The Responsibilities of Fathers
by Douglas Samuelson - email:  dsamuelson@frii.com

My father was a good man.  He did not drink or swear.  He was a hard-worker.  He was kind-hearted but stern.  He had only a grade school education but he was intelligent beyond words.  He was an avid reader and most of his reading was about nature, more specifically the far North (Canada and Alaska).  His one vice was fishing.  For thirty years, he and four of his friends would pack up and head North to Canada as far as they could drive, for a ten day outing.  I did not know until after his death how much my Mother resented those trips.

I would consider my child hood as quite normal and I have many pleasant memories of my childhood.  My parents seldom quarreled and there was never any physical violence in our family.  The closest thing to physical abuse from my father was a swat on the seat of my pants with his hand but it never hurt.  That was all it took for him to convey his message.  Although he was a loving father, he seldom expressed his feelings with words.  I can only remember twice in his lifetime that he told me that he loved me.  The first time was in my late teens when my heart was broken by a high school sweetheart, and once two weeks before he died at the age of 74. 

My father taught me the importance of hard work and honesty.  He also taught me to be clean and well groomed.  If we would have a good year on the farm, he would go to town after the harvest, and buy a new suit, which he seldom wore.  I have a picture of him taken before he married my Mother.  He had on a suit, vest, tie, hat, and white spats.  One foot was on the running board of his new '34 Chevy coupe.  I teased him one time, telling him that he looked like Al Capone. 

At the end of my senior year of high school, I was required to write an essay about my future life.  I was not a good student, but my English teacher gave me an A+ and told the class that my essay was the best of the class.  It is still packed away in an antique steamer trunk in my living room.  In my essay, I stated that I wanted to marry a beautiful dark-haired woman, have two children, and own an automobile dealership.  A few years later, my dreams came true.

I married a beautiful, dark haired woman.  She was not only beautiful, she was very smart and she was an accomplished pianist.  We had two sons, two years apart.  By the age of 32, I had my car dealership.  Everything was right on target. 

I was not resentful of my childhood, but I made a vow that my sons would always have enough money in their pocket to pay the tab if their girlfriend ordered lobster in a restaurant.  I remember the time when I had fifteen cents left after taking a girlfriend to a movie.

When my oldest son was less than a month old, he became very sick and was rushed to the hospital.  The doctors thought that he had spinal meningitis.  Fortunately that was not the case.  It turned out to be pneumonia and he survived.  A few months later he experienced a similar event and survived that one.  Because of his "shaky" start he was very pampered.  If he did not "get his way" he would cry, hold his breath, and eventually lose consciousness.  I became almost terrified of my own son.  This continued until he was nearly 4 years old.  My wife and I thought that we had a mentally impaired child.  My wife worked at a mental health hospital as a secretary for a several doctors in the children's ward.  We were embarrassed to talk about the problem but after an episode with our son and a babysitter that we had hired for the summer, we decided that something had to be done.  The next day my wife talked to one of her doctors.  When she described the condition, the doctor began to chuckle.  He went on to tell her to quit her job and to stay home and take care of her child.  He told her that the next time our son attempted this, she should scold him and throw a glasses of water in his face.  She accepted the doctors advice, quit her job, and it only took one glass of water to cure our mentally impaired son.  Seventeen years later, our son had a similar experience with his first born daughter, but he knew just what to do. 

When my second son was 4 years old, he was struck by a slow moving car while attempting to cross a street, running ahead of his mother.  He was unconscious when she picked him up off of the street.  We had to drive 17 miles to the nearest hospital.  I will never forget that wonderful sound of his screaming when he regained consciousness half way to the hospital.  He did not have a broken bone and within a few days he was as "good as new".  Twenty years later, my son and his best friend were killed in a motorcycle accident.

When my sons were 4 and 6 years old, we purchased a new travel trailer.  Looking back, it was one of the best purchases I ever made.  By that time I was well on my way to getting my car dealership.  I worked long hours as an automobile mechanic and made lots of money.  I seldom saw my children except for on the weekends.  By the time I would get home from work my wife would have them in bed and I would leave for work before they awoke.  We took our new trailer and the kids on camping trips and on weekends to a nearby recreation area.  On one occasion the boys captured several frogs and insisted in bringing them home in a plastic bucket.  On the way home, the bucket tipped over and when I opened the door to the trailer there were frogs leaping everywhere.  On the next trip I was attempting to light the pilot light on the water heater.  I had a feeling that someone was looking at me.  There, perched on a drain pipe above my head was a little green frog.  The year that Bobby Kennedy was assassinated, we took a trip to Yellowstone National Park.  We built camp-fires, toasted marshmallows, climbed on the rocks, caught fish and fed the bears from our car (one of them ripped the vinyl top of the car with his claw).  On the morning after the assassination, when we heard the news on the radio, we packed up and drove non-stop to our home. 

