Dads and the Great Grey Sticky

This week's object objet d'eBay is an interesting example of how dads inspire business. Described as "duct tape it dad husband ankle socks" they are a "75 percent hi (sic) bulk acryclic, 25 percent stretch nylon" ode to the love of a father and his fixer.

Two others looking to make a bit of scratch off fathers and the father fave are Jim and Tim, "the duct tape guys," whose web site includes a page devoted to stories of dads and the great grey sticky, including the disclaimer that every submission is now property of TDTGs and so likely to end up as the material for a book for which they get to collect all royalties.

** Duct Tape. Solvers of all the world's problems. If only they could produce enough. **

Husbandrying

Fathering is separate from husbanding, although very often they are thrown together. For example, Stephen Fried's new book, Husbandry, is a collection of men-women essays for Ladies Home Journal and has no time for discussions of children as author and wife share none.

But that does not mean he has nothing to say on the subject of fathers and sons. It's just that you have to look elsewhere to find it, such as in his book, The New Rabbi, which germinated as he found "his" religion during, but mostly in the aftermath of his father's dying of cancer. It was in that, and in dealing with a rabbi who's father's death affected him dramatically that he found himself searching for comfort and definitions of his own loss.

As for the subject of "husbandry," it has also been defined, intriguingly enough, as a subject for a woman to study on how to please the master. Although it is better known as the mating of the animals — leading back to the oft-made observation of previous posts that the ability to rut and sire doth not the daddy-o make.

** To draw with some snark from religion, there is a reason the divine trinity is not "husband," son and holy ghost. **

Who Daddy

Bliss Broyard struggles on nearly every page of her memoir One Drop with whether or not you can know who you are if your dad doesn't tell you — or at least he hides a critical piece of himself, in her case passing as a bigoted white while born of two black parents.

Literary critic Anatole Broyard was worldly and prickly and kept the secret of his origin from his well-to-do white Connecticut-bred son and daughter until they were in their 20s and he faced his last days. With others having already had their say, Ms. Broyard went in search of her dad, but really wanted to find herself.

And isn't that — with its particular twist in this case — always the case. A child looks up to the father to find out the possibilities of who s/he can be and will eventually study his/her father's life to try and discover the secrets of who s/he has become ... and why.

** It's a bit frightening to know that what you think you have successfully hidden as much as what you've proudly shared forms your child. **

Fluid Fathering

Researchers report that "... when a man goes to look up his parents, he typically spends the day lounging on the sofa with his dad, sharing a bottle of beer, watching sports..." and ends up having a nice day, unlike the women who visit their parents and don't take time out for liquid refreshment with DearOldDad.

Not that you don't have to keep an eye on the father's quaffing regimen as a Scottish baby who survived a car wreck two days previous couldn't survive her father's 15 pints (he fell asleep on her) and a new Canadian pop launched himself into the pokey after a few too many inspired him to spit at police and kick out the squad car back window when they suggested he might be too drunk to properly parent.

** Maybe it's just when kids are young that fathers can't handle their liquor? **

Questions of the Day

Is it sleep deprivation or a father's love when Tiger Woods announces that, "It has been so hard and so difficult, so time-consuming, but you can't wait to have another one [plural, later in the article]. Theoretically, it doesn't make any sense, but it has been so cool."

Is it setting realistic expectations or playing the media when pop rapper (popper?) Usher (III) avows of [soon to be] Usher IV, "I just want my son to fully be coherent and to be healthy, first and foremost."

And is it just good advice or a father's preference wrapped up with scientific evidence when taking the best care of children includes the advice to encourage them get dirty ... and then, eventually and at least occasionally, to wash.

** In every dad's life are questions and answers. Sometimes they do match, often they don't. **

Porcine Initiation

Charity begins with pork.

That at least is how Millard Fuller biographies describe the growth of Habitat for Humanity. His dad gave him a pig and tutored him how to make money from it. That knowledge led to fabulous business success by the age of 30 and, via a circuitous path, helped him create communities within communities that provide houses for underprivileged and others in need.

