For My Father

They say you shouldn't speak ill of the dead and, as I think back on my father, it occurs to me that part of that might be that, once someone is gone, you're more apt to remember what you loved about them, the reasons why your relationship was memorable rather than whatever differences you might have had. Or maybe that's just me.

It's certainly true of my father. There were times when we had many conflicts and difficulties, but they seem so unimportant now. When I think of him, I think of him much like I thought of him when I was a child, when he was my model of what a parent should be. He was patient and generally soft-spoken, absolutely dedicated to his family.

He was a botanist and loved making plants grow, vegetables, flowers, green things - he had a real gift (that I have not inherited). He was logical, painstaking, meticulous and had a way of looking at things critically that I have inherited. He wasn't an imaginative man, happier, I think, in the reflected creativity and fantasy of wife and children, ready to do his all to make them come true if he could. He read nonfiction, and fantasy was as far removed from his personality as gardening is from mine.

He was an excellent photographer and loved to take photos, another gift we don't share. I never got the satisfaction from photography he did, but he gave me my first camera and his cameras took the pictures that provide a catalog of my youth.

He was one of the most feminist men I've ever met with an anti-male bias nearly as pronounced as my husband's. To him, women had all the capability of men without that bad bits. If I think that's simplistic (and inaccurate), if his antagonism toward the men who courted (and won) his daughters was sometimes unrelenting, his faith in what his girls could do was equally unshakable.

But, for all the differences and whatnot, there was no one I loved more than my father growing up. In some ways, he was the key element for me - I was Daddy's girl. We used to walk at night and talk on every subject. If he wasn't interested in science fiction or fantasy, he never had an issue discussing my crazy ideas or discuss history or philosophy or whatever for hours on end. In many ways, he was so grounded and I think I absorbed that sorely needed tendency; I'm sure my writing is better because of it.

I'm sure our differences perplexed and confused him. (His father-daughter speech to me: "Men are jerks. Stay away from them.") I know they distressed him.

I also know he loved me.

I also know I loved him.

Sometimes, I think my siblings grew up with someone else, that this image I have of my father is mine alone. We'll never know, now. He died a couple of years back after a bout with cancer.

Lee, my husband, said he was a like a tree, limited in some ways, but grounded, stable, reliable, sturdy.

I think my dad would have liked that.

Read more...

Saturday Quotathon: Family and Ancestors

It's Father's Day so let's make today's quotes all about family. And, if you still have your father (I do not), let him know how you feel about him.

I'll bet your father spent the first year of your life throwing rocks at the stork.
- Irving Brecher

The idea of Prince Charles conversing with vegetables is not quite so amusing when you remember that he's had plenty of practice chatting to members of his own family.
- Jaci Stephens

I'd like to thank my family for loving me and taking care of me. And the rest of the world can kiss my ass.
- Johnny Frank Garrett, Sr., executed by injection, Texas

The reason people blame things on the previous generations is that there's only one other choice.
--Doug Larsen

My grandson, 22 years old, keeps complaining about headaches, I've told him a thousand times, Larry, when you get out of bed, it's feet first.
--Henny Youngman

Authority without wisdom is like a heavy ax without an edge, fitter to bruise than polish.
-- Anne Bradstreet

I hate to do it, but it looks like I'm going to have to file a big lawsuit against my parents for turning me into a pathetic, spoiled, whiney-ass, refuse-to-take-responsibility crybaby.
-- Ken Gacioch

Making the decision to have a child is momentous -- it is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.
-- Elizabeth Stone

Man is still the best computer that we can put aboard a spacecraft -- and the only one that can be mass-produced with unskilled labor.
-- Wernher Von Braun

Most of us ask for advice when we know the answer but we want a different one.
-- Ivern Ball

A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.
-- Greek proverb

Ayame: (Takes Yuki's hand in his) Yuki, while I'm here this is the PERFECT chance for us to deepen our bond as brothers-
Yuki: I have a better idea- why don't I drown you in the lake?
Ayame: Anything you want, as long as it gives us some quality time together!
Yuki: On second thought, go drown yourself!
-From Fruits Basket anime

Mel: Anything happens to my daughter, I got a .45 and a shovel, I doubt anybody would miss you.
-From Clueless

Willie Wang: Pop?
Sidney Wang: Yeah?
Willie Wang: Who do you think is the murderer?
Sidney Wang: Must sleep on it. Will know in morning when wake up.
Willie Wang: What if you don't wake up?
Sidney Wang: Then you did it.
-From Murder by Death

Chris Knight: I'm sorry, but have you ever seen a body like this before in your life?
David Decker: She happens to be my daughter.
Chris Knight: Oh. Then I guess you have.
-From Real Genius

Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.
- Gautama Buddha

Even as the fingers of the two hands are equal, so are human beings equal to one another. No one has any right, nor any preference to claim over another. You are brothers.
- Muhammad

The natural man has only two primal passions, to get and to beget.
-William Osler, M.D.