I finally got my car dealership.  We moved to the new town and in addition to operating the dealership, I joined every organization in town and the Country Club.  If I wasn't at work, I was attending a meeting or a party, or hanging out with the "big shots" at the Country Club.  My wife was very discontent.  She was not acquainted in our new town and spent most of her time at home with the boys.  One night when I got home around midnight, I found her in tears.  She wanted to move back to our hometown.  I gave her an ultimatum.  It was a very cruel thing to do.  I should have been more compassionate.  She did come out of her "shell" and in addition to working full time in our dealership, she joined several civic organizations and took up golfing, but our marriage was never quite the same and it was our boys who suffered the biggest loss because now both of their parents were gone from home most of the time. 

Most of the social events involved drinking.  Hardly a day went by without it.  We kept a fully stocked bar in our home.  I will never forget the day when a friend called me at work and told me to come to the park to get my son who had crashed his bike in the park.  When I arrived at the park, he was sitting on a picnic table in a drunken stupor.  He and a friend had gotten into our liquor supply at home and had consumed half a bottle of vodka.  About a year later, the same son came home drunk during a party that we were having at our home.  I was not in much better condition.  Later in the evening, after we had all gone to bed, I heard him vomiting in the bathroom and I went to check on him.  He told me that it was not as much fun as it appeared to be when he observed his mother and I having fun at our parties.  Fortunately, both of our boys were good athletes which helped to curtail their drinking during their high school days.  I am sure that there were isolated incidents when their mother and I were out of town, but they were good students and excelled in football and wrestling. 

As I mentioned earlier, I did not want my sons to be financially embarrassed.  They were hard workers and always had part time jobs to earn extra spending money.  One day I had a call from my banker.  He told me that he had a 14 year old boy sitting across the desk from him (my youngest son) who was applying for a loan to buy a home stereo system.  I told the banker to send him home.  The banker told me that he thought it would be a good experience for my son to take out the loan and said that he would make the loan if I would give my personal guarantee (without my son's knowledge).  They completed the transaction and my son paid off his loan with money earned from retrieving golf balls from the river at our Country Club.

When the boys reached driving age, I allowed them to drive new demonstrators from the dealership.  They did not respect the privilege.  After a couple of years, within a 2 month period, they totaled 2 new cars.  My insurance agent informed me that my insurance would be canceled if I continued to allow my sons to drive company vehicles.  I gave them each a good used car and informed them that from that time on, they would be responsible for the maintenance and insurance.  It's funny how things changed. 

About the time my youngest son graduated from high school, the nation’s economy went into a slump.  Both of my sons were in college.  The car business was suffering.  I decided to go out of business.  I could not give my sons financial assistance.  I felt that I was a failure.  I thought that my sons would no longer love or respect me.  I could not have been more wrong.  When the boys would come home to visit on holidays or vacations, those were very special times.  My oldest son had married and had a baby girl, my youngest had moved to Houston and was pursuing a very successful career as a chef.  Those were some of the happiest days of my life.  In 1985 my wife was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.  The doctors gave her 9 months to live.  My youngest son quit his job and moved back to be closer to his mother.  About a week before she died, the boys had come home to visit their mother.  I will never forget that day.  She had both of the boys sitting beside her on the sofa.  I had to leave the room when I heard her tell them that her biggest regret was that she had left them with a babysitter so that she could go to work when they were just little boys.  She died on Friday the 13th of December.

Nine months after the death of my wife, my youngest son was killed in a motorcycle accident.  His best friend had flown from Texas to spend a week attending a national sprint car racing event held each year in our state.  The next morning after the friend's arrival the boys were to pick up my RV to use for the week.  My son had purchased a motorcycle a few months previous, against my wishes.  It was a high performance machine and my son had never owned a motorcycle before that one.  He called me early in the evening to verify the time that they would pick up the RV the next day.  I cautioned him to leave the motorcycle in his garage and he informed me that it was raining and that I had nothing to be concerned about.  His last words to me were "I Love You, Dad” and my last words to him were "I Love You, Son”.

