Dad with my stepmother~2007If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants
Sir Isaac Newton
Today is my father's birthday. He was thrust into that role soon after he could get into a bar legally. Although quite young, he did his best to adhere to this somewhat sudden responsibility.
My parents marriage lasted about nine years. When they divorced, brother and I were whisked away to Appleton, Wisconsin with my mother. Her mother and family were there, and we lived there for the next five years. Until my mother decided we should return to San Francisco. Appleton was nothing like the city of my birth. It was, however, an idyllic little intermission in my childhood. There were cousins. And cozy neighborhoods. And catholics.
Anyway, we returned to San Francisco. Which meant we got to see our dad frequently. He had the sailboat then, and we spent many hours sailing on the bay and beyond or working on that boat. As a child, I thought I had the coolest dad ever. I still do. He married my step mom in 1994, after shacking up for about a decade. It's a match.
Losing my mom in 1981 radically altered the course of my young life. My surviving parent has guided me through many changes since then. Nothing about our history has been conventional. The one exception to that is the mutual love and respect we share. An example of the non-convention: When I was very young, he decided that we should call him father.* Not dad or daddy. Father sounded cooler to him. So we complied. I recall that my neighborhood pals wondered if our dad was a priest. Nobody else called their dad father.
* Nowadays, he answers to (most) anything.
My parents marriage lasted about nine years. When they divorced, brother and I were whisked away to Appleton, Wisconsin with my mother. Her mother and family were there, and we lived there for the next five years. Until my mother decided we should return to San Francisco. Appleton was nothing like the city of my birth. It was, however, an idyllic little intermission in my childhood. There were cousins. And cozy neighborhoods. And catholics.
Anyway, we returned to San Francisco. Which meant we got to see our dad frequently. He had the sailboat then, and we spent many hours sailing on the bay and beyond or working on that boat. As a child, I thought I had the coolest dad ever. I still do. He married my step mom in 1994, after shacking up for about a decade. It's a match.
Losing my mom in 1981 radically altered the course of my young life. My surviving parent has guided me through many changes since then. Nothing about our history has been conventional. The one exception to that is the mutual love and respect we share. An example of the non-convention: When I was very young, he decided that we should call him father.* Not dad or daddy. Father sounded cooler to him. So we complied. I recall that my neighborhood pals wondered if our dad was a priest. Nobody else called their dad father.
* Nowadays, he answers to (most) anything.
