Father's Day, now and then..
 

If you are lucky enough to have your dads still around, is there a special tradition that you do with them on Father's Day? Any funny memories to share, travel related or not?
I really miss my dad, who traveled on in 2001. I can remember him getting us up early for road trips when we lived in California to beat the freeway traffic though! At 4 am, I now would be more afraid of shady characters than traffic,lol.
Thought it would be a nice thread to start.
J.

Thanks jetset for reminding me of my dad starting us out before daybreak on our yearly Thanksgiving drive from Detroit to West Virginia. My brother slept on the backseat and I was on the floor back there. He loved to drive and always got us there safe and sound in time for the Macy's Christmas Parade on TV. Miss him.

This isn't a Fathers Day memory but travel related. We were an Air Force family and so the 6 of us were always driving across country to a new base. Our tradition was to always start the trip with a loaf of bread and a big bowl of "picnic spread" which is bologna, sweet pickles and miracle whip, ground into a deviled meat consistency. Whenever anyone in our family has this (or sees an old time meat grinder which is how we made it) it brings back family travel stories. My 72 yr old dad still makes it before he goes traveling.

What a nice thread. My dad died in 1999 and Father's Days are still hard. My dad loved to travel and was a bigtime 'pre-trip planner' when I was growing up. Of course, the Internet wasn't around then, but my dad would pore over encyclopedias and our atlas every evening after work until he had the details of our trips just right.

I was an only child and have happy memories of taking long driving trips all over the U.S. with my parents. As a result of his studying, Dad told us trivia and facts about each place we stopped. With such a great teacher, of course, I love to travel and have instilled the same wanderlust in my children. Here's to you, Dad ((L))

My dad died a couple of months ago. I have read and reread this thread tonight, wanting to post something, but it was too difficult to write about him and our precious memories. Then Tess described him and my family so well when she described her own memories . . .except we had 4 kids in our family. Thanks, Tess, and thanks, Daddy! I love you and miss you!

Hard to believe now, but I remember not having to wear a seatbelt too, though we did have a big Pontiac way back then,lol.
Fighting over the radio station with my sister!
The nights we sat out in the backyard on starry nights and he pointed out constellations and we talked about the possibility of extraterrestrial life.
The early mornings we'd go beachcombing and check out tidepools when the beach was desserted.
Begging for a couple bucks so we could buy the cool shrunken heads in the store near the campground in the mountains.
Scampering up steep rocks unafraid, because my dad was doing it, so we shouldn't be afraid either.
Laughing at the skits on Carol Burnett, the Tonight Show and a few others.
One distinct travel memory is when he came to visit us the year we lived in Hawaii. We took him to the other islands and supplied a wardrobe, sunglasses, shoes and the whole nine yards. He was our own Daddy Doolittle that year! He loved riding the mules to the leper colony, to him, that was a great adventure going down that cliff.
Thanks for contributing and hope there's a few more this week.
I realized that the reason I became so silly and carried away with the doughboy post was because I was missing him so, and my way of coping in sad or nostalgic times is often by humor. A little exaggerated maybe, but it really is the best medicine around:)

My read dad died when I was an infant so my step-dad is Dad :)
He drove us across the country a couple of times, visiting family in California and Arizona. We had such fun, I was too small to realize how hot that car was without a/c and how tired they were up there in the front seat :)
But most of all, I remember him taking me fishing .
He wasn't going to wait til he had a boy to teach, he taught me ! We would go sit by the lake and sit and sit...every once in a while, I was the one who caught the most fish :)
Happy Fathers Day, Daddy ((L))

I am glad that my daddy is still here. We don't have any special traditions that we do for Father's Day.

My Father is an avid hunter and fisherman. So all of our trips were definitely not anything I ever wanted to do. We would have to go hunting and fishing and camping. Was not exactly what a girly teeenager wanted to do at that time in her life. But I am glad that he made me go, I guess.

I remember that he would have out in no man's land. We would have to portage a canoe. EEk! No showers for a week.

