My father-in-law lost a leg in France in 1944, but he taught his 6 sons how to do all the physically arduous work necessary to run a household with 8 children. He was a kind and loving man, survived polio after the war (though it partially paralyzed his vocal chords). He also was the first in his family go to college on the GI bill and was a beloved high school counselor. Thanks for reminding me of him this Father's Day weekend.
A whole leg! Then the dreaded polio that ruined so many. But, he soldiered on and took advantage of every opportunity, the GI bill and even those 6! sons who had 2 legs each.
Hope was in the air then. Hope for America. Confidence in being an American, regardless the disability.
Lucky for him his sister was an army nurse (Lt. Col.) and when he was admitted to the hospital for polio, she was on duty, and made sure he got the best care. His wife was also an educator, and they raised 8 very capable children by using tons of grocery coupons and having orange and avocado trees on their lot in California. My husband always jokes that there were actually 10 kids, but the competition for food was so intense that two got left by the wayside.
And they knew that there is nothing that can’t get work out, so long as we talk to each other honestly, because that is an expression of our faith that "right makes might" and our knowing that it's not the other way round.
yep. my ww2 vet Dad used to say that all the time. He and his dad and brothers built a house and a garage on their land in upstate NY. Down in the city, when a contractor skipped out on our garage that was half down, Dad finished the walls, stucco'd them, and built the roof. He was amazing.
My WW2 vet dad too. He was found to have a heart murmur so he didn’t go overseas but rather was stationed at Fort Knox as a company clerk Corporal ala Radar O’Reilly of MASH fame - Dad could type 125words a minute on a manual typewriter and take shorthand notes. Dad married Mom shortly after the war and went to college studying Philosophy and English. Then my 2 brothers and I came along. They bought a small sturdy brick house in the burbs of Detroit (Mom recalled her hands shaking as they paid $25 down on a $14,000 house loan). The suburban complex was built for returning vets and you had a choice of 2 slightly different styles - the baby boom was on and the place was awash with kids around my age. Dad and Mom started making improvements - starting in the basement where they smacked up the cement floor and installed a bathroom - plumbing, electrical and all. I remember watching him use a blowtorch to solder the plumbing together - totally fascinated with the process. He built a shower, installed a toilet, and made the walls, sending Mom to the hardware store to pick up the parts he needed. Then he built himself a study with big, beautiful, bookshelves. They then built a large kitchen area with a sink (the one upstairs was pretty small), a space for seating, and a gas fireplace. Dad finished his degree in Philosophy and English with enough credits for a PhD but realized he had to make a living to raise their family, he didn’t finish his dissertation but rather went back and obtained a degree in education and became an elementary schoolteacher, then a principal. Mom worked all kinds of odd jobs to keep us going, and we ate many Sunday dinners with our grandparents. Mom also went back to school to become an elementary schoolteacher. The “space race” was on and there were scholarships for teachers to obtain Masters in math and science, so Mom got a Masters in math education. Dad taught me the rudiments of plumbing, electrical, and even a bit of carpentry through all this and I am forever grateful for these lessons as I make my way through home ownership and life. A very happy childhood with parents who loved kids, especially their own. We spent our summers together camping in a tent exploring the East Coast educational sites (Washington DC, Gettysburg, etc) and visiting family near Ottawa, Ontario and on farms on the west coast of Michigan. Dad died young, only 48, I still miss him very deeply.
These are the people who built the world we knEw in the USA, hard working, honest, and intelligent. So what do we do with today’s graft, corruption, lies, deceit, and the tearing down of human decency. It’s heartbreaking to live through all this.
OMG! You must be of my generation....I was born in 1939 and the we lived in D.C. during the war. Many restrictions that everyone was fine with.... food coupons...a neighbor gave my mom a chicken that was a bit past use-by date ....so she soaked it in baking soda and we had a chicken dinner.
My Mom's baby brother, at 18, served in the war, then got an education while they lived in a Quonset hut ...my aunt supported them by teaching but then got preggie...Then they bought a bargain house in Illinois and my uncle dug out a basement where there had been none....4 rooms: K, L/R 2 bedrooms....He worked for General Electric the train co. and as a senior engineer went to China to help them learn how to make trains...
So much opportunity after WW2...they have passed away, respectably well off with kids who became doctors. America: the greatest...
Then.
Now we are going to have to change lanes ...to give any new Americans a respectable future.
...sleds, bicycles, water pumps, sailboats; horses (shod or unshod; with or without saddles); cooking on wood-burning ranges; restoring Great Grandfather's Union-Army-issue Sharps carbine so it again harvests deer...
(With heartfelt thanks to all for the Father's Day reminders.)
The generation from the depression had to do everything...and they could. Even without youtube!
And, the cars did not have computers!
You and I are the same age and I'll bet you can fix almost anything...because I can. I made all my clothes except underware and shoes and even still do.
I have the tools for everything. Quite a supply of hardware...every kind of glue.
...transcending temperamental outboard engines; making carbon brushes to resurrect antique electric motors; building houses from the foundations up...
(When I was a child, my father's knowledge and abilities made him seem godlike, and even now -- half a century after his death -- I miss the boarding-school-educated, MENSA-confirmed, Crash-of- '29-schooled consciousness he brought to our adult relationship. (He died in 1971 as an uncounted victim of a 1918 scarlet fever epidemic that swept through Massachusetts but was obscured by the international Spanish Flu debacle. As often happened with scarlet fever, in my father's case it regressed to rheumatic fever and fried his heart.)
I’ve wondered about those illnesses because I had one and forget which ( scarlet I think) and it’s too late to ask but I know my mother thought I’d die when my eyes rolled back into my head. I do have a valve problem and murmers were detected long ago but so far, the pump keeps pumping. Our heroic fathers remembered— so practical. Interesting how they appear in us now.
