#899 – Dick Bernard: Happy Father's Day

Happy Father’s Day to everyone.
My favorite postcard, from 1910, to my Grandma Busch on the farm in North Dakota, from one of her sisters in Wisconsin, is this one:
(click to enlarge photos)

At the time, Grandma had two kids, three and one (my mother, the one year old), and Women’s Suffrage was 10 years away.
The card was a little reminder, I suppose, even back in the “good old days” (as perceived by some, perhaps even still).
This Sunday morning I was ushering at Basilica of St. Mary, as usual, and one of the male members of the fabulous Basilica Choir was leading the congregation in the Alleluia before the Gospel reading.
A lady came back about that time, tapped me on the shoulder, and said, proudly, “that’s my son, singing up there!” A minute or two later, enroute back from wherever she’d been, she added a footnote: “he’s an identical twin; his brother is also in the choir!”
Her pride was merited.
I thought to myself that in this picture was a biological Dad. And any number of male and females that had been in advisory capacities, along with Mom, as these twins with marvelous singing voices grew up. Being Father (and Mother) is a team activity, from birth to death.
In our own constellation, there are five biological Dad’s, each their own unique person.
Everyone of them, and this Grandpa, have their own styles and are examples to others. Note, I didn’t say “good examples”. It seems to me that each one of us, regardless of gender or role teach not only by our positive qualities but by our mistakes, which are (at least for me) plenty numerous. Every now and then I run across parents who are trying to insulate their kids from the evils of the world. I feel badly for them, since it never quite works out according to plan. Maybe we can minimize the problems, but as each one of us can attest we sometimes bumble along, remembering stuff we wish we hadn’t done; regretting things we wish we had, but didn’t.
My favorite Father’s Day picture is one I only recently found, from 1949, out there on Grandma and Grandpa’s farm:

This is a Mother’s Day picture, but to me it contributes to the universality of the word “father”.
Dad is there, of course, and it is May, 1949. Not in the photo are Duane Pinkney, the father of the two boys are lower right (most likely he was taking the picture); nor are Grandpa Busch and his son, my Uncle Vincent.
We went home after that day on the farm, and as was quite common, came back late in July of 1949. This time we stayed overnight, and a vicious wind blew the roof off the barn, a scant 200 feet or so from where we had been sleeping.
Uncle Vince takes up the story: they now had a big problem on their hands. No barn roof. Dad was a school teacher and it was summertime, so he stayed around while the three men set about hand building a new roof for the barn. Dad was invaluable, Vince says. Me? I was nine. I remember bits and pieces: the form for the roof, the big people nailing boards…. Sixty-five years later the barn still stands, though it is not doing well, as they’d say at a clinic for barns.

Look at that barn. Imagine it without a roof, in August, 1949, after the storm. Notice a young boy up there, 9 years old; his Dad, 41, his Grandpa, 69, and his Uncle Vince, 24. The nine year old was me, then, watching the others pound the nails, etc. Probably I could pound one or two….
Dad died in 1997. For some years prior to his death I would quite often be his driver when he came north to visit places like the farm. About that time, I began to spend perhaps a week most summers at the farm, just helping out. Vince, who is now in the twilight of his years, became in a real sense something of a new Dad, and a good one, though most of our times were basically quiet times. His sister, Edith, helped out in that role too.
We are all family, whether biologically connected or not.
At the end of Mass today, the Priest asked all the men to stand for a Blessing. Years ago this used to be for biological fathers only.
It’s a good change.
Happy Father’s Day.