When I was a kid, my Mom used to use the phrase, "If its to be, it up to me". She said it because as a single Mom with no grand parents to support her nor Aunties or Uncles to lean on, she was tasked with raising two kids on a single woman's salary in the Land of the Glass Ceiling. She never had a break to go play on a Saturday morning after a 60 hour work week in Norwalk. She was expected to get up at 7AM every Saturday and make breakfast, clean the house, give us a whatever we needed and still take care of herself as she prepared to do it all over again come Monday morning.
My Dad never took much of an interest in us kids until we got interesting- that is to say when we went to school and he could strut around the stuffy college campus saying, "Yes my son is going to the US COOOOAST Guard Academy"! He was never there for the emergency science project, the fight on the street or the broken glasses. Oh sure I knew who he was and he showed up every once in a while to disapprove of something that was happening, saying, "You know what I would do....?" My Mom would retort defiantly, "No and I don't Care" I listened patiently and did whatever he told me to do.
But when it all comes down to it, My Mom was my role model in getting stuff done, with out help, with out support and without the tacit consent of neighbors. You didn't pay for it, you didn't build it, you haven't cleaned it, painted or fought for it, so you don't get to tell me how to do it. And when it gets time to enjoy it, you dont get to do that either.
So perhaps it was those lessons that makes me come up with crazy ideas like Starting a School Ship or saving Connecticut's Light Houses- Don Quixote had his windmills, I have my light houses. But the irony is that even though it was My MOM who built this fire in me, it would be my Dad now that would think what I'm doing is cool.
Oh sure My Mom digs the water, but My Dad spent his life chronicling the Light Houses of Connecticut in watercolors. He put his own spin on each one, making it more romantic then it really was. When Stratford changed the light on the top of the Stratford Light to an ugly mechanical gizmo instead of the windowed tower which we have now come to love, My dad insisted on painting not as it was, but how it should be. When they changed it back to the tower, he knew he was right all along and continued to paint the tower as it should be.
But if it was My Mom that gave me the piss and vinegar, it was my Dad who gave me my love of the sea and my drive to go boating. And now that its coming up on fathers day, and the phone is ringing off the hook with folks telling me I am nuts to attempt to save a few old rotting light houses from oblivion as well as a state of the art ship of State, I cant help but hope he is looking down on me with approval and patting my Mom on the back.
Once again, its her drive, tenacity and spirit that is making waves here in Connecticut, but it is doing something my Dad would so whole-heartedly approve of that I cant hope but think its kismit that the two of them got together to make me the man I am today.
I once told my Mom that I was mad at her because she wasn't a father and a Mother to me. We laugh about it now but back then I meant it. I missed having my Dad, and still do. But this Light House Project, is in some ways bringing him back to me. Oh sure he would have looked at me like a jerk when I told him I want to teach inner city kids how to sail. But he would wholely get behind this notion because its in the image of what he loved to love. And as to why now, why like this- he would agree with the world that I'm nuts. But he would also be pleased at the effort.
And although my Dad was a realist and a pragmatist and would know I was biting off an even bigger chunk than I had before, he also had a romantic eye for the world as it should be. In his work he always put these crazy purple and yellow skies. One day , a rotund lady with a plaid couch from Fairfield walked up to him and asked him if he thought his painting would match her swatch. She said, "I love your work and it would go perfectly with my living room rug, but I dont know if the sky would match my settee, Can you tell me Where have you see a sky like that before?" He jutted his lower jaw out, turned beat red and hissed at her, "Well it looks that way to me." and walked away.
Maybe I am taking on too much, but too much needs doing. And maybe I am an idealist to vision a Long Island Sound that is open to everyone and a pleasure to sail in. My Mom would agree that the cause is right, but My Dad is the one who taught me to see the world as it is, but work to make it into what you think it should look like.
Happy Father's Day Dad.
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| My Dad... George Richard German. |
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