dual personalities

Tag: Father’s Day

June 19, 2023

It is well with my soul

by chuckofish

Well, VBS was a timely reminder that it is a good thing to get out of one’s comfort zone every now and then.

And I have to say, being with all those smart kids kind of restores my confidence in the future somewhat. For example, I had a really engaging conversation with one of the boys in my group about his first name. I asked him if was Welsh and he said Gaelic. This led him to ask if I had ever heard of Tombstone, because he is a descendant of the McLaurys and I was able to jump in and say, why yes, they were participants in the famous gunfight at the O.K. Corral. (I had, of course, already been wondering about his name.) He said ‘they’ (his family) hated the movie Tombstone because of the way the McLaurys are depicted. He admitted that the McLaurys were the bad guys, but argued that the movie was not fair. I said he should tell his father to get the movie My Darling Clementine, which is an old movie made in 1946 starring Henry Fonda and is a much better telling of the story. He nodded, and being an intelligent lad, I am hopeful he will pass this information on to his father.

He went on to tell me that his father is a pastor at a downtown church. Then the boy next to him chimed in and said he also went to this church where his mother is the Music Director. We had a good conversation about animals we have seen in our yards. They were impressed that I had seen a coyote.

Anyway, I was glad to meet a boy who is interested in his genealogy and who can talk about it intelligently.

It was also a joy to see my grandchildren in the thick of things and to get hugs throughout the morning when we met in passing. They did great and I think they had a lot of fun.

Can you see them in the front? It did my heart good to hear those babes singing “It Is Well With My Soul”!

I had hoped to see them in church on Sunday singing with the rest of the kids at the beginning of the service, but Lottie broke her arm on Saturday at a pool party. She spent the afternoon in the E.R. We FaceTimed later that evening and she told me, “I’m okay, Mamu!’

She goes back to get a cast (purple with pink sparkles bien sûr) next week.

And lest we forget: we wish a belated happy Father’s Day to all the wonderful fathers out there!

And happy Juneteenth!

6 Comments
June 19, 2017

Monday again?

by chuckofish

I had such a busy weekend, I didn’t have a chance to write a blogpost for today. All I have is this sweet picture of the wee babes on their dad’s first Father’s Day.IMG_1295.jpgThey had a busy day too, so by the time they came over to our house for a Sunday night barbecue, they were a little fussy. No picture taking. C’est la vie

Have a good week!

2 Comments
June 16, 2017

“Train up a child in the way he should go, Even when he is old he will not depart from it.”

by chuckofish

Tomorrow is our maternal grandfather’s birthday (Bunker Hill Day) and Sunday is Father’s Day. Here he is in c. 1929 with our mother.

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And here he is around 1964 again with our mother and her sister Susanne.

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Bunker (1900–1968) was quite a character (as I’ve written before) and our mother thought the world of him. He was a great sportsman and outdoorsman, a devoted fly-fisherman. He even went deep sea fishing at least once. He was a competitive table tennis player. It’s a good thing he never took up golf, because he would no doubt have become obsessed with that. The same goes for bridge. He loved baseball and Ted Williams and the Red Sox.

He took up furniture-making late in life as a hobby and turned out reproductions of antiques that were like works of art. He took classes and studied how to do it and read up on it and practiced and drew plans. Although not an academic per se, he was a student all is life. Our mother took after her father in that way.

Bunker was a manly man who didn’t have sons. C’est la vie.

So a toast to Bunker on his birthday and to all Fathers who do their best on Sunday. The boy will be celebrating his first Father’s Day–pretty exciting.

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Enjoy your weekend–keep cool!

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* Proverbs 22:6

8 Comments
June 20, 2016

Smoke in my nostrils*

by chuckofish

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How was your weekend? Did you celebrate Father’s Day? The OM and I went to Ted Drewes for frozen custard after an annoying church service on Sunday.

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Frozen custard always helps when it is too early to have a drink.

The boy and daughter #3 came over on Saturday night to celebrate Father’s Day. We barbequed hot dogs and beans. They brought over a leather wing chair-recliner from her grandparents’ house for the OM and now he will probably never get out of it again. We laughed a lot about that at his expense.

Earlier in the weekend he had hung up a shade in a bathroom, an endeavor that took 45 minutes of goddamits to finish, so he deserved all the rewards of the weekend.

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The shade was my reward. Happy Monday.

*Isaiah 65:5

4 Comments
June 17, 2016

Deep thoughts for Friday

by chuckofish

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Ah, it is Friday again. Per usual I have no big plans for the weekend. I will be working on filling my kitchen with good vibes (see here.)

Father’s Day is Sunday, so hopefully we will see the boy and daughter #3 at some point, but nothing is on the calendar yet. I guess it is time to wrap up some Old Spice!

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Anyway, here are a few things to think about to put you in the mood for celebrating with your OM:

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“Never half-ass two things. Whole-ass one thing.” (Ron Swanson, Parks and Recreation)

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Our own pater was not one for handing out advice. (I could have used some.) In fact, he was not one for chatting with his kids. I guess that’s a pity, but certainly not uncommon. I had Ward Cleaver and John Wayne to stand in and I am not complaining.

