Happy Father's Day -OR- Who Am I? (Part 3)

(suggested music pairing: I Wish, Stevie Wonder and Papa Don't Take No Mess, James Brown)

In review:  I’ve written two separate posts to answer the question “Who am I?” The first was written on Cinco de Mayo, as a stretch-of-a-link of the Hispanic part of my background. The second was soon after, for Mothers’ Day, about my mom’s influence on me. This would be Part 3…and the answer here starts with the same answer from Mothers’ Day:

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

As much as I exhibit a lot of my mom’s social and emotional characteristics, there is an equal blending of my dad’s personality as well. The biggest aspect that my sister and I talked about once is how hard my dad works, and I’m going to guess he got that from his parents. I don’t know as much about my dad’s childhood compared to my mom’s, but there are several opposites. My dad’s family was relatively isolated in a small steel mill town west of Pittsburgh on the Ohio River; my mom had tons of cousins and other relatives in Massachusetts. My granddad worked in the steel mills, my grandmother worked in a beauty salon.  My dad is an only child; my mom has 5 siblings. 

...in fact, my dad was born on Christmas Day, a fact that he doesn’t particularly enjoy, and who would? Anyone with birthdays within a few days of Christmas all say the same thing; how, over the years, their birthdays get overshadowed and mixed in with Christmas. Growing up, my mom always made sure that we got separate Christmas and Birthday presents for my dad.  But, more amazingly, my dad was born when his parents were in their mid-40’s. Even today, statistically, there are many risks to having a child that late; yet years ago, he beat those odds.  

My dad had a childhood which seems quite similar to mine…not really fitting in, picked on a lot, quiet and reserved. He went to college and then went into the Air Force to be a Med Tech – someone who performs the blood and other body chemistry tests.  He was stationed in the South in the 60’s, during the times of real hard-core racism – he has stories of being refused service, having to sit in a back room at a restaurants, getting called the N-word on a regular basis. And just as the 60’s were coming to a close, he had to do a tour in Vietnam in the Medical Unit. This isn’t something he talks about much; and definitely doesn’t glorify.  

Since then, my dad has steadily worked hard as a Medical Tech, from when I was born and we lived in a not-so-good neighborhood of North Philly, to moving out to Phoenixville in an apartment, to my parents buying their first house on Bridge Street, to their move out of town to their current house. My dad (and my mom) have spent their lives trying to better the lives of myself and my siblings, putting up with the trials of making something out of nothing, starting at square one and persevering. We joke now about the crap cars we had growing up (and maybe there is something subconscious with my holding on to Flaky?), and the homemade renovations we made to the Bridge Street house, but it worked. 

But, my dad is a hard worker. There were many nights growing up, when we had bad snowstorms, that my dad would volunteer to stay at work overnight in case other people couldn’t make it in. In the Blizzard of ’96, when we had a record 32 inches of snow and the Philly area was paralyzed for 3 days, my dad drove his Chevy Cavalier 10 miles to work on barely plowed roads and made it there and back just fine. Even my grandmother was a hard worker…I wrote in my very first post how my grandmother, in her early 80’s, worked to get her beautician’s license reinstated, taking a bus 25 miles one way to take the classes, and then worked at a salon for a few years, taking another bus to that job. And I know that is where I get my hard working ethic from. If there’s something that needs to be done, sometimes you just have to buckle down and do it; no excuses, no glory, all guts.

There are more parts of his personality that I have inherited:  my love of music:  check. That would be my wide-ranging taste in music…the fact that I can go from the classic rock of Steppenwolf and The Doobie Brothers, to the soul of Earth Wind and Fire and Stevie Wonder, and the jazz legends of George Benson…all from my dad. My dad was able to keep up with the rap music of the 80’s and 90’s too. Then there’s my passion around the politics around racism and classism…check.  My sense of humor? Check. My cynicism? Check. My knowledge and interest of useless trivia? Check. And probably more than anything – my love of driving? CHECK. One of my favorite summer memories growing up was going out for ice cream on Sunday evenings – we’d pick up my grandmother, go to the local dairy, eat our ice cream, and then just take back roads back. Every Sunday, same ice cream place, different back roads. Just wandering, exploring, being. And when I eventually took over the role of the driver, it was one of those steps into manhood which was huge for me.

Because, without driving…where would this blog be? Where would I be? And more importantly, where would I be able to go? Because in the end, whether it’s driving, or working, or providing, life is about remembering where you came from, knowing which direction you’re headed, and then just going: no excuses, no glory, all guts.