
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, June 17, 1990                   TAG: 9006180357
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: C3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: CAL THOMAS
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

FATHER'S DAY NO CARD TODAY, JUST AN OLD PHOTOGRAPH

THIS IS the eighth year I have not sent a Father's Day card to my father. I used to believe cynically that such special days were ideas cooked up by some slick marketing person in the greeting-card industry to increase profits.

Since my father died seven years ago, just before Father's Day, I no longer feel that way. Now that I look back, the card and an occasional gift tie or shirt, even one he'd never wear, provided an opportunity to express something special to the most special man in my life.

Fatherhood has lost much of what it meant in my father's generation. Where do young men go today to learn what it means to be a father or, for that matter, a man?

TV sitcoms often portray men as weaklings, dominated by strong women and smart-mouthed, hip kids. Commercials show men barely able to perform basic functions, such as shaving, without help from all-knowing, supereducated, ravishing women.

Some women's magazines bemoan the poor quality of modern men, often seeking to remake them. Some men's magazines pervert the male image by trivializing his sexuality, portraying sex as a recreational sport.

If boys look to their own fathers for an image, they often have to leave the house to follow Dad: In nearly half the marriages, husbands and wives are divorced. Those couples still together often work long hours and fetch the children from day-care centers at the end of exhausting days.

To me, fatherhood is accepting responsibility for all it means to be a man in the classical sense. It means that if one is married, he keeps his vow to love his wife until death parts them. There can be no greater lesson for a child than to see that sort of commitment.

Second, being a father means letting our children know they are more important than anything else we do. It means being inconvenienced without becoming upset. It means quantity time, not "quality" time, whatever that is. It means generosity, not just with money but with attention.

None of the things I remember about my father have to do with his lifestyle or whom he knew or the places he had been or the style of the clothes he wore. I just knew he was always there, providing the security I needed growing up.

Perhaps that's why, now that he is gone, there is something of him that I carry in my briefcase wherever I go. Occasionally, I take it out on an airplane: an old black and white picture of the two of us.

He is feeding his first son a bottle. I am only a few months old. I look at that picture and wonder how my own children will view me when I am where he is. The answer depends on what I have invested in my children.

My Dad invested something valuable in me, and before he died he said he was proud of me. What better dividend could a father hope to receive than to be proud of his son? What better feeling could a son have than to know that his father is pleased with him?

Thanks, Dad. If I could send you a card, I would.

\ Los Angeles Times Syndicate

by CNB