I just wanted to be like every other kid I knew and go to Disney and other cool amusement parks and stuff. Not fly fishing.

But now I look back and can laugh at some of those horrible trips. I will have to remind him Sunday about the Chabugamu trip, the worst family trip, by far!

Nice thread, thanks for starting it.

I lost my dear father in 1989. I still miss him so much.

He was born in NZ but raised in Australia. He never appreciated "winter weather" here in CA over Christmas as he grew up with having summer weather over the Christmas season.

He loved trains and was known for drawing mechanical drawings of trains from all over the world. He also had a lot of model trains.

My oldest grandson still misses his greatgrandfather whom he always calls "Grandpa ChooChoo" due to my his GGF's love of trains.

My father loved SF, I think mostly because SF reminded him of Sydney. My father took me to beaches up and down the CA coast..to art galleries, to museums, to cemetaries..especially in the Gold Country and Nevada. We would wander around and read the old headstones. He also took me to wonderful restaurants even when I was a little girl.

Jetset, my father will be in my heart and memory forever. And I was fortunate to have him for many decades.

Funny thing, my father was in the Coast Guard during ww2 on a troop transport. He never wanted to travel after that. It was a big deal when we started camping heading out around 6am to get thru Boston before the traffic got busy on our way to Cape Cod's Nickerson State Park. It seemed to take forever to get there in the Rambler station wagon, 3 of us kids in the back and the youngest one sitting on mom's lap in the front. The big treat after swimming each day was a child's size ice cream cone. We never ever could afford sundaes! My FIL never traveled and we tease him that he doesn't like to drive to the city because they might have changed the roads. He's lived in the same town for 80+ years and there's been a lot of changes. Having lobster was always considered a special treat. My husband's family used to grow corn and sell it to the neighbors. All the money would go into a jar on the back of the woodstove and then at the end of summer they'd go out for a lobster feed. We'll take him out Sunday for a lobster roll. I'd really like to go to someplace on the coast but the drive would be too far for him. I guess the most traveling he ever did was the route thru NH & VT delivering apples. I think he may have gone to Boston, too. The family orchard closed years ago. Anytime we drive on the old apple route it brings back fond memories for my husband. It was a big treat for him to skip school for a day and eat lunch in a restaurant.

Father's Day is the most difficult days of the year for me. My Dad has been gone 9 years but it still feels like yesterday.
Our family took a vacation every summer that Dad had meticulously researched. Dad loved good food and would base destinations on resturants he had heard about. We had some very interesting meals!

I am so fortunate to have my father still here. Here's such a wonderful man and the thought of ever losing him scares me to death. He would do anything for anyone. He loves to drive. When I was stranded in Hartford,CT due to bad weather, he (with my fiance) drove the next day (from Lake Placid) to pick me up. He would have come the night before but thankfully listened to reason, because the roads were horrific!

We too were a family that would leave at 3:00am to start our road trip. Our family vacations were usually to Myrtle Beach or Florida. My favorite vacation memories were when we would take the extra days before getting to our final destination see all the sites on the way---Willamsburg, Gettysburg, tour of the Amish villages, etc. We used to pick on him because he would read ever plaque, word for word. It used to drive us crazy. But, not nearly as bad as my brother who would eat a ton of raisins before we left so he could "gas" us out of the car. Nothing like 5 people crammed in a minivan, with luggage, 4 of us gagging and my brother just laughing his head off.

When I think of my upcoming wedding, it's the special moments with my dad I think I'm looking forward to most. I'm stressing over the song we dance to because I really want him to know how much he means to me and how I appreciate everything he does for me. Does anyone think "Wind Beneath my Wings" is a little over the top? The words just sum it up perfectly.

Thanks for starting this thread, jetset.

My mother died when I was 12 and my Dad was left to raise me and my 14 year old brother all alone. Imagine him trying to explain what was going on with my body, and oh my goodness, the dreaded sex talk....imagine me having to listen to it!!! But oh how I miss him!
Happy Fathers Day everyone.

