Happy Father's Day to my Archie Bunker Dad

Daddy and me, ca. 1964

Daddy doing his favorite thing....chillin' out

By today's standards, I was lucky enough to have grown up in an All-American family. Call it a Leave it to Beaver family, or Brady Bunch minus the widowed parents and blended family. Or perhaps we were like the Keatons or the Huxtables. Regardless, we were a close-knit family. I grew up in a two parent household, with two-point-two kids, a cat and a stay at home mommy. Only thing missing was a white picket fence and believe me, we'd have had one if Mom wanted it. We lived in a modest ranch in middle-class America and thanks to having only one TV and three networks, all dominated by whatever my parents watched, my brother and I never knew if there were things we didn't have. 

My father didn't have the easiest of childhoods. The youngest child of seven children, Dad met with harsh reality at a very young age when his own father, my grandfather, died in a tragic house fire when Dad was only 10. He was in the house that cold December night. I cannot fathom the horror of seeing your father burn in a house fire. Dad's mother, some say, was never quite the same, at least not in those formative years when a boy needs his mother the most and Dad did his best to assure his kids had a happy childhood. We never wanted for much and that was all thanks to one man: The unsung hero who was my dad, determined to not give his own kids a sad or tough childhood.

There was one thing that separated my family from the Cleavers, the Bradys, the Huxtables or the Keatons.  My daddy was NONE of those dads.  He didn't come home carrying a briefcase,wearing a shirt and tie. He didn't play ball in the street with my brother or sit at tea parties with me. He most certainly didn't sit down calmly and talk things out with his kids to reason with us if we did something wrong.

Daddy could be tough when warranted and I'm glad he was....I now see my own toughness coming from him in my own parenting. Weird how that happens.   

Getting back to TV sitcom dads, versus MY dad.  Today, a mere month before he turns 70, my brother and I joke that Daddy is very much like Archie Bunker, both in his bark-worse-than-bite mannerisms and in his personal attachment to "his" chair.  Back when we were kids, though, picture a man with the tough, opinionated attitude of a young Archie Bunker, combined with the quick tempered but loving, vulnerable nature of The Honeymooners' Ralph Cramden and the good looks of Steve McQueen.  That was my daddy when I was a child.

OK so he wasn't that dad who took us fishing every Sunday, although we went on occasion.  He didn't like big crowds so we didn't go to every Tiger game every Sunday afternoon. But all major sports were and continue to be a huge part of daddy's life.  
Describing my dad is like describing an enigma.  First off, Daddy was your typical Detroiter, a blue-collar tool and die maker who worked his life in the automotive field yet drove older cars and lived simply.  He probably made more money than many of his white collar neighbors but he had a saying:  "People with money never talk about it." I subscribe to that saying to this very day.

With a razor-sharp wit and a penchant for the meaning and origin of words...if I wanted to know a word, his stock answer was to look it up.  To this day, Dad likes to mess with me, a writer who studied English and Journalism in college, by TRYING (I know he's reading this) to one-up me on my knowledge of  words...

Dad:  "[So and so] could be his Doppleganger...oh wait, I'll bet you don't know that word..."
Me: " Ummm,  Duh Dad, it means he could be his twin. "
Dad: OK, smart-ass, what's the origin of the word?  Did you know that Dopple in Latin means..." ...and on we go.  You get the picture. 

I get a thrill EVERY TIME we play these games.  We've been doing them since I was about 10.  From his mother, my grandmother, Dad developed a love of crosswords and word search games and I'm glad he did because perhaps this fostered my love of words and of writing.  Mom gave me many gifts, too numerous to list. Dad gave me many gifts as well, including a fighting spirit, a bluntness in speaking my mind and of course, my love of  words.  Yet with my dad, it's the unspoken things that as I grow older I find all the more special about the man I call Daddy.

Every mid-June I stress out over what to buy for the man who not only fathered and helped raise me but who gave me many life lessons along the way. What sports jersey, socks, tee shirt or book could ever compare with all he's given me?

It's harder because, and I know he will NOT be amused by this, he really doesn't have a lot of hobbies.  Dad is a pretty content man doing, well, basically, nothing remarkable.  Give him a pack of cigarettes, an ice cold beer and a movie of his choice and he'll sit in "his" chair and enjoy his flat screen TV. This used to really bother me, a person my husband likes to call a "tornado" in perpetual motion.  It's only now that I've come to accept Dad's way of life. Why?  Because A) he's spent his life working and he's earned this time to do NOTHING if he so chooses. and B) Because that's what makes Daddy happy!

I tell my husband, who has only known my dad for ten years, that Daddy wasn't always like this.  Really.  Not only did we take lovely drives to visit family and friends every weekend but we also enjoyed short trips to Wyandotte MI, where we would sometimes cook out on the hibachi and watch the Boblo boats come and go.
There were piggyback rides where I would yank on his right ear to go right and his left ear to go left. There were annual trips to Irish Hills, Frankenmuth, and as anyone living in Michigan knows, no summer is complete without a trip to God's Country, "up north." The Upper Penninsula.  Mackinac City, Tacqamenon Falls and the like.  (Note to my new neighbors of the south, that's the U.P. for short.)

There were BBQs where Daddy would make HUGE yummy steaks, he started our neighborhood's first corn roast and there were annual invites to the backyard for his fireworks shows that drew everyone living on South Rickham Court.  With all due respect to the Kroll and Kanclerz families across the street, I personally believe MY daddy had the best lawn on the street.  At Halloween, we had the "spooky house" and at Christmastime, in the early years on Rickham, OURS was the original GRISWOLD house, where Daddy dutifully strung lights all over the house and on every bush and tree in the front of our home, including the gaslight. There were plenty of expletives, of course, but that was par for the course in the Fritz household, sorry to my Christian friends.  The year thieves stole our outdoor lights while we were away visiting family, my dad told the officer taking the report that this was it, he would no longer do a huge lights display. 