Fuller had an acrimonious split with HforH and built up the Fuller Center for Housing, in turn providing a business structure for his four children to live in, as well as their spouses and perhaps even his grandchildren.

** Interesting, a dad giving away the bacon. **

Into the Ether

Every business launches with promise, often an implicit one that it can offer its target market everything they'll ever need. Particularly those that are all internet all the time promise the life lived large in their initial hype.

But can SingleDads.ning.com, a social networking site for single dads really serve all the needs of that group? When a Florida homeless man says, "I looked all over Central Florida and no shelter would take a single dad with kids..." does it just show his ignorance of how much better life can be when lived via pixels?

** What is a father's life is all or even just the best part is electronic? **

Influence

Can I predict Thing 1 will be an SVP of a some mega-advertising firm and Thing 2 a chef? Sure I can. Who's stopping me?

But if I am honest, I also have recognize how many other things they will be and also be willing to admit my influence on their life will have its serendipitous side, no matter how hard I try to channel them.

French mime Marcel Marceau's father was a butcher; British society debs Victoria and Isabella Hervey had a dad who was the society cat burglar of his time; and an American dad left nine children from various marriages heading in all different directions.

My Father the ?

This week's objet d'Ebay, a picture book about a girl who thinks because her father fetches the paper and balls that he might really be a dog, inspires wonder about what children really think of their fathers.

The really wondrous thing, of course, is the capacity of children to love, no matter who their dad really is. Or, even if he suddenly calls a family meeting to announce he has decided that after 51 years as Paul, after children and grandchildren, he has decided to live the rest of his life as Paula.

Video Love

It is impossible not to be moved by a father's love. It may be youtubed and mawkish, sappy and even a big self-indulgent. But someone else's home movies are still wonderful in their own way and in moderation. Touching every year ... and, thankfully, every year it grows shorter. Shorter, without yet losing any of its effect.

AGE 1


AGE 2


AGE 3


When they all get strung together into some sort of 21st birthday feature length production it will surely be too much. For now, a moment or two looking at a tribute to a father's love should be enough to remind you of your own.

** Yeah, I admit it. I watched one and had to go hug Thing 1 and 2 for no reason I could explain to them. **

Video Love

It is impossible not to be moved by a father's love. It may be youtubed and mawkish, sappy and even a big self-indulgent. But someone else's home movies are still wonderful. Touching every year ... and, thankfully, every year it grows shorter. Shorter, without yet losing any of its effect.

AGE 1


AGE 2


AGE 3


When they all get strung together into some sort of 21st birthday feature length production it will surely be too much. For now, a moment or two looking at a tribute to a father's love should be enough to remind you of your own.

** Yeah, I admit it. I watched one and had to go hug Thing 1 and 2 for no reason I could explain to them. **

DigiLife

Every business launches with promise, often an implicit one that it can offer its target market everything they'll ever need. Particularly those that are all internet all the time promise the life lived large in their initial hype.

But can SingleDads.ning.com, a social networking site for single dads really serve all the needs of the dad on his own? When a Florida homeless man says, "I looked all over Central Florida and no shelter would take a single dad with kids..." does it just show his ignorance of how much better life can be when lived via pixels?

** What is a father's life if all or just the best part is electronic? **

Now We're Cooking

Why do so many people still believe that it should be moms who burn the food, unless a barbecue is involved?

Dads are chefs and learn from their chef dads. Dads are cooking into their 100s. And one father, a Pasadena, Md., man, has enough time on his hands to pen a treatise on parenting in his spare time, having finished cooking for his two boys after cooking and cleaning the house and taking them to church and camping and Disneyland and who knows what else.

Gentlemen ... start your spatulas.

** Daddy's in the kitchen with Dinah, Daddy's in the kitchen, I knowowowow... **

I Never Agreed to That

...and some have fatherhood thrust upon them.

