Fatherhood is not about the day

Jun 20, 2022

Morning Update

Monday, June 20, 2022

By Ken Tingley

Being a father means a lot more to me than Father’s Day ever will.

I don’t need a day to remind me of that.

I don’t need a Hallmark card because it has been one of the most satisfying relationships of my life.

That surprises me, even now.

I was one of those guys in his 20s who did not want to have children. I didn’t like them, understand them or saw the point of bringing them into a world with too many problems.

I was the guy who cringed whenever I saw a baby at a family event.

Of course, I was a son who had a pretty good dad.

He taught me to be frugal, reminded me I would go to Vietnam if it came to that, made sure my hair never covered any part of my ears, taught me how to load a furniture truck, wooed me how to change the oil in the car and rotate the tires, and maybe most importantly, imparted a work ethic that has taken me far.

Of course, I didn’t realize most of that stuff while my father was still alive.

As a wise person once told me, young people are nothing more than a box of rocks.

There were times when I missed my father’s birthday and neglected a call on Father’s Day. He never complained. What I’ve learned over the past 26 years is that there is this unspoken bond between fathers and their children.

We don’t need a thank you.

We don’t need them to buy us dinner.

It’s the relationship that binds us.

It is what will always bind us.

After I left home and made my way into the world, I still knew I could count on my dad for advice about life, finances and moving to another state. He was always there for me. That’s on the top line off the job description.

Yesterday, I got my call from my son in Texas.

He wished me “happy Father’s Day” and asked about my day. I told him his mother made me Eggs Benedict for breakfast and the Yankees blew an 8-3 lead. Other than that, it was quiet.

He apologized for not being there to help me celebrate, but there was no need for that. There never will be.

What is satisfying now is that my son is still a part of our lives in ways I was not with my own father later in life. Oddly, my son seems to enjoy the company of a couple of retired senior citizens. Maybe, we are just a lot of fun.

His job with the National Park Service recently took him to Boston for four months where we all could see each other more frequently.

It was nice. We celebrated my birthday in the Kennedy booth at the Union Oyster House, took in a game at Fenway and visited the Revolutionary War battle sites at Lexington and Concord.

And we didn’t have to get on a plane.

A couple months ago, he copied me on an email he had received from the National World War II Museum in New Orleans. They wanted to interview him for a job.

“This is the big leagues,” he wrote.

The interview went well and they requested a second interview. I was walking in the door two weeks ago when he was on the phone with his mother.

He had gotten the job.

He said we were his first phone call.

That was special.

I flashed back to when he was a small boy watching the History channel before school. I thought about making the call to the New York State Military Museum to ask them if they took precocious seventh grade docents. He went on to give dozens of tours at Grant Cottage in high school and eventually was asked to be on their board.

He interned at the Civil War battlefield in Gettysburg, got his master’s degree in public history and landed a job with the San Antonio National HIstorical Park.

He has done alright for a history nerd.

I’d like to think we had something to do with feeding his passion. We took him to the beaches in Normandy, to Pearl Harbor and a concentration camp in Germany. The story of World War II was always his passion and now it will be his job.

Three years ago, we all made a trip to New Orleans. It wasn’t to party on Bourbon Street, it was to see the National World War II Museum. It was a great day and I seem to remember some talk at dinner that night about how he hoped to work there someday.

Joseph Tingley at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans in 2019.

He starts on Aug. 1.

But that also means he will be a plane-ride away again. And that we will have to be content with phone calls on those special days in the future.

But there is something special about seeing your child’s dream come true. I anticipate there will be so much more to the journey that will continue long after we are gone.

It’s not Father’s Day that matters, it is being a father that has delivered in ways I never imagined. And it continues to do so.

Besides, New Orleans has great food.