BOOMERS and BEYOND: Despite their faults, Dads are pretty wonderful

Dads aren’t perfect. Duh … is anybody? No, but in the case of our parents, this devastating realization comes about very slowly and very painfully, sometimes taking years. After all, these two were the king and queen of our own little kingdom. The fact they were flawed in any way just never occurred to us.

But in the case of my dad, it was different. Dad wore his flaws like a badge. Some of us are keen on hiding our flaws, and we get quite good at it, but not Dad, no siree, he just let “it all hang out.” Recognizing my dad’s flaws was a no-brainer, even for a 6-year-old.

Recognizing is one thing, forgiving another, however. That’s the sticker.

But forgive him I have. Over the last 20 years Dad’s gifts to us (albeit received subconsciously) enriched us in amazing ways. Things continue to creep out, seemingly from nowhere – words, ideas, philosophies, interests, abilities.

Dad often uttered, “I’m just a cantankerous old curmudgeon.” I don’t know if he made up the phrase himself, but it was more than just a clever turn of phrase than a good description of him and his personality.

Dad was a CPA, but not your reserved CPA type – he was more the male equivalent of a social butterfly. He was well-dressed, well-schooled, well-read and very astute, socially.

Dad loved the romance of the cocktail hour. Mixing a perfect martini was his forte and he adhered to the highest standard of the art. I loved to watch that evening ritual, as he cracked ice and measured the gin precisely, anguishing about getting the vermouth right. He stirred it gently with the long, twisted metal spoon and as the martini chilled the tall metal mug got frosty. Then there was the ritualistic pouring of the drink into lovely stemmed glasses and the plopping of the beautiful, pimento olive.

Such a lot of work for something that tasted so god-awful! I never shared Dad’s penchant for martinis.

In Dad’s typical, free-wheeling style he had a blatant extramarital love affair with one of the secretaries at his office. He made no attempt to keep this a secret from the family, even going so far as to bringing her home to dinner on Sundays. Even to me, a naïve 12-year-old at the time, dad’s affair was obvious and it was terrible

Did I forgive him for such a travesty? No way … I was mad at him for at least 50 years after that. Today however, I, with a taste of life and marriage myself, have a better appreciation of the trials and tribulations of marriage.

It seems that having a long-term, viable and happy marriage is a rarity anymore. If a man can abandon, with good grace, his visions of a “man-about-town” lifestyle for the harsh demands of married life, maintaining loyalty to one woman – it may just be a monument (a miracle) of human achievement.

It’s gotta be especially challenging for a man who looks like Gary Cooper … that was my dad. He loved all women and all the women loved “Walter” … including Mom and the two of us girls.

But we thought he was pretty tough on us. Every night at the dinner table, he would try to “educate” us by offering up a new vocabulary word every night. And we each had to use it in a sentence. We thought it was just so corny. But as he was the king, we had no choice.

One night, he tried to cram the word “agog” down our throats. I was exasperated, saying, “Who would ever use a word like that,” adding “I’m agog about that stupid word.” He was delighted.

Here was a man perfectly suited for academia. But back in the early days of the last century, family men did not have the luxury of even considering that they might be in the wrong profession … nor, was it even an option to re-school for a new line of work.

So this frustrated professor did the best he could with that nagging need to teach – he taught us. He was always teaching us something … anything. We got used to it and accepted our fate, sometimes even enjoying it.

Dad’s human frailties, once recognized and at one time, seemingly unforgivable, were the very things that made this man our guru.

A kid from the Depression, my dad learned how to squeeze the most from the situation of his life: his blatant love affair; his ill-considered purchase of a red Chrysler woodie convertible automobile during the leanest of our times; his love affair with Time magazine, Bennet Cerf and Dale Carnegie and the philosophers of the world; and most of all, his undying devotion to his girls – the three of us blankety-blank women with whom he was “shackled for life.”

Dads aren’t perfect, but sometimes their legacies come pretty close.