My Father's Day
My father has just celebrated his 90th birthday. Memorial Day has recently been celebrated and today I put on some great old, Big Band tunes, especially “In the Mood” and “String of Pearls” to feel that time, at the end of the 1940’s when I can call up my very first memory.
It is Spring in Peoria, Illinois. And, this year the date of my 2nd birthday, March 30, 1949 and Easter almost coincide. This is exciting! I have a buttercup yellow birthday dress with smocking and puff sleeves. It is hanging up in my room on the closet door for me to gaze at in wonder. It is an icon that prefigures a celebration I don’t yet understand. What I do understand is the enthralling awareness and mysterious suggestion that something shining and delightful is on its way to meet us.
I see the glowing yellow of that little birthday dress suspended in the morning light. I remember the moment and the memory that has been with me every single time I celebrate a rite of passage, officiate at a wedding, baptism, retreat or create a community festival:
.
Daddy and I are in the tiny yard of the city coach-house where we lived behind my grandparents’ grander Moss Avenue home. My parents are just kids—Dick is going to be 28 and Jeanne is just 23. This is how it was, post WWII. You lived with your in-laws, if you could possibly swing it, while making a stake for yourself and a home for your new family. The sun is spectacular in that smog-free sky. The grass is ecstatic green and the peonies, Mother of all flowers, are ready to burst.
My father, Dick Telander, swings me up over his head and into the Spring sky. He holds me aloft there and, although I would not fully understand the words until later, they are imprinted on my skin. He says: “See the world? Say hello Marcie! Look. Look!” I do look and see, and I have never forgotten the body and spirit feeling of that moment.
My father is, and always has been a Fly-Boy. He taught me to emotionally fly high and see far, even if you are scared to death. He was a WWII pilot and Air Force Captain who was considered ancient at the age of 23 in the “war of the boys.” He was a caring and tender leader who still keeps silent about the terrible events he witnessed while, after 60-plus years, keeping my sister Kim, and brother Rick, fascinated with his finely edited exploits in the European Theatre of the War. My father still speaks some well-intoned French, and “occupational” Italian. He tells us that we are somehow related to General Ney, the favorite of Napolean who made famous the epigram: “Mine is not to question why—mine is but to do or die.” He tells us of living in chateaux and villas and flying fine wines directly to the barracks door. He makes us laugh when we can only imagine how many memories he is sparing both us, and himself.
My father is an honorable man. He is part of a generation who knew what personal virtues are. The best of these men naturally and organically subscribed to some important mottos:
always keep your word;
do not blame or complain;
family comes before fortune;
do it right or don’t do it at all;
build your home and love to be at home;
there is no end of sacrifice and devotion in making your children safe;
if you didn’t learn how to be a parent from your own parents—attempt to do no harm.
There are more virtues which my father exemplifies. The most important to me is his profound tenderness and sweet humility when it came to his own life and his instruction in ours. There was no guilt-placing, no self-absorption, no chest-pounding, no competition and no demand for praise, fearful respect or autocratic control. He has been moderate in all habits, political views and sports loyalties. He was even caught, on national news television, during a 1969 sit-in protesting with my mother and me on the steps of the English Dept at Indiana University. In other words, he loves and believes in us and will make room for all this new-fangled stuff that he has heard his kids and grandkids propose for over 6 decades.
All of us, the 3 kids, have called him “Daddy” since we could first speak. What else could capture the gentle kindness and innocence he allowed us to grow up in? I loved hearing my football-jock brother call: “Daddy, we’re over here!” at a graduation event when my brother was a Senior in high school. My sister Kim, and her friends all knew who we were talking about when we simply said: “Daddy will drive us there, or Daddy is on the phone.” They all called their fathers “Dad,” which to this day, sounds weirdly dated and formulaic to me. Like they are part of a 1950’s grade-school primer with Dick and Jane, Mom and Dad and Spot.
Later, as my younger brother and sister went off to college, married, and my brother had children—they shared the love-name my mother still calls Dick—“Sweetie.” Now, the grandkids shout out the tender place this man carved in all of our hearts: “Hey Sweetie…Sweetie, how are you doing?”