A great teacher never strives to explain his vision—he simply invites you to stand beside him and see for yourself.
-The Rev. R. Inman

There can only be peace when they will start to love their children more than they hate us.
-Golda Meir

I remember when I was a child, being taken to the celebrated Barnum's Circus, which contained an exhibition of freaks and monstrosities, but the exhibit on the program which I most desired to see was the one described as "The Boneless Wonder". My parents judged that the spectacle would be too demoralizing and revolting for my youthful eye and I have waited fifty years, to see the The Boneless Wonder sitting on the Treasury Bench.
- Winston Churchill, on Ramsay MacDonald

Some folks seem to have descended from the chimpanzee later than others.
- Kin Hubbard

I miss you, Dad.

Read more...

Saturday Quote-a-thon: Mothers, Fathers, Ancestors

I doubt I have many of these, so I'll be pretty liberal about classification. Basically, if it references just about anything to do with family or those that came before, I'll consider it fair game.

One could not be a successful scientist without realizing that, in contrast to the popular conception supported by newspapers and mothers of scientists, a goodly number of scientists are not only narrow-minded and dull, but also just stupid.
-- J.D. Watson

World’s best guilt trip…
Saki: I see. Then, for her, this will truly be a lonely New Years. Until now, Tohru and her mother always spent New Years together, but this is the first years since her mother's death. This is the first New Year she will ever see without her loving mother at her side. Instead, she will have to spend this night alone. I offered to stay but she wouldn't hear of it, just smiled and told me I should be with my own family. But, what about her? What family does she have tonight? And how will she feel sitting there by herself remembering all the New Years she shared with her mother and will never share again? How will she feel with the New Years' bells begin to chime, the same bells she used to stay up late to hear with her mother?
Yuki: How did she feel, standing there as we were leaving?
Kyo: When she was smiling and waving goodbye...
Saki: Do you real think she'll be unaffected by all that? Do you really think she'll be alright?
Kyo: How does she feel right now?
Yuki: All alone in that house...
--From Fruits Basket anime

I love it when mothers get so mad they can't remember your name. "Come here, Roy, er, Rupert, er, Rutabaga... what is your name, boy? And don't lie to me, because you live here, and I'll find out who you are.”
--From Bill Cosby: Himself

Willie Wang: Why do I do all the dirty work, Pop?
Sidney Wang: Because your mother not here to do it.
--From Murder by Death

She's descended from a long line her mother listened to.
--Gypsy Rose Lee

You have to stay in shape. My grandmother, she started walking five miles a day when she was 60. She's 97 today and we don't know where the hell she is.
--Ellen DeGeneris

His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork.
--Mae West

To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.
--Thomas Jefferson

My father taught me to work; he did not teach me to love it.
--Abraham Lincoln

And always remember the last words of my grandfather, who said, 'A truck!'
--Emo Phillips

Listen, lady. Just because my grandfather didn't rape the environment and exploit the workers doesn't make me a peasant. And it's not that he didn't want to rape the environment and exploit the workers; I'm sure he did. It's just that as a barber, he didn't have that much opportunity.
--Roger Cobb from All of Me

Insanity runs in my family. It practically gallops.
--Mortimer Brewster in Arsenic and Old Lace

Cameron: Ferris, my father loves this car more than life itself.
Ferris: A man with priorities so far out of whack doesn't deserve such a fine automobile.
--From Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

"You are old, father William," the young man said,
"And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head--
Do you think, at your age, it is right?"

"In my youth," father William replied to his son,
"I feared it might injure the brain;
But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,
Why, I do it again and again."

"You are old," said the youth, "as I mentioned before,
And you have grown most uncommonly fat;
Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door--
Pray what is the reason for that?"

"In my youth," said the sage, as he shook his grey locks,
"I kept all my limbs very supple
By the use of this ointment - one shilling a box--
Allow me to sell you a couple?"

"You are old," said the youth, "and your jaws are too weak
For anything tougher than suet;
Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak--
Pray, how did you manage to do it?"

"In my youth," said his father, "I took to the law,
And argued each case with my wife;
And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw,
Has lasted the rest of my life."

"You are old," said the youth, "one would hardly suppose
That your eye was as steady as ever;
Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose--
What made you so awfully clever?"

"I have answered three questions, and that is enough,"
Said his father. "Don't give yourself airs!
Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?
Be off, or I'll kick you down stairs.
--Lewis Caroll

The terrifying power of the human sex drive is horrifically demonstrated by the fact that someone was willing to father you.
--Ipso Fatso

Heck, I had more than I thought - I still have some. Good, now I'm covered for father's day.

Read more...