He was an honest man.  Some said, "honest to a fault."  But how can that be?

And he was humble too.  I guess they go hand in hand.  Maybe that's what happens to a man who survives the Great Depression and World War 2.  Gives him a bit of perspective.  The youngest of eight, my father stayed alive a long time for a guy who went through all of that.  The Palsy, a rare one, is what got him in the end.  Passed away over 10 years now.  It was a horrible sickness, for him, and for everyone.  I held his hand when he took his last breath.  For once in my life I was in the right place at the right time.  It was, simply, his time to go.  And it was, truly, a relief to all, especially him.

He wasn't around much when I was young.  That's just what happens when fathers need to hustle up enough dough to scrape out a living for the ones they brought into this world.  Paycheck to paycheck is what they call it.  He was a salesman and not a very good one, I imagine.  Much too honest, a bit too humble, and not so adept at speaking out of both sides of his mouth at the same time.  A politician he would never be, although the man did have his opinions, about boys and men with long hair, mostly.  

Patton was his man.  Served under him in North Africa, Italy, and The Rhineland.  And like the great General, my father was, at heart, a horse soldier too.  Before the war as a member of the National Guard, he won some medals or maybe it was a trophy for Dressage or that sort of thing.  He was just past twenty then, strong, lithe, and energized.  What a shame we never saw him that way. 

That was his dream for his sons - to ride, to jump, to show.  But on a salesman's wage, the only horses we ever rode were carved from  wood and were propelled in a circle at the local amusement park.  We had some good times there.

I learned a lot from my father - how to shave, tie a windsor knot, drive a stick shift, and even, along with my mother and a scratchy old recording of Artie Shaw's "Rose Room," how  to  dance real slow.  Years later, too many really, I learned something else - how to be there for your kids when they're in trouble... 'cause we all make mistakes.

Sports, he followed a little, mostly because his sons were crazy over them.  And he must have played them a little too, one time long ago.  He had a two handed set shot right out of the pre-Hank Lusietti era.  It started at the knees and worked its way down from there.  Even a midget might have blocked it.  But after a long, hot, hard day pounding his territory, he could make a few with hat and tie still on.  He could hold his own in a soft catch, and also get a tennis ball over the net.  But it was on a horse that he had excelled.  Too bad that was a rich man's game.

For my 12th birthday, he took me to see the Globetrotters.  In 1966, it was the Joe Frazier - George Chuvalo heavyweight elimination fight at the old Garden.  In '77, courtesy of one of his clients, we attended one of the Yankee-Dodger Series games at the Big Ballpark in the Bronx.  Pretty good box seats, down the third baseline near the tarpulin.  He didn't know too much about what was going on except that the hot dogs and beer tasted good and that he took his New York Yankee baseball crazy son to a World Series game.  That made him happy.    The Yankees lost that day but I won as I felt awfully close to the man who was always working and had never seemed to be there.  I was just married and 26 and he was just past 60.  Eight years later he would begin to experience the symptoms of a debilitating disease that would ravage his body and eventually take his life.  Some retirement.

I sit alone this Father's Day.  My children are grown, married, occupied.  No pity party here.  I guess you could say I did it to myself.  Should have been a little more like my old man -more humble and a lot more honest.

Today will be a quiet day with a bit of gardening, a long walk with my hound, and maybe a few innings of the Yanks and the Nats.  But maybe I'll skip the baseball.  With all that Father's Day stuff, it's enough to make a grown man cry.