The Luckiest Dad

Sunday marked the fifteenth time I’ve been able to celebrate Father’s Day as a father.  I wore my “#1 Greatest Dad” t-shirt, ate out with my girls, went to a movie, played games, grilled, waited for tornadoes and large hail to pummel us…the usual Father’s Day stuff.  Actually, we’ve had more of a father’s week; two-thirds of my daughters and I spent several days at the place I call home, returning to my house on Friday to meet the third daughter and spend the weekend shuttling Daughter One to a volleyball tournament.

I’ve known for some time I would post something for Father’s Day on my blog.  I’ve also known I would focus on my girls rather than fathers.  But despite having some pretty strong ideas of what to say, and using this past week to turn those ideas around in my head while enjoying my father time, I still don’t know exactly how I want to put my thoughts into words.  So I sit and think….and wait….and get the inspiration that this act of writing will be akin to the act of being a father – sometimes knowing the “what” but not the “how”.  In those instances I just go and I parent and I hope and trust that I’m making the right moves.  So it will be with these words.

Every dad says, or should say, he has the best kids in the world.  A case could be made for many of them to be right…until my three daughters are thrown into the mix.  At that point all other children can do no better than second place on the list of “World’s Best Kids”.  My daughters are far from perfect, each of them capable of making bad decisions and displaying undesirable personality traits.  But collectively I’d put my girls’ quality of character and intelligence and social skills up against any other offspring, any day.  And they’d win.  I never brag about my girls and am not doing so here; I’ve been told often enough by enough people how wonderful my girls are….well, there comes a time when you have to stop politely declining praise and just accept the praise as truth.  And the truth is, my daughters are the most remarkable people I know.

All three of my daughters display above average academic intelligence, they are athletic, they use good manners (in public), they have extremely strong, mature, and appropriate social skills, and they have huge hearts filled with love for others.  I’m proud of them for all of those traits and skills, but what lifts them to “remarkable” status is how they have acquired such skills while navigating life in a broken family.  They’ve recovered from the devastation of watching Dad leave home.  They take turns living with two extremely different people who aren’t always a joy to be around, but they’ve learned how to get along with those two difficult people who never could learn how to get along with each other.  They have endured the stress and added responsibilities of living in two different homes without complaint.  They have looked at what could have been a crushing event in their lives and decided to make the best they could out of it – and I daresay we adults rarely are able to do that.  Again, you go ahead and tell me my daughters aren’t the best kids in the world – I’m telling you, you’re wrong.  ‘Cause there’s even more…

As proud as I am of their strength of character I’m even more proud of how they have developed a unique version of self apart from all others, including each other.  Daughter One is the laid-back and thoughtful leader of the crew, the academe, the social butterfly.  The girl with the smile that rarely fades, whose world is filled with books and music and friends and texts and teams and clubs and activities.  Daughter Two finds solace in solitude, choosing her few friends carefully and putting family first when faced with the choice.  A lover of nature and Earth, she rarely misses a chance to fish or hunt or garden or harvest.  She displays a wide range of emotions, intensely at times, and can be the most and least compatible sibling…in the same day.  Daughter Three is the wild card of the bunch, the straw that stirs our drinks.  Unpredictable.  Unflappable.  Unstoppable.  She’s got the lyrics for every song and a comeback for every comeback.  She loves to be loved and she loves to show love, and I hope upon hope the day never arrives when she stops doing so.

It took far too many of my fifteen father years to figure out that Father’s Day, or any other day, isn’t about me - it’s about them.  They were so excited all weekend for me to open my Father’s Day gifts, but things and packages aren’t as important as their love.  They see my flaws and love me anyway.  They receive my reprimands and love me anyway.  They go without things and love me anyway.  They eat my cooking and….actually, my cooking has gotten pretty good so it’s reasonable to expect their love for that one.  As I have watched them grow and gotten to know them I’ve discovered the most important truth I’ll ever know:  The three greatest children in the world love me unconditionally; every day I have left in this life will be a happy Father’s Day.