My had and I have had a rocky relationship, but we are getting better. Strangely enough, it is my step-mom who has helped to bring us closer together. We were always at odds, and sometimes still are, but she helped us see that we aren't that much different, we just seem to speak a different language. She is our translator :)

My dad and I have had a lot of good times too and I have decided to remember those and conviniently forget the rest. It works wonders.

My dad is another one of the leave at the crack of dawn types, also an outdoorsman whose idea of vacation was to get us as far from civilization as possible.

dsm22 - I too have portaged canoes with my dad when I was a teenager, following him into no man's land. Good memories, but at the time all I wanted to do was be someplace with plumbing and electricity so I could take a hot shower, shave my legs, and curl my hair - so I could then go pick up boys - LOL.

We are headed up to my dad's place after work tonight. I', sure we will annoy each other, but hopefully we will have some fun in the between times :)

My Dad died in 1964, twenty years to the day after he was wounded at the Battle of the Bulge. He got four Purple Hearts in WWII and one in Korea. Because he was a lifer in the Army, the last eighteen years with the 82nd Airborne, we travelled often. Dad was an Army brat himself and I think that made him more sensitive to the challenges of adapting to a new place. He always wanted to be involved in our activities even though the nature of his work kept him away from us often. He loved parties and presents and he spoiled us all (especially my mom).
Thanks, jetset1, for starting me thinking about some of those precious memories. My post would go on for hours, but I will end with the thought that he is with me every day and makes whatever I want to do seem doable.

My Dad has the most gentle spirit and best sense of humor of anyone I've ever encountered in my life. Words cannot express how deeply I love him just for being the man he is. Now, he is 93 and the quality of his life is very poor due to bad health, but he never has a cross word to say. Happy Father's Day, Dad!

My dad and I have always been very close. We live 600 miles apart now, but talk to each other often and see each other every few months. I feel very fortunate!

We always took road trips over the holidays, as it was his slow time for work. The road trips were always the same...driving from either WA or OR to San Diego to visit grandparents. We would drive straight through, and always stopped at Denny's for meals. Finally, one year, the rest of us said we refused to stop at another Denny's. I was a child then, but had enough sense to chime in with that, lol! Our family still jokes about it:)

Our summer trips were always camping trips within Oregon. I remember one June when it snowed on us. After that he had an awesome tent made (mostly for big elk hunting trips with lots of people, so it was huge) that had a wood stove. Camping trips after that were much better...playing cards by the woodstove while it rained outside:)

He taught me to fish, how to clean a gun, and to shoot clay pigeons. He does that with the grandchildren now and they cherish that time. Each grandchild goes to visit by themself each summer...in a way I am envious:)

Geez...sorry about all those smileys! I look like I od'd on happy medicine, lol!

We always go hiking or backpacking or rafting on Father's Day. When my sisters and I were teenagers and would complain about it, and then Dad instituted a new rule. We didn't have to like hiking, but on Father's Day, we had to pretend that we did. :)

I love my Dad so much, and I'm so grateful for his adventurous spirit. He taught himself to whitewater raft and now does week long extended trips in big water. He recently took up mountain climbing and has climbed most of the high peaks in the western United States.

He loves me and my siblings so unconditionally. And he has so much confidence in all of us.

I've loved reading about your Dad's. Thanks for such a great thread!

What wonderful stories~ they are heartwarming to read. My dad was a WW11 veteran and being the oldest one who was with him to the end, I was fortunate to keep many of his military related items.
Does anyone have their dad's Gillette shavor with the silver case and the purple lining?
My sister got his photo album from the war. He had poems in there written by a French woman. During the last few days of his life, when he was sleeping irregularly, he told me he was talking to the buddies he'd lost in the war and how happy he was to see that they were there. Wow..
hope to read many more stories. J.

The children are doing something, probably taking us out to lunch. Well, he did get to go to a restaurant on mother's day, why can't I :)

What a wonderful idea for a thread! And thanks to all who are sharing such great memories and stories - they are all great!