I am MENSA confirmed also but never attended meetings. I doubt I could pass now, after all the drinkies.
A women I met who did attend meetings said they were kind of weird. She said it's considered a disability. I think she's right esp. if one tries to get along in "groups", which, thankgod, was never my thing.
Judith, well, in my family, it was my mom who could fix anything. My dad would hold the tools for her or even the ladder or her feet while she painted the walls over our stairs. They were a team that way. It seems to me that in reality, fatherhood, even manhood is a team effort.
One of the concepts the arson-destroyed "Glimpses of a Pale Dancer" would have introduced is our need to recognize "the sisterhood of man" -- a caring for our Mother Earth as profound as the care of loving sisters for their mother -- if we are to heal our relationship with our planet.
…how to make stilts out of shortened clothesline props, lighted trolley cars out of shoe boxes, with tissue papered windows lit by candle stumps on jar lids, leading his own and neighborhood kids on a nighttime parade around the block, sing « Some Enchanted Evening » while shaving …
For me, it was better to be poor..as in very low income. I had to budget like crazy and make everything from scratch and live in the free library. It was possible to be low income in the '60's..doctors who charged $5 per twin and $12.50 per credit for Rutgers. (my entertainment)
Later, I was the first to run in the street (before it was called jogging) and one neighborhood I ran in (due to no traffic) was wealthy. I felt pity for the wives who lived that way. What on earth did they do????
I grew up without a father. There was no man at the table, no coat on the chair, no voice in the house that sounded like law or comfort. There was my mother, worn out and good, and there was the television.
At night I sat close to the screen and watched Father Knows Best and Leave It to Beaver. Those fathers came home steady. They wore clean shirts. They knew when a boy was lying, when he was afraid, and when he needed a hand on his shoulder. I studied them like maps.
Sometimes I watched Superman. He had no real home either, not the first one. He carried loss under his cape and still chose to help. I understood that part.
No one taught me how to shave, how to fight fair, how to apologize, or how to stand still when life got mean. I learned badly at first. I acted tough when I was only lonely. I mistook anger for strength. I mistook silence for dignity.
But I kept going. I read books. I worked hard. I listened when decent men spoke, even when they did not know I was listening. Little by little, I learned that a man is not made by the father he had, but by the harm he refuses to hand down.
When my own child was born, I was afraid. Then he took my finger in his small hand, and I knew the first thing I had to do.
Stay.
So I stayed. I came home. I listened. I failed some days and tried again the next.
In the end, I became the man I had waited for. Not perfect. Present. And that was enough.
My dad was not especially handy in the workshop, but he, and his wife, were always sincere. My dad, like my mother, was bright and curious. Due to the Great Depression, neither of my parents were college educated, but due to that abiding curiosity I would rank their general awareness above that of the typical college graduates that I have encountered. I take heart that they endured WWII, which must have been a very scary experience.
I presume that people are people in any era, but I do have a sense that our previously less commercialized culture there was more encouragement for a greater aggregate level of participation, independence and resilience. It may seem contradictory to speak of independence in a former era of greater governmental focus on the common good, but in reality, solidarity enables a robust environment of freedom. We are most free in an environment where we all look out for one another.
My take is that in every era, that people in aggregate have had the same potential capacities, and also the same potential proclivities, and differing eras in differing places present a differing constellation of how this all shakes out. Right now I have a sense that manipulation of media is usurping our varied culture of, by and for the (whole of the) people, and we are fools if we fail to reclaim it. Not that there was ever a perfect golden age, and not not that we are not, even now, effecting effecting progress, but we have been letting the power of plutocracy steal much of our collective agency; and desperately need to claim it, and to carry it forward to unprecedented heights.
"We the People", not the coercive and/or privileged, are officially the ultimate source of legitimacy in the direction our own society, and would be fools to let that go.
Not to be a Debby Downer..after so much discussion about the greatest generation and the GI bill. ...which was a god's send for so many who had been raised in the depression....
Unless, you were a Black GI. Benefits were determined by States that severely limited access to higher education and better housing.
I love that you were able to share such a delightful story and still include some history. Thank you for all that you write so people like me can feel engaged in the world around me and understand what came before:)
What a sweet story for Father’s Day. I love imagining you as a young girl having those formative experiences. Thanks so much for feeding our imagination on those days when you are not parsing the political landscape. You are such a treasure, Heather! 🙏🏻
It was a really good week for that with the opening of the Obama center and the World Cup games that show just how hospitable Americans can be. Americans are usually a joyful people, especially when the Dotard isn't in the news.
Fathers are so very important, especially to girls. I remember once being in a group of people who were advising and fundraising for the relocation of the Catholic high school. One of the members had been a college basketball player, and he was talking about (maybe lamenting) having daughter(s) and waiting for a son. My father was also an athlete, and I commented to him that I’d never heard him wish for a boy instead of his daughters so we could play football. He thought I was nuts. I didn’t play football, but played everything else in high school + he taught me to skate, ride a bike, etc.
I’m a fan of anyone who can whistle ‘If I Were a Rich Man’ from my favorite musical, but that along with the Gettysburg Address? This man was pure gold.
So much of what Lincoln said presents as a poem, or much like a song, that endures repetition; and yet also so makes the point, as Shakespeare so consistently demonstrated. "We cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground". The whole things rings of truth and beauty. Hamlet's soliloquies seem of a similar ilk.
My father's abiding interest and skill was one of language. Where would we be, social creatures that we are, without our articulate languages? Speech and the written word are not by any means our only meaningful languages. Isadora Duncan said "If I could tell you what it meant, there would be no point in dancing it”; and of course, there is more. Yet isn't it a wonder that by pressing keys that print symbols, we can share these curent thoughts together?
