I’m hoping my Father’s Day card made it to southwest Florida in time.
The mail is slow to the Sunshine State for some reason. My dad and stepmom have lived there for 10 years, and I haven’t figured out how to time the arrival of birthday and holiday cards. Maybe Florida’s postal workers have the same golf schedule as the Pennsylvania retirees.
The card is a substitute for being together. It’s a bridge across the 1,200 miles that separate us.
I was fortunate growing up. During a different economic era in Bethlehem, my father was a steelworker. He left for work while we slept but was home every night. He didn’t travel. No business trips or late-night meetings. If he missed a Little League game, it was because there was grass to cut and cars to wash.
He gave us the gift of his time and his presence, life’s most valuable commodity.
The same went for my grandfathers, both tradesmen. When the whistle blew, they grabbed their lunch buckets and went home.
It was a fortunate way of life. There were no mobile phones, no internet, no emails to answer or click bait headlines tempting you like the box of Devil Dogs in the cupboard. A flip through the newspaper and a glance at the half-hour nightly news was enough to keep you an informed citizen.
Unbelievably, no one knew what the president said every day, every hour, every minute.
In fact, the president didn’t have something to say every day, every hour, every minute. His job was to run the government. Discretion was still the better part of valor.
Dads and moms took care of their household, neighborhood and community. I didn’t see a presidential campaign sign in a single neighborhood yard during my childhood. The only flag flown was the American one — and the proper one at that, where all the stripes were red and white, and the star field was blue. Desecrating it or redesigning it didn’t occur.
Back then people didn’t root for presidents or political parties like sports teams. They didn’t wear anyone’s names on hats and T-shirts or purchase merchandise. What happened in the voting booth was private.
During my childhood, the dads and moms sure seemed like they were all part of the same team: America’s. This Father’s Day I miss those days, just like I miss my dad down in Florida.
I made my living a different way than my father and grandfathers before me. Work came in the morning, afternoon, and night. There was no fixed schedule. I sometimes missed meals, and the grass often grew high waiting for me.
But I remembered how it felt to throw a ball with my dad in the evening, to have him at my baseball game or track meet and to see him in the yard laughing with a neighbor. I left the best paying job I’d had up until that point because it put me on the road during the week, often overnight.
I came home, and managed junior and senior little league baseball for the next five years with both my sons. My dad was the assistant coach. We struggled financially but prospered overall with three generations together on the field during those glorious summers.
I have no regrets in life. But, if I could relive my 30s and 40s, I’d work less and be present more. Life’s most precious commodity is time. Moms seem to understand this inherently better than dads. But there is hope in the younger generations.
I see an impressive balance with my hard-working younger colleagues. Dads who also value school pickups, dance recitals and long weekends of family activity. This Father’s Day both of my sons reached out to set up time to be together. One came home from New York to spend an evening on the back porch drinking bourbon and catching up and the other to pick a date and a place for a full day hike together. My daughter is busy raising two children of her own under the age of five. I will make my way to them.
The time together is the gift. Fatherhood is not about money.
I feel sorry for the wealthy – and, more so, their children – who think that it is. I’ve heard people say of billionaire tech moguls or millionaire sports stars who have dozens of children with a multitude of mothers, “they can afford it.” I’m certain that their children cannot.
Children are not vessels to carry on your DNA. They are human beings to be loved, nurtured, taught by your example and raised into adulthood with your time and attention. And it doesn’t change when they become adults.
It’s hard to be a perfect dad. It’s hard to be perfect at anything. But the first step is simple. Stop what you’re doing and be there. Technology makes life move fast, and artificial intelligence is replacing human thought and creativity, but nothing will replace the importance of fatherhood and the limited gift of time.
I’d like to be with my dad this Father’s Day but I’m fortunate that he’s still around so I can start the day with a phone call.
“Hey, dad, thanks for everything. I hope my card arrived on time.”
This is a contributed opinion column. Don Cunningham is the president and CEO of the СŷƵ Economic Development Corp. He can be reached at news@lehighvalley.org. The views expressed in this piece are those of its individual author and should not be interpreted as reflecting the views of this publication.