My own father passed away in 1991, and I will always miss him. He was my biggest supporter.

My dad really loved the road trip, and I'm so happy that he instilled that love in me. And, yes, he was also one of those dads that had to leave at 4AM! What was it about that generation!! He grew up in the mid-West (specifically Wisconsin), and had a specially love for Western movies as a boy, so when he moved to California as an adult he couldn't get enough of the "Great West." All of our vacations were west of the Mississippi. Anything do with the west, cowboys, Native American heritage - my dad was there. He taught me an appreciation for the West United States, and he even showed me how the desert had its own natural beauty. My father was not a "city guy," but his idea of "roughing it" meant motel had 1 star instead of 3! He did like to be comfy.

I hope others keep sharing. I love reading how other's fathers have helped to shape their lives!

My real father also passed away when I was young and my stepfather is my 'real' dad.

My best memories of my dad would be him taking me out of high school to play hookey by going skiing with him and his ski club on day trips.

I would go back to school the next day, my mother had no idea, all wind burnt and sun burnt looking like the picture of health with notes from my dad explaining that I was out sick.

When we were kids, we usually made Dad breakfast in bed (with Mom's help), and then did our usual stuff - played tennis or ping pong, watched golf etc. Pretty low key.

Now, my parents are about 10 hours away, so he'll get a phone call.

In May, my family gets together at my aunt's house to celebrate a bunch of things - Mother's Day, Father's Day, and my mom's, aunt's, and brother-in-law's birthdays. So I guess that is our new family tradition.

Happy Father's Day, Dad! Love you! :)

My dad is the one who got me hooked on traveling! (And even more so, hooked on budget traveling!) To this day, he alerts me whenever there's a good package deal in the newspaper.

I ((L)) my Padre every day of the year, so fathers' day traditions are pretty low-key...probably a game of Trivial Pursuit and some chips 'n' dip!

Chele60~ your dad sounds like my late father-in-law.
While my dad had been from a small Idaho town and come to Aalska for a fresh start after the service, my fil was a city boy, hardly out of those Wingtips in all the years I knew him.(He passed in 2001, like my dad, after a valiant battle with lung cancer).
Anyway, my fil was an opinionated Irishman, a cop for thirty years, and I was the only one in a huge extended clan to ever disagree with him..(you'd have to know my late mom to appreciate that,lol).
To visit with my fil, you'd sit at the kitchen table for eons~ I swear, I could see my fingernails growing! He was afraid of lightening, and always dug out 12,000 AAA maps if my dh and I decided to take a road trip.
One time when we all traveled to Calif., I can remember my fil with cigarette in hand, walking his dunlop belly over to the hot tub, commenting to us about some broad with a "good pod" somewhere by the pool. No one was a stranger to him, for better or worse!
My dad was a quiet intellectual type. He taught school for many years, had more of a liberal outlook on life and raised my sister and I without regard to gender. We were always active outdoors, hunting, fishing, whatever.
He was a little hypercritical at times, but one of the few movies he enjoyed with me was Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Steve Martin was perfect in that role, and every once in a while, I did out the tape and play it, remembering my dad:)

Both my father and father in law have passed on and they are both missed tremendously. Though they came from different ethnic groups (Irish and Italian) they had so much in common. Hardworking, family first, always seemed to know the right thing to do, veterns, good with their hands, loved good stories and good friends, loved their kids and their wives, smart about money. Loved to travel though they didn't do it often enough. Lucky me I found a guy just like them.

This is so sweet:

First Fathers Day without my Dad. He was an educator, the kind we all wish for our children. He loved kids, loved teachers, loved parents, and worked all his life to make the best educational experience possible. He tought me and my brother what a Dad should be like.

CMCFONG: salute to your Dad!

Thank you. We appreciate and value the sacrifices of your family, rncheryl. Happy anniversary.

