el dia de los padres

Pardon my french. I am a father and a son.
So I know something of which I am about to write.

Fathering is both the best and hardest job I will ever take on.

However "easy" the initial effort of conceiving a child
and effortless is our path to childbirth, fathers get the
hard tasks, and the rewarding ones.

Taking care of all things creepy, crawling and dead;
Mouse trapping and disposal, spider search and destroy,
cleaning the catbox and the occassional barf that is
regarded by the daughter as a toxic waste site, these are the easy things.

Sitting in the passenger seat while a son learns to drive:
that takes nerves of steel, or some prefer 'Agave intraveno'
Fathers get to do haircuts, my style is actually called a 'nohair cut'
It is similar to what my dad gave us boys in the summer time...
- - - - - - - - BUZZZZZZZZZZZZ - - - - - -
and with the seemingly mandatory 'clipper to the ear' maneuver.
No pain, No gain.

I love being a dad!
Even in the dark seasons when I did not want to be a human being,
I loved having my children to care for and to (sometimes) be cared for by them.
One of our favorite "Dad's best moves" was the carving of the easter ham.
I slipped with a really sharp carving knife and cut my left thumb
to the bone right at the inside of the second joint.
No pain, plenty of blood.
The three of them were very young, all living with me at the time.
I sent them for the first aid kit, at the other end of the house
and when they returrned I was half sitting against the wall
passed out, mouth open, and had released the pressure I was applying
to the wounded thumb.
No pain, for me anyway, plenty of excitement for the kids.

On a quiet evening in May, many years ago,
We had a fun time launching the sailboat.
I was in a hurry, and it NEVER occurred to me that there might be a plug missing
from the inside of the boat.
It was a big plug, in a big boat.
We launched, and it looked beautiful rolling off the trailer,
and Jared, always the first to get on, in or over anything
announced that there was a lot of water in the boat. He was so right.
There was a one and a half inch pipe thru the hull that was missing its cap,
so water was pouring in at a great rate.
We could feel the pipe and had to cover it with an open palm,
but did not know that the cap was down there, too. It seemed like an hour while we rigged a plug, and then drove quickly to find a more permanent solution, and began our sailing days by christening the boat, from the inside with pure lake water.
We survived, it was exciting.
Dad looked stupid.
What more can you expect from life?

I love writing and love that you read.
Blessings to all on this sunny Sunday!

Love, Dad