A father's ordinary kindnesses make extraordinary impression

The Boston Herald

June 20, 1993

BEVERLY BECKHAM

You want something out of the ordinary for a Father's Day story.

You want a tale of tenacity: Jamie Fiske's father fighting for a liver transplant for his small daughter. Or a tale of courage: Ricky Hoyt's father repeatedly achieving, with his physically challenged son, seemingly impossible goals. Or a gripping melodrama: a soldier clinging to a picture of a child he has never seen, enduring great hardships, surviving deadly battles, fed by the need to go home and embrace his son.

Yet, most fathers live far less dramatic lives, their histories composed of hundreds of unheralded, ordinary moments. Like this week's succession of sunny days - clearly wonderful and appreciated at the time - these ordinary moments don't stand out and won't ever make headlines because they're so commonplace.

Fatherhood is like this. The best fathers do what they do with the constancy of the tide. They play cards with you or checkers or ball. They give you a dollar when you ask for 50 cents. They let you go on all the rides at a carnival, even the ones that make you sick. They never say you're wasting your money playing ring toss or darts. They don't believe that watching TV is a waste of time. When you eat out, they let you order anything you want. And when you're old enough to get a car, they borrow it and return it clean with a full tank of gas.

Of such small, ordinary things so much of fatherhood is composed.

My father is no exception. All his life he has been doing ordinary things for me: I stopped by his house the other day and he actually washed my car. I call him to fix a broken gate, and he's at my door before I've hung up. I admire a wheelbarrow he made and he makes one for me.

When I was 5, he was the one who convinced my mother that I wouldn't be ruined if I had a TV in my room. He used to repair TVs, one of his many after-work jobs. Someone gave him a broken one; he fixed it and gave it to me.

"You'll ruin her," my mother predicted. But my father disagreed. "This way she can watch Gene Autry whenever she wants."

It's a funny thing, though. I never did watch Autry or much of anything on that TV. What I remember is sitting in the living room watching the Range Rider, whom I didn't care for at all, next to my father, whom I openly adored.

When I was older, my father installed speakers in my bedroom, creating stereo before there was such a thing. He cut holes in the walls and ran wire along the molding and made an old 45 rpm record player sound even better than a new one.

When he mowed the grass, he never asked me to rake it. When he cleaned out the garbage pail, he never asked for my help. He convinced my mother that I was old enough to ride a bike; and when I was old enough to drive, he convinced her that I could do that, too.

He bought me a puppy when we had to get rid of our dog, a cute, furry, little thing. And then he drove me to a farm, hours away, to prove to me that our old dog, Teddy, who bit the mailman, had not been put to sleep.

He took me to Boston every year for my birthday. We rode the train together, saw whatever western was playing, and came home late at night, full of ice cream sandwiches, Dots, popcorn and Coke.

He escorted me to the doctor to get my polio shot, promising to treat me to a hot fudge sundae if I were brave and didn't cry. And when I cried anyway, he still bought me the sundae.

On hot summer nights, he was an easy hit for the drive-in or a trip to Nantasket. A couple of, "Please, Dad, please," and he was in the car. "Can Janet come, too? Is it OK if I call Rose?" I don't remember my father ever saying no.

He taught me to play cribbage, to fry bologna, to save money and to love words. The day before I was married, he went out and bought me a winter coat. I had the flu and I needed the coat, he said, to keep me warm.

So many ordinary things a father does. Yet when you stop to consider them, you realize that these everyday things are pretty extraordinary, too.