A short time after the death of my wife, I married a young girl, 20 years my junior.  She had a 4 year old daughter from a previous marriage.  After a short time, we both decided that the marriage was a mistake (we were from different lifestyles and the age difference played a part).  It was not a bitter divorce

Shortly after the divorce, I moved to Colorado.  My ex-wife was somewhat bitter that I had moved to such a beautiful place and left her stranded in a small mid-western town.  After a few months, I agreed to let her come to stay with me until she could find a job and a place to live.  Two months after her arrival she became pregnant.  I was 51 years of age at the time.  I was livid, and after raising two sons, I was not prepared for another child.  I convinced her to have an abortion.  One day before the scheduled abortion, she went for a medical examination as was required.  At the completion of the exam, she informed me that she would not have the abortion and that she would return to her hometown, and that I would never see my child.  For nearly 9 months, I "had my head in the sand".  I refused to accept that I was going to be a new father.  When I finally told my mother who was 78 years old at the time, that she was going to have another grandchild, she said "I think it is wonderful.  You have been given the greatest gift of all". 

When I saw my new-born son for the first time, my whole life changed.  I spent every minute when I was not at work, changing his diapers, feeding him his bottle, rocking him to sleep, and I even made up nursery rhymes and songs (some with rather strange lyrics).  We even took him on a camping trip when he was only 4 months old.  I watched him take his first steps, and was there when he said his first word, and many "firsts" that I did not experience with my other two sons.  When he was only two, I would take him to a nearby park on warm sunny days, and I would watch him play in the sand with the other little kids, I would push him in the swings, we would watch people flying kites, and I would catch him as he came down the slide.  At home we would run to the street when we heard familiar tune of the ice-cream truck and we even made up our own song about the "Ice Cream Man".  On my 55th birthday (he was 3 at the time), he came rushing up to my car as I pulled into the driveway and he said "We bought you a present and it's a rocket".  I assembled the rocket and we fired it from our front lawn.  I adjusted the angle to allow for a slight breeze and it landed on our next door neighbor's lawn.  It was my first attempt at rocket launching.  We built a model train layout and we had a locomotive with real smoke and a bell and whistle.  We bought a remote controlled, gas powered, race car and we raced it in our cul-de-sac.  He got his first bicycle when he was 3 and we took the training wheels off within a month.  We visited a fire station and he got to blow the siren on a fire truck and sit in the driver's seat.  We went camping and fishing.  We went to the zoo.  We went to flea-markets and we would come home with lots of treasures.  He was a "hand-full" at the mall.  If you would take your eyes off him for a second, he would disappear and you could usually find him at the toy store.  He had an obsession for John Deere tractors.  If I made the mistake of driving past the dealership that was near my auto repair shop, I would have to turn around so that we could stop and look at the model tractors and implements.

I August of 1995, my world came crashing down on me.  After returning from a vacation, my ex-wife informed me that she was moving back to her home-town in the mid-west.  We had never re-married, and she had done nothing that would give me a reason to fight for child custody.  In September she left with all of her possessions and my son in a U-Haul truck with her car in tow.  Second to the death of my son, it was the toughest day of my life. 

For the next 10 years, my son spent the summers with me.  We had many memorable experiences.  We went camping and fishing.  We even bought a real John Deere tractor that we took to shows and tractor pulls.  We went to car races, baseball games, 4th of July celebrations, and amusement parks.  We did lots of fun things, and he "hung out" with me at my auto repair shop and became knowledgeable about cars.  I taught him a lot of good things and a few bad.  We made up our own lyrics to popular songs; some bordering on obscene.  He learned to appreciate members of the opposite sex and would say things like "Dad, did you see the fox in the red convertible?"

Aside from his summer visits, I would spend the Christmas holidays with him, but I missed out on the report cards, birthday parties, sicknesses, baseball games, school plays and musicals, and calls from the school principal.  My son was the homecoming king at his high school this past fall and I missed his coronation ceremony but I did make it to one of his football games.  He will graduate in 30 days and I will be there for his graduation, and when I see him receive his diploma, I will experience that feeling of guilt that has haunted me for 18 years.  If things had gone my way, he would not be up there tossing the tassel on his graduation cap.

If I had it to do all over again, I would do things much differently.  I should have taken more time away from my job to be with my children.  I should have listened to their objections and concerns rather than ruling with an "iron fist".  When they did something good, I should have rewarded them with extended privileges and praise instead of toys, bikes, cars, and money.  I should have taught them to give thanks to their creator instead of convoluted lyrics to a song. 

Eighteen years is a very short time to be entrusted with the greatest gift of all It should not be looked upon as eighteen years of toil and sacrifice.  Imagine the pride, joy, and happiness you will feel when you watch your child throw that tassel on their graduation cap, or when you walk your daughter down the aisle, or when you see your son at the alter with his new bride, or when you hold your new grandchild in your arms for the first time.  These are just a few of your rewards.

There is a song from the movie "Mr. Holland's Opus", that he sang for his son, that brings tears to my eyes.  I wish that I could write a song for my sons.  The words are in my mind, and the feeling is in my heart but I cannot put them to music.  To my three sons: "You are Beautiful, Beautiful, Beautiful - Men".