A Time to Fish

My first open-water fishing trip of the summer is in the books.  It took until June 7^th this year for my feet to leave dry land courtesy of a boat.  Some years I’m on a lake sooner, some later, but the progression towards that first trip is always the same:

**Ice-out on lakes in April brings the official end to winter fishing…if plunging through thin ice in March hadn’t already done so.  Short poles into storage, long poles come out.

**Spring/summer sporting goods magazines appear in mailboxes exactly one day after the last floes of ice disappear into my favorite lakes.  Needing nothing, I scan the pages and remember how limited I felt with only six rods at my disposal last summer.  And how often I wished for a 27^th variety of crankbait.  And how a bigger tackle box would disperse my 40 pounds of lures more evenly.

**Make an unplanned trip to the recycling center, toss magazines into any open bin, drive to nearest parking lot and stop the car until the cold sweats, shortness of breath, and nausea have passed.

**First weekend in May the rivers and streams up north are full of fish making their yearly spawning run.  We are reminded they exist.  We are reminded they are not legal for the taking yet.  We are read our rights.

**Second weekend of May is the Fishing Opener, a great opportunity to practice waiting in line at boat landings.  No thanks.

**Third weekend of May is the Fishing Opener for everyone who avoids the Fishing Opener.  Another chance to practice fishing amongst the masses.  No thanks.

**Memorial Day weekend, the start of the summer vacationing season.  There are nearly 5.5 million people living in Minnesota, and every single one of them heads to a lake at some point this weekend.  Not this one.

**School ends in early June, meaning my weekdays are open and so are the lakes.  It’s time to fish.

Daughter Two and I headed north to my parents’ farm on Sunday, June 5^th, for a few days of getaway and woods work and fishing.  What was forecast to be a delightful day wasn’t – stiff winds, falling temps, and intermittent rain made an evening in the house much more appealing than an evening on a lake.  The lousy weather also gave everyone a chance to dust off the “Cold Front Lukey” nickname that had been in storage since I last worked my meteorological magic in late summer last year.

Monday was June 6^th, the anniversary of D-Day, and as I watched scenes from the Normandy landings on the morning news I noticed the weather on the other side of the window was slightly worse than it was on the 72 year-old footage.  “Wind from the west, fish bite the best.  Wind from the east, fish bite the least.  Wind from the northwest, might as well fish in a toilet.”  The temps were slightly warmer than the previous day, the sun shone a bit more often, but when evening rolled around and a decision had to be made to fish or not to fish, the howling northwest winds made the choice easy – we took our rods to the bathroom and practiced our jigging techniques in the porcelain pond.

Tuesday, June 7^th, brought lots of sunshine and calmer winds, if not warmer temps.  As late afternoon became early evening we prepared -

-       dug some worms

-       chose the necessary rods

-       gathered extra clothes (the light wind was now straight out of the north)

and departed for one of our favorite lakes.  The excitement shared by the three of us (my dad, Daughter Two, and me) was minimal for a first trip; it was still pretty windy, borderline cold, and we had worked hard around the farm the last few days and were low on energy.

On the way home we all agreed that the fishing was great.  The catching was terrible (Which wasn’t a surprise, considering we saw no deer on the way to the lake.  I’ll explain some other time.), but the trip was full of positives.  We had some laughs…almost immediately, actually, since my first cast landed in a tree.  We had some excitement when a probable 20-pound bass boiled the water under my lure that I wasn’t watching.  The bathroom at the landing was spotless and smelled delightful (not so in late August on a 90 degree day).  The motor fired right up after my 56^th pull of the rope, which came right after my dad said he hadn’t done what I thought he had done with the gas tank, which he said right after my 55^th pull.  We saw a mother mallard with a raft of ducklings and heard loons singing to us from across the lake.  We watched a beautiful sunset that warmed our hearts just enough to ward off frostbite once the sun was gone.  Oh, and we didn’t sink – which didn’t seem like a possibility until we pulled the plug from the boat before heading home and watched gallons of water pour out of it.  Apparently the boat has a leak.