"I honestly wish you'd reconsider this," said the officer.  "It always looks so nice."

I could go on and on about the snippets of memories I have of my own father, but there is one more caveat: Daddy did all of this while working afternoons and nights. AND he worked SEVEN DAYS A WEEK. YET:  I do not recall a single choir concert, dance recital or play where my dad wasn't sitting in the audience.  Perhaps my brother had it harder. He played baseball and Daddy probably missed more of his games than my concerts because, well, there were more ballgames on the schedule.  But I remember times when Daddy surprised my brother by attending his games on the way to work.  Whenever possible, our father showed up when it counted.  That's what REAL daddies do, no matter how tired they are, no matter HOW dreadfully boring the event might appear to be, he was THERE. AND WE NOTICED. 
I noticed one other thing that sticks with me to this very day.  Dad's unwavering commitment to the people he loved.  Whether it was defending my brother in the Principal's office, writing a letter to the editor defending me after I won a local beauty pageant where my last name just happened to match the name of a city administrator we didn't even know, Dad stuck by the people he loved. My mother battled a lifelong disease and Dad married her anyway, knowing she might always have limited abilities.  My life-of-the-party dad could have bailed a long time ago but he didn't.  Sure, there were marital problems, we ALL have them.  Dad and mom had their share, which I won't get into.

Contrary to what today's experts might say, Dad and Mom argued IN FRONT OF THEIR KIDS.  (I'll pause so you can catch your breath after gasping in horror.) What did this teach my brother and me, two passionate hotheads today? It taught us that family members might fight tooth and nail.  We might say seemingly horrible things in anger.  But we say our piece, we work through our conflicts and we move on. We have each other's back and we love each other fiercely, afterward. Both my husband and my sister-in-law still seem somewhat shell-shocked by the infamous Fritz outbursts that continue to take place, on occasion.  I can only speak for my husband's family when I say they are polite almost to a fault and almost passive-aggressive if they are angry.  Not us.  Dad taught us by example that we get it off our chests. We will all die someday but one thing that won't kill a Fritz is an ulcer stemming from keeping our feelings hidden, to be sure.

I'd like to share ONE story of how much my daddy remained committed to his wife of 25+ years.  I graduated from college in 1986.  Until almost the day of college commencement, I did NOT want to walk the stage and receive my "fake" diploma, since I learned they mailed us our real sheepskins later on.  Why bother, I reasoned, because there were 2,000+ grads, and no one will even see me!  I already knew my mom would be unable to go because of all the stairs.  Back then, arenas were not required to have ramps for wheelchairs. 

Mom talked me into walking the stage because of all the blood sweat and tears I put into my studies, PLUS all the overtime Daddy worked to pay for my education. This was as much Dad's achievement as it was, mine and HE DESERVED TO SEE ME GRADUATE FROM COLLEGE. I dutifully ordered my cap and gown.   The morning of the commencement ceremony came around.  I came out of my bedroom draped in my cap and gown and here came Daddy, with a somber look on his face.

"Hon, I won't be able to come to your graduation today.  If your mom can't go, I just can't leave her here alone....it's already breaking her heart not to be able to enjoy this moment."
You see, Daddy knew if his wife was going to be sad, he couldn't leave her there like that all alone.  He was committed to staying home with her even at my expense because he knew this was what a husband does. I wasn't happy daddy wasn't attending, not back then anyway...because I simply didn't understand it AND because I didn't want to walk the stage in the first place!
Today, I get it.  Daddy stayed behind with Mom, giving me my wings and letting me have all the glory of graduating, something he never had the chance to do in his own life even though he had a very high IQ and could well have graduated at the top of his class.  Just as he drove the old beat up cars while I drove the newer ones HE bought me. Working all the OT he could so his family could have the niceties he didn't have as a child. Caring for his wife and kids, letting us go first. That WAS and STILL IS my dad. 
Daddy retired a few years ago. Now remarried to his wife Diane after my mom's death, with grown children out on their own, the world was, once again, his oyster.  What would he do now?  Go fishing?  Play Golf?  Travel?  His unspoken answer: Nothing we would find exciting.  But you see, I know my daddy is doing exactly what he wants to do.  On his own terms. And although I now live almost 700 miles away from him, he is no further away from my heart than he was when he lived only eight miles away. 

He is still as crotchety as Archie Bunker.  He still sits in that damned LAZY chair.  He probably drives his wife NUTS.  But his grand kids adore him, cranky spirit and all, because they can see, as we kids did, that beneath it all is a man with a HUGE, unselfish heart of gold and they love him for it.  And so do I.

Happy Father's Day, Daddy.  And to the man I married -- the SECOND best daddy (next to mine, of course) in the world: Someday, I hope OUR daughter will write about the man she now runs to greet at the door with stars in her eyes EVERY DAY.  Somehow, I believe she will have every reason to do so.
Happy Father's Day to ALL daddies who are still with us, as well as to those whom we remember in our hearts and who are looking down upon us with twinkles in their eyes. If you have your daddy, hug him extra tight this weekend.  If you don't....then God rest his soul and grant you peace on what will be a tough day for you.  But your dad, alive in presence or in spirit, is still your dad.  Moms may rock the cradles but dads rock the world!  I love you ALL.  Thanks for all you do to make our children's lives special! It goes by so fast but the memories you make live on forever. 

Daddy FINALLY walks me down the aisle, 2003