hit the road and hitchhiked from the Bay Area to New York, where I got busted for drugs at seventeen. They took me back and I finished high school, but my head wasn’t into it. Dad didn’t understand. All his life was a fight for survival, and discipline and conformity were the keys, and being the first to understand where the next blow could come from, a sort of paranoia that was based on reality was necessary to survive. He was a good survivor, he was a thriver. He raised five children, I was the oldest, and he mellowed out a little with the later ones. His family was almost extinct when he was born, now we are stronger. He was raised in poverty, now he takes my Mom to Italy every year, and will celebrate his eightieth birthday this summer surrounded by his five children and four grandchildren. He is a successful man, God blesses him. By the way, we get along great now, now that I’ve taken my blows from the big bad world, which wasn’t so groovy after all, but, still in all, worth the trip.

Always a loner, he is no less one today than he was when I was a child. Like most of yours, my father was a child of the Depression and the lessons learned from that time. Add to it that his father died during that time. Dad was eight and his younger brother was five at the time, and they lost just about everything but somehow survived. I'm not sure if it was the Depression that impressed him so much as not having a father. He had no real example of what a father should be, but he worshiped his mother more than anything.

Dad also loved flying and motorcycles and car races. I remember the boxes of photos of various cars and motorcycles. He turned his love of flying into a career and flew for Pan Am for forty years. Of course, that meant that we didn't see as much of Dad as we would have liked.

Every birthday, every Father's Day is the dilemma of choosing a card. I don't have the fluffy memories of my father like Cali does. Don't get me wrong, I am thankful that I still have a father to send a card to, and I will miss him when he is gone, it is just difficult to find an appropriate card for him. This year I got lucky, not only did I find an appropriate card, one that leapt out from the rack and said "buy me". The sentiment was about fathers being there with financial aid when they could. That is one area where my father has not failed. It is the only way he knows how to show love. Not sure where that came from, but I Dad didn't throw money at his kids for no reason, but he was always there if we needed his help. We weren't spoiled, but we didn't lack anything either, and education, anything for education. He had several of us in college at the same time, and we were allowed to concentrate on the studies and not have to worry about having to work during that time. No student loans, no work study programs, he made sure of it. He even paid for the college education of three of his grandchildren.

Yesterday I got a phone call from Dad. This is a rarity, usually I call him, and I had planned on calling him today. He received my card. Not only did he get a chuckle from the "Garfield" sentiment, he appreciated the note I wrote him.

Two years ago, when my sister was critically ill and in the hospital for a month, Dad flew up from Florida for a week. During that time I took a risk and told him that sometimes his kids just wanted to hear him say "I love you". We had a long talk about it. We know, he just cannot express it, but he does. My note in the card was telling him how much I appreciated how many times he was there, financially if not emotionally, and he has been for all of his kids. Like my talk with him two years ago, he needed to "hear" it.

A reply to a post in another group, encouraging women to give up their self-effacing, insecurities and self defeating feelings of inadequacy which precludes them from tackling much of life, jogged memories of my Dad and how he brought me up, truly fathering, guiding, inspiring, shaping the woman I have become. On this Father's Day, it seems appropriate to post it here.

I guess this gal was blessed with a dad whose favorite mantra he instilled in me was, "What the mind can conceive, man can achieve.' And that means you, too, my daughter." He encouraged me to strive for any goal I wanted and not to let stereotyping or other people's opinions stand in my way.

My mother was very "traditional" and unassuming, had lots of fears of asserting herself at least outside the home. But, thanks to my dad, I was encouraged to dream anything I wanted and then go after it, tooth and nail if need be.

So, raised by a dad like I had, and in a household overwhelmingly male, the oldest child at that, I never had a chance to see anything but possibilities and was given the courage to go after what I wanted. From my first job where no girl of my age was given responsibility beyond standing in a line to take people's dinner trays to their table, I was promoted to supervisor of the rest of the girls, then checker, then hostess at 16 years of age. When I first went into real estate, it was a male dominated profession and the office nearby my home where I wanted to work, just would give a desk to a woman. It took going to the Real Estate Division of Professional Licensing with my grievance to begrudgingly be able to hang my license at that office and work. In short order, I showed 'em. I made the top of their sales charts, month after month. It was due to attitude. If others could do it, so could I.

Because my Dad spent hours upon hours talking with me, sharing with me his philosophy of life, preparing me for the challenges I would face, and debating with me to make me think and evaluate, to study, to learn as much as I could, he was more than my biological parent but psychological parent as well.

My Dad worked long hours and hard to provide for the family, even after he suffered a massive heart attack at 50. He moved us to a less hectic area, out of the stress of NY, set up a regiment to heal and opened his business in another state, almost from scratch to keep his family provided for. Good times and lean, Dad always came through so his family never went without.

After I grew up,married and moved halfway across the country, from time to time when I was faced with a major dilemma and wanted someone else's take, I could always call Dad for his wise solution was usually the right one. Sometimes I found that out only after I didn't take it. It took me almost three years after he passed away to quit responding to my instinct to pick up the phone and "call Dad."

Both my mom and dad are gone now, but each is still with me in the things I do that they did and taught me. And the lifelines they left me to guide me throughout my life. My Dad gave and buoyed me with the courage and heart to pursue my goals and taught me the most of any teacher I have had in my life.

He taught me that the love and respect of other people is not as important as the love and respect one has for themself. If one loves themself, they meet the needs of their heart and go after meeting those needs with courage and self confidence. If they love themself they are confident in themself that they can learn what others learn, do what others do. They can encourage themself as a good parent would encourage their child. And they don't denigrate other people, nor envy them, either. And they help others, give them a hand when they need it. If they respect themselves, they demand other people respect them, too and set boundaries for conduct they will accept and won't.