My father was also an Air Force guy who loved to travel. He spent many years in the far east and I think he eventually identified with Asian culture more than his own (Irish). In 1961, when I was 6, he bought a VW van, an uncommon vehicle back then. He replaced the back seats with a wooden platform. Our luggage went under the platform and our sleeping bags on top. There were 7 of us children then, including my brother who was 8 months old. We traveled in that WV bus from Mississippi to Boston and Montreal, and then across the country to California. It was quite an adventure (one my mother never appreciated).

Just before he died, my father said he was sorry he never took me on the swan boat ride he promised me in Boston when I was 5 years old. I had completely forgotton about it, but he never did. He was a visionary, a tough guy, a genius (imo), and cute as the dickens. I miss him terribly.

Do any of these expressions ring any bells?
*Well, I'll be go to he**!
*That oughta rattle their chain.
*How are you? How do you know?
*You wouldn't be trying to whifflepoof me, would you?
and my dad's favorite..(no matter what the situation)..
**That should build some character.**

>>>>>>dsm22 - I too have portaged canoes with my dad when I was a teenager, following him into no man's land. Good memories, but at the time all I wanted to do was be someplace with plumbing and electricity so I could take a hot shower, shave my legs, and curl my hair - so I could then go pick up boys - LOL.<<<<<<


Why couldn't they make a place way back then in the 70's and 80's, in the middle of the woods, where you could fly fish AND get a full day spa treatment. :D There is money to be made there.

J Correa, I remember once we went camping with my older, more wordly cousins. We went to The Beaverkill it was in NY, I think. A bunch of boys saw my cousin's name on the back of her shirt. (Does anyone remember those shirts where you would get an iron on in on the front, and your name in the back of your shirt? I feel old.) Anyway, my ditzy cousin was listening to these boys because they called her by name, they were telling her that they knew her, meanwhile, the dorky geek that I am, knew immediately it was because of her shirt. I let her flounder around and flirt awhile, then I finally told her how they knew.

These boys wanted to meet us later. So we did. I have no clue how we did not get killed or something. But we did sneek out. It was such a stupid thing to do, looking back. They were drinking beer. I am telling you, if I had a kid, and she did this I would kill her.

I finally came to my senses and got us out of there and back to the camp ground. Walking back over the covered bridge though we met a skunk. Thank goodness we did not get sprayed.

I carried that secret around for over 20 years, that we crept away from camp. Turns out that my dad knew, he followed us and spied on us the whole time. I did not even know. He never said a word. So moms aren't the only ones that have eyeballs in the backs of their heads.

topping for Father's Day.

I hope all you dads have a great day!

All of you reading this thread may also want to check out the thread "Are you or are you not a beach person?" I shared a story about my dad "visiting" my sister in a dream after his death. Several people have now posted similar stories you might enjoy. Happy Fathers Day!

Happiest Father's Day to all, old and young. And to my dear dad, I promise to finally read Moby Dick this year.
xo, Jocelyn

Thought this post is appropiate to respond to - as I'm up in the middle of the night due to nicotine withdrawl. My father quit smoking many times, but always went back. I've just gone cold turkey - and am completely crazed but hope to do this for both of us (dad meant to, but the reaper caught up first). My father tought me to be a traveller, not a tourist - we've been living his philiosophy for years!

When I quit smoking the thing that got me through the rough spots was having heard that it was much harder to quit the second time. I knew how hard that first time was and didn't ever want to have to go through that again! That was 26 years ago this past April!

Good luck to you. I know it's hard. But it's so worth it! Aside from all the physical benefits, the sense of accomplishment will make you feel good for years to come!

Meant to address that to you, Elle. But I'm sure that was pretty obvious!

ElleD9~ After my dad had been gone for awhile, followed by my fil five months later,(both had lung surgery related to smoking), I made a photo tribute to them on one side of my refrigerator.
My dad was a fit man, boasting he had only gained five pounds since high school. Whenever I was bored, or weak, I'd have a little more self control with dad's eyes on me!
I have one picture of him as a young man in the forties, on the side of Mt. McKinley, as we called it then. That speaks volumes as to how he lived his life and has always inspired me.
Take care and good luck, J.

topping for Father's Day!