Yes, we did catch a few fish.  No, they didn’t bite very hard or very fast.  Yes, we caught some nice ones.  No, we didn’t keep any, which means no, we won’t be having a fish fry.  But we have memories, and we have the first trip of the summer out of the way.  It’s been said that a bad day of fishing beats a good day of working.  I have a hard time agreeing with that simply because there really aren’t any bad days of fishing.  The smile proves it.

Always Remember

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for enough good men to do nothing.

Today is the 72nd anniversary of D-Day.  As I sit and watch the rain fall on my first official day of summer vacation I am reminded that any inconvenience or trial or suffering I endure is insignificant in relation to what tens of thousands of young men endured on those beaches of France so long ago.

Rain on the roof?  Imagine the rain of bullets on the front of your Higgins boat, knowing the door will drop in seconds and those bullets will tear through you.

Altered plans?  You've just watched your leaders die in front of you, what you were told would happen didn't, and the bullets and bombs just keep falling.

Feeling overwhelmed?  Put yourself in the wet boots of a 20 year-old kid in a foreign country who has just waded through blood-red ocean water littered with bodies to cross an open beach in a hail of gun fire and upon crossing that beach to relatively safe cover must now scale a hillside towards the source of the shooting and continue the assault.  Kind of makes stopping to pick up milk on the way home seem a little bit trite, doesn't it?

My words cannot do justice to the magnitude of Operation Overlord - I have used Stephen E. Ambrose's book D-Day: June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II, The War documentary by Ken Burns, or the first half-hour of Saving Private Ryan as my sources for understanding the events of D-Day  - so instead I'll use my words to encourage you, respected reader, to use a piece of this day to find out what was so special about that day.  Thousands of soldiers died for us on D-Day - the least we can do is find out how and where they died...and always remember why.

The End

Another school year has come and gone.

Normal humans celebrate the passing of a year in late December; we teachers do the same in early June (late May for the lucky ones).  The dates and seasons might be different, as is the kind of "year" that ends, but the feelings associated with each are very similar.  As our students board busses for their final journey home we look back on the freshly ended school year and think about the successes and failures, the plans that became reality and those that faded away.  We also start looking ahead with the resolute conviction that "next (school) year will be different because..."

My youngest daughter spent her final day in our primary building yesterday.  My oldest daughter is suddenly a sophomore.  Middle daughter moves to the high school next year.  Second graders who still aren't reading as powerfully as needed now become someone else's challenge.  Second graders we have guided to success also move on, meaning hope is now the only guidance we can offer them.  Teammates have resigned for various reasons, and others may do so in the coming months.  Our long-time art teacher is retiring and leaving the country...leaving a gaping hole in our staff and district.  We don't have to wait until September for a different school year to begin; the next year becomes different the instant the previous one ends.

Closing the book on a school year doesn't have to be all sadness; it's more of a 50-50 balance of excitement and sorrow.  I've now taught 18 years, meaning this year's graduating seniors were new-borns (or not-quite-yet-borns) when I began my career...kind of depressing.  But number 18 was the hardest year I've had for a variety of reasons, so I'm not just closing the book on this one - I'm slamming the sucker shut and tossing it in an incinerator.  Happiness.  A new year will bring new teammates with new perspectives and fresh attitudes.  One of my favorite teammates will become a roommate next year and the potential impact of our collaborative powers is already shaking the foundation of our building.  We'll have a fresh batch of Kindergartners, an eager group of 1st graders, and a crew of 2nd graders that we now know well enough to have a solid plan of instruction in place for them on Day One.

I can imagine doing what I do in a different school; I cannot imagine being anything other than a teacher.  Forget the over-used quotes about teaching and its value to society - it's just a really exciting and powerful job.  Every day is different, every student is different, and thankfully, every year is different.  We make our plans and set our goals and then dive in to those days and years on little more than faith that what we do will end up making a difference for someone.  As I watched the tears flow down little cheeks and old cheeks yesterday, saw the love inside the goodbyes, I was reminded for the 18th time that our nine months of faith were exactly what they needed to be.

Another school year has come and gone.