Thank you, Professor. The love of family is the greatest thing. And to share with your friends. I have so many second moms and dads in the world. Peace and love everybody; share it, it will make a difference.☮️❤️🌻
In my dotage I more often think of all the adults who aided and encouraged me in large ways and small. Gifts that I had too little awareness to be sufficiently grateful for. Not that I lacked any gratitude at all, but I am now moved by it more completely. It seems that one measure of life is in the things that have value we find means to pass along.
You are so right Mike Savage. The more it’s shared the more assurance this history, personal or otherwise will spread like the ripples of skipping stones on a quiet pond. Father figures or grandfather figures need to be shared - sadly today’s “figures” in the news anyway, often are not the memories that should take up the most space in our minds. Happy Father’s Day and thank you Heather, you are a treasure
This reminds me of my father who read the Sunday comics to me before I was three, then missed a Sunday, so I had to learn to read. He taught me to fish, to catch frogs (French friends were always amazed that an American ate frogs’ legs at every opportunity), grow vegetables, and to give wherever I could. He served on juries grand and petit, on the vestry of the small Episcopal church he had helped build, taught anyone and everyone to catch fish. He left me with more funny stories and nonsense songs than I could tell or sing in a day.
Professor, I wanted to celebrate him today and you gave me an opportunity. Thank you.
Great Dad memories. My parents were older when I was born so my Dad would sing Barney Google with the goo goo googly eyes, Abdul the Bulbul Emir (yes, that was a song though I may have spelled the name incorrectly.) My Dad taught me how to paint, rooms, not paintings & I like to say if I had gotten $100 for every room I've painted I would have a much bigger retirement! ;) He taught me how to change a flat, use a hammer, mend a fence & I thank my lucky stars that I inherited his common sense. Common sense is way more important than book learning, though that is very important as well. But you can be exceptionally smart in school but dumb as a rock in life. I'll take common sense any day of the week! Thanks Dad!!! He was born in 1902 on June 28th. He died when I was in my early 20s so you can imagine how much more I would have learned from him if he had lived longer. Yes, I miss him still. Love you, Dad!
I think perhaps the key is wisdom, whatever that may be. I think is had to do with recognizing value as well as truth. I think book learning can help, but is not necessarily required nor sufficient.
My dad’s birthday is coming up—June 29. Mine is June 28. It was like having a twin. He died on June 22, the week of my 50th birthday. I still wish he were here.
My Dad, born in 1911, also sang to me of Barney Google, but I never understood what another favorite of his, "Abble Abooble A Mir" to my ear, was about. Thank you Elizabeth Block!
My stepdad, a wonderful and loving man, introduced me to National Lampoon when living in California for a year before returning to college. Your frog legs remembrance brought back memories of this cartoon. I miss my stepdad and National Lampoon.
HCR, that was the best Father’s Day tribute to a man who opened his heart to his family and neighbors. We get to fly in your orbit of storytelling every night and after the Fathers Day tribute tonight, I’ll see your ‘Papa’ angel on your shoulder. My dad was from the Midwest and had a sweet generosity of a shoulder to lean on and a sparkling sense of humor. Heather, thanks for all you do! 🦋
“Papa” is also the word for Pope in Italian. So it is good to say Happy Holy Father’s Day to Pope Leo XIV for having the courage to stand firm & counter the corruption & dark forces of the US leadership.
Yes, we owe so much to so many. Fathers of course highly included.
I'd like to see Heather's today on our best debts as highlighting nationally, too, how we owe so much to our democratic allies around the world. Our red and blue members of Congress owe some respect to each other's constituencies. We're fellow Americans and if we've bought in to the Constitution we should learn to be open to others, to each other.
Which also means no badmouthing, as criminal Donald always does, as various cabinet secretaries of his have indulged also to imitate highest vulgarity at the top.
Heather always holds highest standards, so good to see her speaking plainly for them today, too.
(1) In her 6/18 Politics Chat Heather recommends that we listen to the recent speeches of NYC Mayor Mamdani and of Michelle Obama. She feels they are so important that she reads them in her newsletter. They demonstrate the extraordinary talents of these two leaders to inspire people to come together. Although Heather is herself very talented in her spoken deliveries, hearing the words spoken by the actual people who spoke them is even more inspirational. I feel they represent historic examples of what leadership should be. Mayor Mamdani’s speech reminds me of the way that Nelson Mandela used the success of the South African National Rugby Team to unify his country in the aftermath of apartheid. Great leaders use the human susceptibility to tribalism to inspite their people to come together to achieve difficult goals. Demagogues and dictators use tribalism to divide people into an “us vs them” drama in which the greivances and hostilities of the “us” are directed to be acted out on the scapegoats of the “them”.