A 21-year-old Wisconsin man seems the logical person to take care of his child of less than a year when the mother goes to prison. Ironically, she is going to prison for getting herself pregnant by the man while he was passed out drunk. He had not idea he had engaged with her ... at least not until he got pulled in for a paternity test.

Contrast that question of a father taking care of a child with another, this one thanks to an Australian couple and their more regular couplers.

Simply enough, a gay man and lesbian women have a child. They agree to co-parent. The woman has been in a long term relationship with another — call her Mom Two. The man begins a serious relationship but Mom One refuses to allow Dad One's partner, [potential] Dad Two, to gain any sort of legal standing.

And for situations like these, apparently, an Almighty God encouraged humanity to create the court system.

The Talk

It is not particularly difficult to explain the birds and the bees to one's children. They both fly and one makes for a better metaphor for existence: it can sting you and also makes honey.

The difficulty — perhaps the real source of the traditional embarrassment — is in admitting to yourself that you don't understand what winged creatures have to do with making the beast with two backs (line 127). The act itself isn't that hard to explain; anyone with naked Ken and Barbie dolls (or for fathers of boys two firetrucks) in their house can make a fair if not exact demonstration of the basics.

Actually, given what modern media makes available, THE TALK probably isn't even necessary ... if it ever was. In response to a national survey that the sons of St. George weren't doing their part in passing on procreational wisdom to the next generation, one British dad explained, "My father never even showed me how to shave. But, I mean, it's not that hard to pick up, is it?"

Finally, while on the subject of Her Majesty's subjects, it is probably something to consider that not every dad can fulfill the dreamy scene of a great sage passing on a lifetime of (sexual wisdom) to his son or daughter. Imagine Jimmy Page, now father of three, but one time (kudos to The Times), "a baby-faced, axe-wielding heroin addict fond of wearing a Nazi uniform to transvestite clubs. [Who sometimes] had to be led back to his hotel and handcuffed to the toilet for safe keeping."

Even more than the pre-sold out Led Zep concert, I wish I could have had a spot in the bleachers for The Talk he gave.

Childless Alan, Alas ...

Either completely irrelevant or a key personality indicator,

is not a father.

Author of the just-released memoir "Age of Turbulence," former fed chief Alan Greespan is an only child, as well as an early adapter of Ayn Rand's objectivist philosophy — usually practiced as a belief in one's own superiority to the point where you don't have to give either an inert or flying f**k about anyone else or thing.

Greenspan is also generally credited with the various recent glories of American economic progress, but there are criticisms. Rand referred to him as a "social climber" and others similarly criticize his willingness to pander for the limelight, but accept no personal blame.

Which brings us back to his not being a father. If he'd had children would he have learned that sometimes you have to let the kids play without you so they can grow on their own? Could he have learned something about taking responsibility for what you do? Would he have understood that early on you may be a superhero, but later you'll be a first class idiot and, eventually, you'll just be a man, both praise and blameworthy.

** And dealing with a kid's allowance wouldn't have hurt in trying to keep that sub-prime mortgage issue from getting out of hand either. **

Name Calling

Do you blame the editor or the writer? They both knew the term was annoying, cloying, condescending, but at least one person didn't care and chose to entitle the USA Today article "Don't Call Him Mr. Mom."

Just because something is popular shorthand for a dad who takes care of his kids doesn't make it the right thing to say.

But back to the findings, Census data shows 159,000 American men are full-time fathers, more than triple the number in the 90s. Further research says their job satisfaction is pretty high.

Not that referring to himself as a MM calls into question a dad's sincerity or praiseworthiness. It's just that if we can't call it better, lets just agree it is equal and different and there is nothing higher to aspire to than being "Mr. Dad."

** It seems by now we would have gotten beyond the myth that one's sex endows the gendereed with certain inalienable abilities. **

Growing Old

It's a deux objet d'Ebay Sunday.