As far as appropriate movies for the Father’s Day weekend, I would suggest:

To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) with Gregory Peck as one of the best fathers ever,

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The Bicycle Thief (1948) with Lamberto Maggiorani as a father who can’t catch a break in De Sica’s classic,

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East of Eden (1955) with Raymond Massey and James Dean as dueling father and son,

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or Rebel Without a Cause (1955) with Jim Backus and James Dean as dueling father and son,

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Big Jake (1971) starring John Wayne and two of his real-life sons and Christopher Mitchum (son of Robert) in pursuit of kidnappers,

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and Life is Beautiful (1997) with Roberto Benigni as the best father ever (next to Atticus Finch) who tries to protect his son emotionally and physically from Nazis in a concentration camp.

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There are plenty more, but these are the ones that come to mind.

Have a good weekend. See you on Monday when I will be able to say, “In the immortal words of Julius Cesar, ‘I left, I did nothing, I returned.’” (Larry David)

10 Comments
June 16, 2014

Kickin’ up dust

by chuckofish

So did anyone watch The Horse Soldiers over the weekend? I did and it was as excellent as I remembered.

I also watched a bad Woody Allen movie and caught up with Longmire, finishing season two. Longmire is the A&E show that takes place in Wyoming (but is mostly filmed in New Mexico) about a 21st century sheriff (named Walt Longmire) in a small town and his deputies and Native American friends and enemies. It is pretty good and I like everyone in it. Season three has just started.

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Some of you will remember Bailey Chase (far right) from Buffy, season four. How could you forget him?

On Saturday I went to the annual book sale at the Ethical Society, which I have blogged about before. It is such a good sale! I bought two bags of books! What is wrong with me? One of the volunteers brought me a cart from the kitchen to pull around with me, so I wouldn’t have to carry them around. This was nice, but I could tell he wanted to engage me in a conversation, and I wanted none of that. It is bad enough having to overhear/listen to those Prius-driving ethical humanists while they engage in conversation with themselves. Oy.

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Just a sample of my $23 purchase–but you can never have too many copies of Leaves of Grass, right?

I also went to a used bookstore where I cashed in a gift certificate a friend gave me for my birthday. I had never been to this store and I have to admit that it always looked vaguely sinister to me from the outside–but I was wrong. They had a lot of  good books for sale besides science fiction. And the proprietor did not look (too much) like this guy:

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I will definitely go back! You really can’t judge a book (store) by its cover! Haha.

On Sunday I was back at church for Trinity Sunday. The Old Testament lesson was the creation story from the Book of Genesis–the whole story–Genesis 1:1-2:4–which is a long reading, but, boy, is it good. Luckily it was Shirley from the Lay Reader A-Team who read it. High fives all around. If you were not in church on Sunday, I suggest you go read it on your own. Brilliant.

Hope you fathers had a nice day. The OM took several naps.

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In honor of Father’s Day, here is a picture from an article in the old Globe Democrat circa 1965 of our pater doing what he loved best–playing war games in our dining room back in the day.

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and surveying his vast collection of painted soldiers.

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Good times. You can see that the collecting gene prevails in the family. Have a good week!

9 Comments
June 16, 2013

Father’s Day Work Day

by chuckofish

It’s a tradition in our family that on Father’s Day (and Mother’s Day as well), the children labor willingly and with joy in their hearts (!) at whatever task their parent chooses. This year Father decided to spend the afternoon doing yard work at our camp. Due to son #2’s work schedule, we had to do this yesterday instead of today, which turned out to be a good thing because it is pouring rain today.

The boys chopped and sawed
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while their father mowed (and mowed and mowed)

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and Till Eulenspiegel and I did a little gardening.

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When we were all worn out we made our way home via our trusty local market where the boys fortified themselves with homemade beef jerky and we picked up meat for the barbeque.

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Today we’re having the big meal (ham steaks and pineapple on the BBQ with au gratin potatoes and green beans) and tonight we’ll probably watch the new action movie that the boys have given their father (another tradition). What is your Father’s Day tradition?

3 Comments
June 14, 2013

Happy Father’s Day

by chuckofish

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“Then came the reflection, how little at any time could a father do for the wellbeing of his children! The fact of their being children implied their need of an all-powerful father: must there not then be such a father? Therewith the truth dawned upon him, that first of truths, which all his church-going and Bible-reading had hitherto failed to disclose, that, for life to be a good thing and worth living, a man must be the child of a perfect father, and know him. In his terrible perturbation about his children, he lifted up his heart—not to the Governor of the world; not to the God of Abraham or Moses; not in the least to the God of the Kirk; least of all to the God of the Shorter Catechism; but to the faithful creator and Father of David Barclay. The aching soul which none but a perfect father could have created capable of deploring its own fatherly imperfection, cried out to the father of fathers on behalf of his children, and as he cried, a peace came stealing over him such as he had never before felt.”

― George MacDonald, Heather and Snow

Happy Fathers Day to all you good fathers out there and grace to you, and peace, from God our Father.

6 Comments