(2) I also recommend for those who are interested in the Michigan Democratic Senate Primary the speech that Dr. Adud El-Sayed made to the UAW: “Abdul El-Sayed, Michigan U.S. Senate Candidate - YouTube”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLYcfhA3WME
(3) For those who are interested in history and I suspect that many of you are: Liaquat Ahamed, an American investment manager and financial historian, best known for his economic history of the 1930s Great Depression “Lords of Fianance: The Bankers Who Broke the World” which won the Pulitzer Prize for history, has written a new book: “1873: The Rothschilds, the first Great Depression and the Making of the Modern World” 6/26. Heather has spoken of this in her Politics Chats in the past. “Lunch Money with Paul Krugman and Heather Cox Richardson - YouTube”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NfWvmPeG9g
My opinion: In the discussion of the 1873 depression it was argued that the economic effects resulted in the end of post-Civil War Reconstruction and the withdrawal of Union troops from the slave states which enabled Jim Crow. I have a different view. As a child I grew up in a segregated South. I went to elementary school in Atlanta, Ga. and middle school in a small (pop. 2,000) town in South Carolina. It was a very racist environment with signs designating where “colored” people could be. They taught racism in schools. Their civics class was just about state history, the Civil War and their military heroes, Reconstruction and “damn Yankee carpetbaggers”, etc.. It was generational and socially embedded in the society. Although having Union troops in the Southern states for decades longer may have prevented most lynchings and helped preserve the rule of law, I’m not convinced it would have guaranteed the conversion to a completely free society. The U.S. had troops in Afghanistan for 20 years and it didn’t change the society. Just issuing an emancipation proclamation and sending in troops is not going to work. For more than a hundred years these people were slaves - the extreme bottom of the social order. Just declaring them free is not going to work any more than just declaring that the “untouchables” in India are equal to everyone else in Hindu society will work. The die was probably cast before the Union was formed by the schism between the northern colonies and the southern colonies.The immigrants to the northern colonies originally came to escape from religious persecution and had a diversified economy of small farms, shipbuilding, fishing and trade whereas immigrants to the southern colonies came for cheap land and cash crops (tobacco, rice and indigo) - which was heavily reliant on indentured servants and then enslaved people. Some southern colonies were initially bankrolled by joint-stock companies and proprietors seeking natural resources and financial wealth. “Differences among colonial regions”. https://chnm.gmu.edu/tah-loudoun/blog/lessons/differences-among-colonial-regions/
I had watched Michelle’s speech, but just watched the Mamdani and El-Sayed speeches now.
As I watched Mamdani, I thought for sure if he was born here he would be President, quickly. If he keeps this up, we may change the law.
I then watched El-Sayed. Not as polished yet as Mamdani, but he gained momentum as he spoke. I just watched a future President. I know this as sure as I did watching Obama in 2004. ‘In no other country is my story possible’. I literally have goosebumps, for real. This was that moment.
Thank you so much for the links as I hadn’t seen those two. I will go through the rest of the links tonight [going to go watch that future President’s speech once more first ;) .
Unfortunately Mamdani misses the point that in saying Zionists are evil, etc., while he may not conflate Zionists with Jews in general, he is making it possible for others to insist on this connection. Also, the Jews in Israel have a right to defend themselves. Yes, I realize people will scream at me for this post. If you had Jewish grandchildren, you would understand.
Thanks for the links Fred. You may find this one interesting “A Balkanized Federation” via Nationhood Lab at the Pell Center of Salve Regina University (I’ve posted it before on LFAA):
A belated father's day to all the fathers in all the forms there are. Be ye father because of DNA, or because of marriage; because your nurture souls regardless oi the souls be homo sapiens or other species; and also to all those who nurture ideas by which they nurture humanity now and for the future.
Love your Father reflection. My mom, a high school English teacher and later a lawyer, in her final stages of dementia, could still recite the Gettysburg Address (1000 words, right?) and every July 4th, we would bring out photocopies of the Declaration of Independence to recite before the fireworks. Patriots.
The men of that generation were truly special. We can never thank them enough.
And, they could fix anything!
Cars, boilers, roofs...roller skates.
My father-in-law lost a leg in France in 1944, but he taught his 6 sons how to do all the physically arduous work necessary to run a household with 8 children. He was a kind and loving man, survived polio after the war (though it partially paralyzed his vocal chords). He also was the first in his family go to college on the GI bill and was a beloved high school counselor. Thanks for reminding me of him this Father's Day weekend.
A whole leg! Then the dreaded polio that ruined so many. But, he soldiered on and took advantage of every opportunity, the GI bill and even those 6! sons who had 2 legs each.
Hope was in the air then. Hope for America. Confidence in being an American, regardless the disability.
Lucky for him his sister was an army nurse (Lt. Col.) and when he was admitted to the hospital for polio, she was on duty, and made sure he got the best care. His wife was also an educator, and they raised 8 very capable children by using tons of grocery coupons and having orange and avocado trees on their lot in California. My husband always jokes that there were actually 10 kids, but the competition for food was so intense that two got left by the wayside.
And they knew which was the right tool for the job.
Or they made one to do it.
And they knew that there is nothing that can’t get work out, so long as we talk to each other honestly, because that is an expression of our faith that "right makes might" and our knowing that it's not the other way round.
yep. my ww2 vet Dad used to say that all the time. He and his dad and brothers built a house and a garage on their land in upstate NY. Down in the city, when a contractor skipped out on our garage that was half down, Dad finished the walls, stucco'd them, and built the roof. He was amazing.
My WW2 vet dad too. He was found to have a heart murmur so he didn’t go overseas but rather was stationed at Fort Knox as a company clerk Corporal ala Radar O’Reilly of MASH fame - Dad could type 125words a minute on a manual typewriter and take shorthand notes. Dad married Mom shortly after the war and went to college studying Philosophy and English. Then my 2 brothers and I came along. They bought a small sturdy brick house in the burbs of Detroit (Mom recalled her hands shaking as they paid $25 down on a $14,000 house loan). The suburban complex was built for returning vets and you had a choice of 2 slightly different styles - the baby boom was on and the place was awash with kids around my age. Dad and Mom started making improvements - starting in the basement where they smacked up the cement floor and installed a bathroom - plumbing, electrical and all. I remember watching him use a blowtorch to solder the plumbing together - totally fascinated with the process. He built a shower, installed a toilet, and made the walls, sending Mom to the hardware store to pick up the parts he needed. Then he built himself a study with big, beautiful, bookshelves. They then built a large kitchen area with a sink (the one upstairs was pretty small), a space for seating, and a gas fireplace. Dad finished his degree in Philosophy and English with enough credits for a PhD but realized he had to make a living to raise their family, he didn’t finish his dissertation but rather went back and obtained a degree in education and became an elementary schoolteacher, then a principal. Mom worked all kinds of odd jobs to keep us going, and we ate many Sunday dinners with our grandparents. Mom also went back to school to become an elementary schoolteacher. The “space race” was on and there were scholarships for teachers to obtain Masters in math and science, so Mom got a Masters in math education. Dad taught me the rudiments of plumbing, electrical, and even a bit of carpentry through all this and I am forever grateful for these lessons as I make my way through home ownership and life. A very happy childhood with parents who loved kids, especially their own. We spent our summers together camping in a tent exploring the East Coast educational sites (Washington DC, Gettysburg, etc) and visiting family near Ottawa, Ontario and on farms on the west coast of Michigan. Dad died young, only 48, I still miss him very deeply.