I love that this love-name describes him, to this day. I also love that this is my Daddy. The very first romance of my life. Maybe, after all, the most important.
Daddy—I love you!
Marcie
It is Spring in Peoria, Illinois. And, this year the date of my 2nd birthday, March 30, 1949 and Easter almost coincide. This is exciting! I have a buttercup yellow birthday dress with smocking and puff sleeves. It is hanging up in my room on the closet door for me to gaze at in wonder. It is an icon that prefigures a celebration I don’t yet understand. What I do understand is the enthralling awareness and mysterious suggestion that something shining and delightful is on its way to meet us.
I see the glowing yellow of that little birthday dress suspended in the morning light. I remember the moment and the memory that has been with me every single time I celebrate a rite of passage, officiate at a wedding, baptism, retreat or create a community festival:
.
Daddy and I are in the tiny yard of the city coach-house where we lived behind my grandparents’ grander Moss Avenue home. My parents are just kids—Dick is going to be 28 and Jeanne is just 23. This is how it was, post WWII. You lived with your in-laws, if you could possibly swing it, while making a stake for yourself and a home for your new family. The sun is spectacular in that smog-free sky. The grass is ecstatic green and the peonies, Mother of all flowers, are ready to burst.
My father, Dick Telander, swings me up over his head and into the Spring sky. He holds me aloft there and, although I would not fully understand the words until later, they are imprinted on my skin. He says: “See the world? Say hello Marcie! Look. Look!” I do look and see, and I have never forgotten the body and spirit feeling of that moment.
My father is, and always has been a Fly-Boy. He taught me to emotionally fly high and see far, even if you are scared to death. He was a WWII pilot and Air Force Captain who was considered ancient at the age of 23 in the “war of the boys.” He was a caring and tender leader who still keeps silent about the terrible events he witnessed while, after 60-plus years, keeping my sister Kim, and brother Rick, fascinated with his finely edited exploits in the European Theatre of the War. My father still speaks some well-intoned French, and “occupational” Italian. He tells us that we are somehow related to General Ney, the favorite of Napolean who made famous the epigram: “Mine is not to question why—mine is but to do or die.” He tells us of living in chateaux and villas and flying fine wines directly to the barracks door. He makes us laugh when we can only imagine how many memories he is sparing both us, and himself.
My father is an honorable man. He is part of a generation who knew what personal virtues are. The best of these men naturally and organically subscribed to some important mottos:
always keep your word;
do not blame or complain;
family comes before fortune;
do it right or don’t do it at all;
build your home and love to be at home;
there is no end of sacrifice and devotion in making your children safe;
if you didn’t learn how to be a parent from your own parents—attempt to do no harm.
There are more virtues which my father exemplifies. The most important to me is his profound tenderness and sweet humility when it came to his own life and his instruction in ours. There was no guilt-placing, no self-absorption, no chest-pounding, no competition and no demand for praise, fearful respect or autocratic control. He has been moderate in all habits, political views and sports loyalties. He was even caught, on national news television, during a 1969 sit-in protesting with my mother and me on the steps of the English Dept at Indiana University. In other words, he loves and believes in us and will make room for all this new-fangled stuff that he has heard his kids and grandkids propose for over 6 decades.
All of us, the 3 kids, have called him “Daddy” since we could first speak. What else could capture the gentle kindness and innocence he allowed us to grow up in? I loved hearing my football-jock brother call: “Daddy, we’re over here!” at a graduation event when my brother was a Senior in high school. My sister Kim, and her friends all knew who we were talking about when we simply said: “Daddy will drive us there, or Daddy is on the phone.” They all called their fathers “Dad,” which to this day, sounds weirdly dated and formulaic to me. Like they are part of a 1950’s grade-school primer with Dick and Jane, Mom and Dad and Spot.
Later, as my younger brother and sister went off to college, married, and my brother had children—they shared the love-name my mother still calls Dick—“Sweetie.” Now, the grandkids shout out the tender place this man carved in all of our hearts: “Hey Sweetie…Sweetie, how are you doing?”
I love that this love-name describes him, to this day. I also love that this is my Daddy. The very first romance of my life. Maybe, after all, the most important.
Daddy—I love you!
Marcie