father's day

warning: mildly salty language. because it's father's day.

we head over to the caboose around 9:30 because we wake up too late for 5am fishing and figure we ought to at least eat a good breakfast before floating on the water fishless and in the blatant daylight. there is a porch on the caboose and you can sit out there with some scrambled eggs and enjoy looking over at the mountains or just being next to a caboose. it doesn't hurt that you can eat the best home fries in town right there on that porch, too. generally, folks read the paper or catch up on local gossip. from time to time a big dog settles in under someone's feet. i find a table while the sweetie heads inside to order. i look around for a dog.

two tables over are two gentlemen. we will call one mr. gonna get drunk and we will call the other mr. nascar shirt. now, i would like to say right up front there is nothing at all wrong with nascar or with shirts celebrating the glories and drivers of the nascar world. to be honest, i like the crashes just as much as anyone else, maybe more. but i'm going out on a limb to say that pulling on a nascar shirt three sizes too small so you can go out for breakfast with your daughter on father's day is, well, not trying very hard. bringing her to breakfast with your drinking buddy whose every sentence focuses one way or another around the key phrase gonna get drunk is sorely missing the point of father's day. i see more of mr. nascar shirt's buttcrack than his proctologist. i look over at the mountain. unfortunately, mr. nascar shirt is not the ugliest father on the porch.

a family comes up and sits at a table between us and the table occupied by mr. nascar shirt and mr. gonna get drunk. a woman and man with a boy and girl, both under ten. they are joined a bit later by another couple with a toddler boy and a girl maybe eight. the men talk across the tables about their trucks, laughing at the mileage they get (ranging from nine to slightly more than 14 mpg). the mothers busy themselves with getting the children settled.

let's call father one mr. i hate marriage. let's call father two mr. i hate women. let's call them both the i have no regard for women, including my wife and my daughter club. mr. i hate marriage is wearing a shirt with the restroom symbol type man and woman on it, dressed in bride and groom wear. the bride is beaming and the groom looks miserable. above the couple is the phrase game over. i am sorry mr. i hate marriage is in a miserable marriage to someone he so clearly hates but i am unsure why he has chosen father's day to advertise this fact. mr. gonna get drunk tells mr. i hate marriage how much he likes the shirt. mr. i hate marriage says thanks, then explains the smiley face and frowny face. because he thinks mr. gonna get drunk is even stupider than i do.

his pal mr. i hate women is wearing a shirt even more spectacular. it has the head of a native american chief and under the face is the phrase chief bangerharder. wow. as a person who spends a great deal of time with teenagers, i can tell you that this level of charm and humor generally peaks in seventh grade. i am wondering about when he got dressed this morning. he asks mrs. i hate women how he looks. she says something along the lines of, "wow! honey. you look great. that shirt really tells folks what sex with you is like and that's what i'd like to advertise today, father's day!" he beams, thinking of how proud his children will be when they see him and sound out the words on his shirt that proclaim what he thinks is his skill with their mom.

here's the thing. i can take a joke. sometimes even a joke at my expense. but these jokes seem more like feeble cries for attention. and i'm fine with folks wearing stupid shirts. i understand everyone's right to be an idiot. but i like to think men of a certain lifestyle- for instance those with daughters old enough to read- would be willing to forgo shirts emblazoned with information that says, basically, "i am an asshole and i'm cool with being an asshole in front of my children. because it's my right as an american citizen." at the very least i'd like to think these men could do this the one day a year they get to sit across the tables from their little girls, skinny big-eyed girls, wild-haired and pink-dressed, in celebration of what it is to be a dad. i think of my own dad who wore snap front shirts during much of my childhood. my recollection is that he owned one shirt with writing on it. it said i survived the breakup of at&t. because he was a telephone man and he actually did.

and i know it seems like a small thing, these shirts. but to a little girl who looks up to and respects her dad, the shirts are lessons in how to be. in who to be. his philosophy emblazoned across his chest. so i would like to thank my own dad for knowing that everything you do as a father sends a message to your children. and for knowing what messages to send.