These are the people who built the world we knEw in the USA, hard working, honest, and intelligent. So what do we do with today’s graft, corruption, lies, deceit, and the tearing down of human decency. It’s heartbreaking to live through all this.
OMG! You must be of my generation....I was born in 1939 and the we lived in D.C. during the war. Many restrictions that everyone was fine with.... food coupons...a neighbor gave my mom a chicken that was a bit past use-by date ....so she soaked it in baking soda and we had a chicken dinner.
My Mom's baby brother, at 18, served in the war, then got an education while they lived in a Quonset hut ...my aunt supported them by teaching but then got preggie...Then they bought a bargain house in Illinois and my uncle dug out a basement where there had been none....4 rooms: K, L/R 2 bedrooms....He worked for General Electric the train co. and as a senior engineer went to China to help them learn how to make trains...
So much opportunity after WW2...they have passed away, respectably well off with kids who became doctors. America: the greatest...
Then.
Now we are going to have to change lanes ...to give any new Americans a respectable future.
Your Dad sounds wonderful. My Dad made it to 75. Got pancreatic cancer at age 74 and that was that. take care.
...sleds, bicycles, water pumps, sailboats; horses (shod or unshod; with or without saddles); cooking on wood-burning ranges; restoring Great Grandfather's Union-Army-issue Sharps carbine so it again harvests deer...
(With heartfelt thanks to all for the Father's Day reminders.)
The generation from the depression had to do everything...and they could. Even without youtube!
And, the cars did not have computers!
You and I are the same age and I'll bet you can fix almost anything...because I can. I made all my clothes except underware and shoes and even still do.
I have the tools for everything. Quite a supply of hardware...every kind of glue.
zippers, record players, rusty truck floors, decayed plaster walls, leaky showers, sometimes even, wounds of the lonely-hearted.
...transcending temperamental outboard engines; making carbon brushes to resurrect antique electric motors; building houses from the foundations up...
(When I was a child, my father's knowledge and abilities made him seem godlike, and even now -- half a century after his death -- I miss the boarding-school-educated, MENSA-confirmed, Crash-of- '29-schooled consciousness he brought to our adult relationship. (He died in 1971 as an uncounted victim of a 1918 scarlet fever epidemic that swept through Massachusetts but was obscured by the international Spanish Flu debacle. As often happened with scarlet fever, in my father's case it regressed to rheumatic fever and fried his heart.)
I’m so sorry to read of your loss, Loren. 💔 He sounds amazing. May his memory be a blessing. ((((((((((((((((((((hug))))))))))))))))
Thank you. (His memory is indeed a blessing.)
I’ve wondered about those illnesses because I had one and forget which ( scarlet I think) and it’s too late to ask but I know my mother thought I’d die when my eyes rolled back into my head. I do have a valve problem and murmers were detected long ago but so far, the pump keeps pumping. Our heroic fathers remembered— so practical. Interesting how they appear in us now.
I am MENSA confirmed also but never attended meetings. I doubt I could pass now, after all the drinkies.
A women I met who did attend meetings said they were kind of weird. She said it's considered a disability. I think she's right esp. if one tries to get along in "groups", which, thankgod, was never my thing.
Judith, well, in my family, it was my mom who could fix anything. My dad would hold the tools for her or even the ladder or her feet while she painted the walls over our stairs. They were a team that way. It seems to me that in reality, fatherhood, even manhood is a team effort.
Excellent observation, Ruth. A team effort, indeed.
One of the concepts the arson-destroyed "Glimpses of a Pale Dancer" would have introduced is our need to recognize "the sisterhood of man" -- a caring for our Mother Earth as profound as the care of loving sisters for their mother -- if we are to heal our relationship with our planet.
Just like marriage, which your dad demonstrated.
…how to make stilts out of shortened clothesline props, lighted trolley cars out of shoe boxes, with tissue papered windows lit by candle stumps on jar lids, leading his own and neighborhood kids on a nighttime parade around the block, sing « Some Enchanted Evening » while shaving …
For me, it was better to be poor..as in very low income. I had to budget like crazy and make everything from scratch and live in the free library. It was possible to be low income in the '60's..doctors who charged $5 per twin and $12.50 per credit for Rutgers. (my entertainment)
Later, I was the first to run in the street (before it was called jogging) and one neighborhood I ran in (due to no traffic) was wealthy. I felt pity for the wives who lived that way. What on earth did they do????
Golden handcuffs marriages.
My dad was one of those who could fix anything! ANYTHING!
Learning to Stay (inspired by a true story)
I grew up without a father. There was no man at the table, no coat on the chair, no voice in the house that sounded like law or comfort. There was my mother, worn out and good, and there was the television.
At night I sat close to the screen and watched Father Knows Best and Leave It to Beaver. Those fathers came home steady. They wore clean shirts. They knew when a boy was lying, when he was afraid, and when he needed a hand on his shoulder. I studied them like maps.