First, we have the sluTshirt to consider. A bit of cloth and letters making some sort of metacommunication from a child to parent and viewer about (the wearer's) aging.

Ironic for a piece of clothing, it will presumably never actually be worn in front of dad — unless there is like an eighth dimension of irony I (and hopefully Things 1 and 2) am unlikely ever to comprehend. As with most things, seeing it adorn someone else's son (at his "coming out" party, perhaps) or daughter (as the drunken videographers chortle in the background of a "Girls Gone Wild" video) makes it a very different story about growing up than it ever would be if seen on a child of one's own.

Which brings us to the inevitability of growing up and today's second objet d'Ebay . Even the television baby stuck forever in reruns of "Full House" that is Mary Kate and Ashley Olson has aged. They're somewhere after high school and before death. Not surprisingly, they are tabloid fodder; to the good they are not just "fabulous," but also fabulously wealthy.

A boring aside, I always felt bad for one of them — but was never sure which — as either MK didn't get to have the last name or A had to use the last name as her middle name: as in, the Olson twins are Mary Kate Olson and Ashley Olson Olson.

But the point is that as all children do they have grown up and made their own lives (albeit heavily influenced by choices made for them when they were younger). A point for their biographers, should they ever be taken seriously, much of their work as kids did involve the absence of a mother.

** When I'm in "the home," will my great grand children only stay in the room with me if they can watch re-re-reruns of Full House instead of me rotting? **

Ready or Not

Fatherland tests are many and our preparation is often inadequate.

The man not prepped for mating is less likely to achieve paternity. Japanese dads are paying 3,900 yen (about $34) to take a daddy exam — for some reason including a question about who is the father in "Kramer vs. Kramer" (obviously Kramer) — supposed to define their fatherhood ability. And two Louisiana pols have sons running against them, even as both sons "say they love their fathers and don't want to say anything negative about them."

And these are just a few of the day-to-day challenges, neither final exams nor the pop quizzes for which you can't possibly prepare.

** When cramming, ignore daddy books and mags choosing instead to breeze through the reading material and other media of wives, girlfriends and children. **

Frubber Bodied and Rubber-Faced Sons

Consider being father to a child who is "an interactive learning companion, a synthetic pal who can engage in conversation and convey human emotion through a face made of a skin-like, patented material Hanson calls frubber."

Or, perhaps you might prefer to sorta adopt a 60-year-old dyspeptic divorced comedian?

Obviously, there are stories behind David Hanson's two Zenos — one an eighteen-month-old, the other a robot — and Shelly Berman (is he really still alive?) taking Larry David under his wing.

Still, there is something about fatherhood that links the two disparate stories. Hanson was working on what would become the mechanized child while the flesh and bones one was still a gleam in the eye of mother and father. The 81-year-old Berman's adopted son (brother to an adopted daughter) died 40 years ago, at age 12, of a brain tumor.

Two fathers, investing themselves in real and then made-real sons.

** It's never all about the sperm. **

Parting With Money Is Such Sorrow

Many are leaving the sinking administration's ship with a variety of excuses. Tony Snow said he was quitting speaking for the president for money (and love). He didn't want to tell his kids they had to give up everything they had, "so daddy can work at the White House." Hopefully he has gotten out in time, or at least before they get themselves a good lawyer and head off to court in search of more allowance.

** Perhaps a fool as well, but a daddy and his money are (certainly) soon parted. **

Beyond Dinki Di

If only common sense could rule.

Maybe it will in the case of Jennifer Bell, whose mother found her biological father via an internet dating site — this after the child was born. He was an anonymous sperm donor when she was married to her now ex- and while they didn't move from online chatting to an offline sexual partnership they did discover a child in common. Something they're apparently both "dinki-di" (in Aussiespeak) about.

But when common sense says shut up you're only making things worse some refuse to listen.

