Dad Days

Long before it was cool, trendy or a topic of popular conversation, my dad was an integral part of my life. My dad was still attending college during my early formative years. Fifty years later I can still visualize him striding over the hill from campus, dressed like an actor from the Apollo 13 movie. To me, he might as well have been donning a superhero cape, but in actuality it was a plastic pen holder in his shirt pocket and brief case in hand. Though he didn’t know it, his love of academia rubbed off on me. I credit those memories of him tramping home from campus for planting the seeds of my future education.

Like most dads of the 1970s, mine was the breadwinner. Mom was the “Chief in Charge” at home. However, my dad was progressive for the time—he hung out with us. Annually he would bring our bikes to school for new licenses when “Bike Safety Day” rolled around. He walked us home from the neighborhood swim club each evening in summer, and spent untold hours guiding me through the misery of junior high and high school mathematics. His best moments, though, were on Saturdays.

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