Sometimes I watched Superman. He had no real home either, not the first one. He carried loss under his cape and still chose to help. I understood that part.
No one taught me how to shave, how to fight fair, how to apologize, or how to stand still when life got mean. I learned badly at first. I acted tough when I was only lonely. I mistook anger for strength. I mistook silence for dignity.
But I kept going. I read books. I worked hard. I listened when decent men spoke, even when they did not know I was listening. Little by little, I learned that a man is not made by the father he had, but by the harm he refuses to hand down.
When my own child was born, I was afraid. Then he took my finger in his small hand, and I knew the first thing I had to do.
Stay.
So I stayed. I came home. I listened. I failed some days and tried again the next.
In the end, I became the man I had waited for. Not perfect. Present. And that was enough.
This was beautiful
My father had no father either, and no role models, just older siblings.
And like you, he stayed. But he couldn't refuse to pass down the harm. Or maybe he did, because I do not.
Bravo, Michael!
You found "fatherness" and became one.
Many boys have terrible fathers who ruin them.
The problem is now no one can live up to some of our dads
My dad was not especially handy in the workshop, but he, and his wife, were always sincere. My dad, like my mother, was bright and curious. Due to the Great Depression, neither of my parents were college educated, but due to that abiding curiosity I would rank their general awareness above that of the typical college graduates that I have encountered. I take heart that they endured WWII, which must have been a very scary experience.
I presume that people are people in any era, but I do have a sense that our previously less commercialized culture there was more encouragement for a greater aggregate level of participation, independence and resilience. It may seem contradictory to speak of independence in a former era of greater governmental focus on the common good, but in reality, solidarity enables a robust environment of freedom. We are most free in an environment where we all look out for one another.
My take is that in every era, that people in aggregate have had the same potential capacities, and also the same potential proclivities, and differing eras in differing places present a differing constellation of how this all shakes out. Right now I have a sense that manipulation of media is usurping our varied culture of, by and for the (whole of the) people, and we are fools if we fail to reclaim it. Not that there was ever a perfect golden age, and not not that we are not, even now, effecting effecting progress, but we have been letting the power of plutocracy steal much of our collective agency; and desperately need to claim it, and to carry it forward to unprecedented heights.
"We the People", not the coercive and/or privileged, are officially the ultimate source of legitimacy in the direction our own society, and would be fools to let that go.
Independence without community is often just another form of isolation.
There's a great deal to be said for growing up in the country where you have to fix things.
This is beautiful. You and Heather have me in tears remembering my parents. Thank you.
Why else would we even bother to create government ?
Amen. "power of plutocracy stealing our collective agency" is brilliant.
Well said. Thank you.
and now those a-holes in DC refer to antifa as a slur
That's because their souls are as shallow as the Washington DC Reflecting Pool.
The Greater Generation david, Europe if full of antifa graves.....
This essay also had a sublime melancholy, lamenting the America people my age knew . . . and have lost (at least for now).
Not to be a Debby Downer..after so much discussion about the greatest generation and the GI bill. ...which was a god's send for so many who had been raised in the depression....
Unless, you were a Black GI. Benefits were determined by States that severely limited access to higher education and better housing.
https://arkansasblackvitality.com/how-the-gi-bills-promise-was-denied-to-a-million-black-wwii-veterans/
Good housing and good schools: NOT for You, Mr. Black Boy Veteran.
...before Oct7, I was focused on BLM...maybe we can go back to thinking about Americans First, for a change.
Such moving memories. To be able to live a life of giving those memories to others after what they lived thru is truly inspiring.
I love that you were able to share such a delightful story and still include some history. Thank you for all that you write so people like me can feel engaged in the world around me and understand what came before:)
Heather is a national treasure. I will be telling my grandchildren about her. Here is a song I wrote about her, inspired by her bravery and wisdom: https://democracydefender2025.substack.com/p/heather-cox-richardson-song-letters
I think of Heather's safety often. She is a power of example to me. If HCR can speak out so can I.
Thank you too for your participation.
Great song! Your No Kings anthem is powerful and catchy too! Thanks
'Ere's my "No Kings" anthem, a bit dated I admit, but easily edited to the Trump-Time beat: https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=MdO6K3vgQlI
Wonderful song!
It sounds like Mama and Papa had "a more perfect union".....
So well said Ellen!
What a sweet story for Father’s Day. I love imagining you as a young girl having those formative experiences. Thanks so much for feeding our imagination on those days when you are not parsing the political landscape. You are such a treasure, Heather! 🙏🏻
It was a really good week for that with the opening of the Obama center and the World Cup games that show just how hospitable Americans can be. Americans are usually a joyful people, especially when the Dotard isn't in the news.
History come alive when you "humanize" it. Grasp something of the experience of people who were every bit as alive as you and I.
Fathers are so very important, especially to girls. I remember once being in a group of people who were advising and fundraising for the relocation of the Catholic high school. One of the members had been a college basketball player, and he was talking about (maybe lamenting) having daughter(s) and waiting for a son. My father was also an athlete, and I commented to him that I’d never heard him wish for a boy instead of his daughters so we could play football. He thought I was nuts. I didn’t play football, but played everything else in high school + he taught me to skate, ride a bike, etc.
What a wonderful tribute to your friend’s papa.
I’m a fan of anyone who can whistle ‘If I Were a Rich Man’ from my favorite musical, but that along with the Gettysburg Address? This man was pure gold.
So much of what Lincoln said presents as a poem, or much like a song, that endures repetition; and yet also so makes the point, as Shakespeare so consistently demonstrated. "We cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground". The whole things rings of truth and beauty. Hamlet's soliloquies seem of a similar ilk.
