Perhaps it’s true that you never truly understand your father until you become a parent yourself. Perhaps.
My relationship with my own, was a little complicated. My first memory of my Dad was: “Just who does this guy think he is?” You see in the early days, my father was out to sea quite a bit and as the oldest of six, I was pretty much the man of the house. I remember really not liking this guy telling me what to do — whoever he was!
The photo attached in this post was sent to me a few years ago by one of dad’s early Navy buddies. They posed for this photo in New York City on a trip that they made so see Sammy Baugh play football. (Giants vs Redskins?) Who knew dad even knew what football was?
So on Father’s Day, a story about Dad:
It was the early 70’s and Dad was stationed on a small communications station outside of Washington D.C. as his last duty station before he retired: Cheltenham Naval Communications Station. From out tour in Asia, he picked up this habit of burning incense, and he used to burn it occasionally in his office on the base. One day, there was a drug briefing on how pot smokers will burn incense to hide the odor of the marijuana being smoked. At that point in the briefing, all heads turned towards him. He never burned incense again.