As women we have been trained from an early age to "make nice", meet other people's needs before our own. Too often we are kept so busy catering to other people that we don't take the time to take stock of what we really want and where we really want to be. So we don't go after it.

"Woman can achieve what her mind can conceive," to update that saying. If we can see it, we can do it.

Thanks, Dad.

My father was and continues to be the most influential person in my life. He's been dead more than twenty years but I think of him if not daily, weekly. I converse with him in my head now and again. And I recognize I have so many of his qualities and I have so many of his features that it amazes me that for the first twenty years of my life, he questioned whether I was his.

Like those who wrote before me, my dad was the product of his time and his place. Born in the hills of the Ozarks, the second-to-last of six boys, in 1919, he knew hard times. His father died when he was still young leaving much of his rearing to his older brothrs and the experiences of the hills. I have heard it said that the boys left home in the morning and didn't come back until dinner time. I don't think Grandma had much to do with shaping their character. At some point she took a job in a box factory in St. Louis, leaving the younger boys to the care of the oldest. Whether she knew of their boot-leg activities, I know not but they fended for themselves as best they could.

I know my dad dropped out of school before he finished eighth grade (and suffered a severe beating by one of his older brothers for doing so) and lied about his age in order to join the Civilian Conservation Corps, another significant influence on his life. As I write this I realize that though his father died, he was raised by men -- his brothers and the men of the CCC's. I recognize now he had no idea how to relate to his three daughters. His view of women was a distorted one based on his own experience and that was limited.

From the CCC's he went to war. He never talked about those years. Ever. Just like he never talked about his childhood or what few memories he must have had of his own father. He never talked of his courtship of my mother or the early years of their marriage. In fact, I don't think he ever talked of the past. He lived in the present and planned for the future but he evidently didn't see much value in acknowledging the past.

With one exception. Me. At 28 he married my mother, almost ten years younger than he. It was an elopement and Mom was three months pregnant. I myself don't have many memories of my own early years other than those that have been prodded by photographs. But from the day of my first menstual cycle to the day I married, I have vivid memories. Memories of arguments. The more mature I became the more he tried to keep a tight rein on me. Being told that he'd kill me if I got pregnant before I married is a clear indication that the circumstances of my own conception were on his mind. At the time I didn't have the benefit of perspective. I just knew he was strict, opinionated, and angry.

I knew how to push his buttons and I did so. I'm not saying I knew so well what I was doing that I could put words to it then, but I know now that I was deliberately provoking him. In a perverse way I understood that by making him lose his temper, even though I (and the rest of my family but I wasn't aware of that at the time either) paid a price for doing so, I was also the one in control. He lost his control, not me. I could argue him to a rage that not often but at times resulted in physical action on his part but more often resulted in harsh words and revelations.

It was during such an encounter that he revealed his doubt about my mother and about me. If Mom had sex with him, how many others came before him? If there were others, was I really his daughter? Had he been tricked into marriage? The irony of such angst on his part was that they were truly a loving couple, more so once I left home. And his genes run through me so strongly that a picture of my son caused one of my sisters to look twice, he so resembled my dad.

Once I got out on my own, I was able to see the whole man and not just the one dimension. The older I get, the more I understand about him and about our relationship. My character isn't so very different from his. As a teenager, I reflected a stubborn pride, a trait I probably got from him, which accounts for our histrionics. I built the walls as much as he did. I now know better ways to influence people, to discuss issues without accusation and judgement. And there are so many stories I could tell that would show my father in a more favorable light. Stories that show he worked hard for his family. He provided a home and security. He became a self-educated man who modelled a work ethic that served each of us well. He served as an example of taking on challenges and with determination overcoming them.

I've shared the worst but I want you to know, my dad and I made our peace before he died. The fact is I loved him dearly. I loved him in spite of all the drama. He loved me. I think I always knew that. I worked to gain his affection, something he was uncomfortable expressing. There were moments when his pride in me was palpable. And I knew that, too. When his family grew to include grandsons, the scales tipped. My son has warm memories of his grandfather, few but distinct. I know had he more time Dad would have made a phenomenal grandfather.

And so, my father was a complex man. Our relationship was complex. But on this day, I am missing him and sorry we can't sit together and reminisce, laugh about our stubborness, and revel in the closeness we shared for too short a time.

My father was an honest, caring man. If he could do something for someone else, especially his family, he did. He taught me to look forward in life and not to dwell on the things of the past that could not be changed. He was a hard working man and was always at home with his family. I knew little about him as he never wanted to talk about his early days but when he passed away, I was amazed by what I did learn through relatives. He was in the army air corp during world war II and had participated in the assignment of cleaning up the concentration camps in Germany. He was never the same after that but one cannot blame him for all he had to endure there. He was also an accomplished horseman and was chosen to attend a local college on a scholarship but for some unknown reason, chose not to go. These are things that I didn't know until he was gone but had I known, I doubt he would have talked about them. He was a private person and chose to lead a private life. He passed away 13 years ago, from a rare form of lung cancer and it was the hardest thing in my life I ever had to do, when I said goodbye to him. He is at peace now in heaven but he will always be remembered and loved by his wife and children. God Bless you dad. I love you. Happy Father's Day.

............again Cali, and everybody. This was a good project, and it shows how one way or other, we can survive with or without our dads. I know for many of us it was good and comforting. And for some of us it was only all the more painful or traumatic. But most of all we are better people somehow, and show resilence and strength, and have tried to be the better people our parents would wish upon us. Happy Father's Day to All......