My father's abiding interest and skill was one of language. Where would we be, social creatures that we are, without our articulate languages? Speech and the written word are not by any means our only meaningful languages. Isadora Duncan said "If I could tell you what it meant, there would be no point in dancing it”; and of course, there is more. Yet isn't it a wonder that by pressing keys that print symbols, we can share these curent thoughts together?
Words carry meaning. Repetition turns meaning into memory.
Thank you, Professor. The love of family is the greatest thing. And to share with your friends. I have so many second moms and dads in the world. Peace and love everybody; share it, it will make a difference.☮️❤️🌻
In Hawaii we call the second moms and dads as our hanai mom
or hanai dad. Perfectly acceptable to all
In my dotage I more often think of all the adults who aided and encouraged me in large ways and small. Gifts that I had too little awareness to be sufficiently grateful for. Not that I lacked any gratitude at all, but I am now moved by it more completely. It seems that one measure of life is in the things that have value we find means to pass along.
We do what we can to "pay it forward" J L. At our age so many of those great influencers have passed away so we just do what we can to help others.
I’ve read your comments on various topics JLGraham and I agree with you again!
You are so right Mike Savage. The more it’s shared the more assurance this history, personal or otherwise will spread like the ripples of skipping stones on a quiet pond. Father figures or grandfather figures need to be shared - sadly today’s “figures” in the news anyway, often are not the memories that should take up the most space in our minds. Happy Father’s Day and thank you Heather, you are a treasure
This reminds me of my father who read the Sunday comics to me before I was three, then missed a Sunday, so I had to learn to read. He taught me to fish, to catch frogs (French friends were always amazed that an American ate frogs’ legs at every opportunity), grow vegetables, and to give wherever I could. He served on juries grand and petit, on the vestry of the small Episcopal church he had helped build, taught anyone and everyone to catch fish. He left me with more funny stories and nonsense songs than I could tell or sing in a day.
Professor, I wanted to celebrate him today and you gave me an opportunity. Thank you.
Great Dad memories. My parents were older when I was born so my Dad would sing Barney Google with the goo goo googly eyes, Abdul the Bulbul Emir (yes, that was a song though I may have spelled the name incorrectly.) My Dad taught me how to paint, rooms, not paintings & I like to say if I had gotten $100 for every room I've painted I would have a much bigger retirement! ;) He taught me how to change a flat, use a hammer, mend a fence & I thank my lucky stars that I inherited his common sense. Common sense is way more important than book learning, though that is very important as well. But you can be exceptionally smart in school but dumb as a rock in life. I'll take common sense any day of the week! Thanks Dad!!! He was born in 1902 on June 28th. He died when I was in my early 20s so you can imagine how much more I would have learned from him if he had lived longer. Yes, I miss him still. Love you, Dad!
I think perhaps the key is wisdom, whatever that may be. I think is had to do with recognizing value as well as truth. I think book learning can help, but is not necessarily required nor sufficient.
My dad’s birthday is coming up—June 29. Mine is June 28. It was like having a twin. He died on June 22, the week of my 50th birthday. I still wish he were here.
My Dad, born in 1911, also sang to me of Barney Google, but I never understood what another favorite of his, "Abble Abooble A Mir" to my ear, was about. Thank you Elizabeth Block!
with goo, goo, googly eyes?
Bulbul = nightingale
My stepdad, a wonderful and loving man, introduced me to National Lampoon when living in California for a year before returning to college. Your frog legs remembrance brought back memories of this cartoon. I miss my stepdad and National Lampoon.
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10238030745127091&set=pcb.10238030750207218
I tried to get the image, but this was the best I could do.
HCR, that was the best Father’s Day tribute to a man who opened his heart to his family and neighbors. We get to fly in your orbit of storytelling every night and after the Fathers Day tribute tonight, I’ll see your ‘Papa’ angel on your shoulder. My dad was from the Midwest and had a sweet generosity of a shoulder to lean on and a sparkling sense of humor. Heather, thanks for all you do! 🦋
“Papa” is also the word for Pope in Italian. So it is good to say Happy Holy Father’s Day to Pope Leo XIV for having the courage to stand firm & counter the corruption & dark forces of the US leadership.
Yes, we owe so much to so many. Fathers of course highly included.
I'd like to see Heather's today on our best debts as highlighting nationally, too, how we owe so much to our democratic allies around the world. Our red and blue members of Congress owe some respect to each other's constituencies. We're fellow Americans and if we've bought in to the Constitution we should learn to be open to others, to each other.
Which also means no badmouthing, as criminal Donald always does, as various cabinet secretaries of his have indulged also to imitate highest vulgarity at the top.
Heather always holds highest standards, so good to see her speaking plainly for them today, too.
The highest standards. So true!
“Because power corrupts, society’s demands for moral authority and character increase as the importance of the position increases.”
– John Adams
That was beautiful!
HAPPY FATHER’S DAY!
(1) In her 6/18 Politics Chat Heather recommends that we listen to the recent speeches of NYC Mayor Mamdani and of Michelle Obama. She feels they are so important that she reads them in her newsletter. They demonstrate the extraordinary talents of these two leaders to inspire people to come together. Although Heather is herself very talented in her spoken deliveries, hearing the words spoken by the actual people who spoke them is even more inspirational. I feel they represent historic examples of what leadership should be. Mayor Mamdani’s speech reminds me of the way that Nelson Mandela used the success of the South African National Rugby Team to unify his country in the aftermath of apartheid. Great leaders use the human susceptibility to tribalism to inspite their people to come together to achieve difficult goals. Demagogues and dictators use tribalism to divide people into an “us vs them” drama in which the greivances and hostilities of the “us” are directed to be acted out on the scapegoats of the “them”.
