Owed to a Regular Joe

I miss the old man tonight.

But then, I missed him for most of my life.

If he wasn’t working 14 hours a day, he was out bowling or fishing or at the track or playing golf. His generation (the Greatest, or so I hear) didn’t go in for belly-itching or foot-shuffling. Or lavishing praise on sons who would rather be artists than Flying Leathernecks.

And on vacation or at BBQs or parties—or the bowling alley—he was always right in the middle of things, laughing with and making his friends laugh. Knocking back cans of domestic beer and chain-smoking like the Regular Joe he was. Taking my little sister and me out into the desert to shoot empty cans with his 22 semiautomatic…

But as I said, if he was given to introspection, he was never inclined to share it. His generation wasn’t into that like mine was. Or would be soon. But I never took the opportunity to ask myself—let alone ask him—any of the questions I can’t escape now. We worked together one summer driving a truck, and even at 18, legally mature, I just sat there in stoned and stony silence.

Which was aces with my Dad. He did not need to talk about shit. Still, his long-haired problem child was in money trouble, so he cut me in on his driving deal, and paid me out of his own wages. My gratitude at the time, I’m sure, did not amount to much.

But his generosity extended far beyond his own back yard. People came from miles around to take advantage of his trusting nature and exploit it for everything they could. Oh, it’s a long and ugly list. But my Dad never learned. No matter how many times other peoples’ mendacity and avarice would knock him down, he would always bounce back up in time for the next guy with a story to come along, always convinced that this time he was dealing with a fellow straight-shooter. But he was usually dealing with dead-eye Dicks.

My Dad died 17 years ago today, and was incapacitated for years before that. He never lived to see me step out of the shadow of my own self-interests and take a look around at the other people in the world and consider theirs.

I never became a steeplejack or a major league ballplayer, but I’d like to think my Dad would have made his peace with my manly shortcomings by now and loved me for the parent and relatively decent fellow I’ve become.

It’s taken me a long time to try to follow my father’s example—short of falling prey to every scheming confidence artist between Maine and California—but I finally understand that part of him. The giving part, the part that looked at a stranger’s face and said, “This man too is my brother.”

I’m sorry it took me so long; I sure wish he had said something. If he hadn’t assumed his pothead son would simply notice his example and follow it, I might have become a Regular Joe like him a long time before I did.

The following is a verse from a Steve Goodman composition. Except for substituting “cigarettes” for “cigars,” I’d like to thank him for remembering my father so eloquently in song. From My Old Man.

I miss the old man tonight
And I wish he was here with me
With his corny jokes and his cheap cigars
He could look you in the eye and sell you a car.
That’s not an easy thing to do
But no one ever knew
A more charming creature
Upon this earth
Than my old man.