(a)“When We Are Told It's Impossible...': Zohran Mamdani's Emotional Knicks Parade Speech Stuns Crowd - YouTube” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aQanpDThEc
(b) “WATCH: Former first lady Michelle Obama's full remarks at Obama Presidential Center dedication - YouTube”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SyRLxPFCZg
(2) I also recommend for those who are interested in the Michigan Democratic Senate Primary the speech that Dr. Adud El-Sayed made to the UAW: “Abdul El-Sayed, Michigan U.S. Senate Candidate - YouTube”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLYcfhA3WME
(3) For those who are interested in history and I suspect that many of you are: Liaquat Ahamed, an American investment manager and financial historian, best known for his economic history of the 1930s Great Depression “Lords of Fianance: The Bankers Who Broke the World” which won the Pulitzer Prize for history, has written a new book: “1873: The Rothschilds, the first Great Depression and the Making of the Modern World” 6/26. Heather has spoken of this in her Politics Chats in the past. “Lunch Money with Paul Krugman and Heather Cox Richardson - YouTube”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NfWvmPeG9g
(3a) The NYT book review of this book: “NYTimes.com: How the Gilded Age Economy Broke the World”. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/01/books/review/1873-liaquat-ahamed.html?unlocked_article_code=1.r1A._Dgv.yNbv57RiCLvl&smid=em-share
And Ahamed was interviewed on “The Court of History LegalAF. https://substack.com/@legalaf/note/p-202879692?r=1d2cea&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
(3b) If you are interested in how this history sheds light on our current situation, Ahamed has written a NYT OpEd on “NYTimes.com: The Global Bull Market That A.I. Obscures”. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/10/opinion/global-bull-market-ai.html?unlocked_article_code=1.r1A.orRp.3wDcljek6DDb&smid=em-share
My opinion: In the discussion of the 1873 depression it was argued that the economic effects resulted in the end of post-Civil War Reconstruction and the withdrawal of Union troops from the slave states which enabled Jim Crow. I have a different view. As a child I grew up in a segregated South. I went to elementary school in Atlanta, Ga. and middle school in a small (pop. 2,000) town in South Carolina. It was a very racist environment with signs designating where “colored” people could be. They taught racism in schools. Their civics class was just about state history, the Civil War and their military heroes, Reconstruction and “damn Yankee carpetbaggers”, etc.. It was generational and socially embedded in the society. Although having Union troops in the Southern states for decades longer may have prevented most lynchings and helped preserve the rule of law, I’m not convinced it would have guaranteed the conversion to a completely free society. The U.S. had troops in Afghanistan for 20 years and it didn’t change the society. Just issuing an emancipation proclamation and sending in troops is not going to work. For more than a hundred years these people were slaves - the extreme bottom of the social order. Just declaring them free is not going to work any more than just declaring that the “untouchables” in India are equal to everyone else in Hindu society will work. The die was probably cast before the Union was formed by the schism between the northern colonies and the southern colonies.The immigrants to the northern colonies originally came to escape from religious persecution and had a diversified economy of small farms, shipbuilding, fishing and trade whereas immigrants to the southern colonies came for cheap land and cash crops (tobacco, rice and indigo) - which was heavily reliant on indentured servants and then enslaved people. Some southern colonies were initially bankrolled by joint-stock companies and proprietors seeking natural resources and financial wealth. “Differences among colonial regions”. https://chnm.gmu.edu/tah-loudoun/blog/lessons/differences-among-colonial-regions/
Lived in NYC 45 years: Zohran Mamdani is SO New York. Best city in the world w/ the best Mayor.
I'm a New Yorker too and I completely feel the same way!
Laws can change overnight. Culture often takes generations.
Mr. panko, I have a feeling you know well from where you speak. The brevity of your statement is complete and very much on the mark. 🎯
I had watched Michelle’s speech, but just watched the Mamdani and El-Sayed speeches now.
As I watched Mamdani, I thought for sure if he was born here he would be President, quickly. If he keeps this up, we may change the law.
I then watched El-Sayed. Not as polished yet as Mamdani, but he gained momentum as he spoke. I just watched a future President. I know this as sure as I did watching Obama in 2004. ‘In no other country is my story possible’. I literally have goosebumps, for real. This was that moment.
Thank you so much for the links as I hadn’t seen those two. I will go through the rest of the links tonight [going to go watch that future President’s speech once more first ;) .
Can we form a tribe yet be inclusive. I think so. We really seem to trip over exclusivity; supremacy.
Unfortunately Mamdani misses the point that in saying Zionists are evil, etc., while he may not conflate Zionists with Jews in general, he is making it possible for others to insist on this connection. Also, the Jews in Israel have a right to defend themselves. Yes, I realize people will scream at me for this post. If you had Jewish grandchildren, you would understand.
Thanks for the links Fred. You may find this one interesting “A Balkanized Federation” via Nationhood Lab at the Pell Center of Salve Regina University (I’ve posted it before on LFAA):
https://www.nationhoodlab.org/a-balkanized-federation/ The Nationhood Lab does some very interesting work, worthy of checking in on it once in a while IMHO.
I just watched that interview with Ahamed. That was super interesting. I learned so much. I can't wait to read this book. Thanks for the link!
A lovely tale, and a perfect ending. Thank you.
A belated father's day to all the fathers in all the forms there are. Be ye father because of DNA, or because of marriage; because your nurture souls regardless oi the souls be homo sapiens or other species; and also to all those who nurture ideas by which they nurture humanity now and for the future.
I salute you all.
Thank you, Miselle.
The Father role & the Grandpa role has many not necessarily biological manifestations.
Happy Father's Day to all those roles.
Love your Father reflection. My mom, a high school English teacher and later a lawyer, in her final stages of dementia, could still recite the Gettysburg Address (1000 words, right?) and every July 4th, we would bring out photocopies of the Declaration of Independence to recite before the fireworks. Patriots.