Such as the Florida father who wants at least $7 million for the shooting death of his biological son. The man who a court ruled is the father — he is on the birth certificate and was the only father known by the dead 16-year-old and his twin — agreed to take $1 million from the city of Delray, Fla., following a rookie police officer shooting the child in the head as he drove away. (He was, it probably should be mentioned, driving away in an open hallway during a school dance.)

And sometimes there are cases where common sense just isn't enough to avoid an innocent child from feeling wronged.

As in the case of the Cuban father who wants his 5-year-old daughter back (she has been with a Florida foster family for about 18 months) although he didn't seem to put up much protest when she left with her mother for the States. The mom lost custody following a suicide attempt.

So where does that leave common sense as a guiding principle?

** When a dad has his day it's always beyond dinki di. **

Forgive and Hope

One of my most important lessons in parenting was in the explanation from a wise person that a young child wakes up every day forgetting what s/he did the day before to tick you off and forgiving you for your wrongs. And the better, probably happier, parent won't punish today the bad of yesterday, but will let it go as well (although celebrating/reminding children of the good they do is always a good idea).

Which leads to hope, the sum of an equation where a dad can't forget how his children erred, but loves them so much that he forgives.

And forgiveness is in the air — a child sits by his father's grave to ask forgiveness; an elderly and retired rabbi has taught his children forgiveness as a response to the holocaust — as Jews and Moslems celebrate the Days of Awe and Ramadan.

** Thing 1, Thing 2, forgive me. **

Go Get 'Em!

Popular mythology is that fathers run from their kids. The reality is dads chase them. And, sometimes thanks to the courts, they catch them as did the umarried Irish dad of twins.

Fathers4Justice creates publicity stunts to call attention to the rights battles of fathers. Legal sources are also available for the father caught in a bad place. But just as we tell our kids when discussions of allowance or bedtime comes up, having rights doesn't come without taking responsibility.

** Welcome to the steelcage match of dad mythology vs. father reality. **

Popsmacked

"Harry was placed on the naughty chair this weekend after misbehaving. (Pause. One, two, three beats.) He's still there." It's David Letterman talking daddysmack on Oprah. Sure, it's a ratings gimmick for one or the other or both. Still, it will be fun and professional.

Also fun and professional, DL's 2003 announcement of his pregnancy (about one minute in and you'll need to turn up the volume):



He's nearly old enough with a young enough kid to run for president. As he said at age 56 in his announcement, "It'll be good because not only will I be the child's father, I'll also be the child's grandfather."

** After the sleeplessness and diapers you have to wonder if DL felt that everything old is new again? **

Book Report

POTUS wannabe Christopher Dodd has published "Letters from Nuremberg," with which he hopes to convey lessons (about the Iraq war; about the twin towers as today, 9/11, is the official publication day; about why he should be president; about how much smarter father's used to be; etc...) from his father's correspondence with his mother while working on the trial of the Nazi war criminals.

One of the lessons arriving too late in history comes from Nawada, Indai. Although late it is important: always serve your son good food when he asks or he may axe you to death — and I don't mean the incessant "why daddy, why..." of a toddler.

** Axe me no questions . **

Communications

What a father says to a child; what a child says back. What they each hear.

At age 11, Garry (not Gary) Troudeau's father handed him a medical text to explain that the son would soon be losing the father to amyloidosis. Perhaps related, Garry chose not to be a fifth generation Troudeau physician. Instead,there is the Doonesbury comic strip, where father and sons and daughters talk, but the point is whether or not the reader listens.

** Admittedly, the father was wrong, but how do you tell your child you are dying? **

More Daddy's Girls

It's Argentos v. Eastwoods in the shootout at the Toronto Film Festival Corral.

The center of Canadian filmdom this week features father-daughter combos as the third of Dario Argento's horror trilogy, "Mother of Tears" will premiere in competition along with the feature directorial debut of "Rails and Ties" by Alison Eastwood. As for the parent-child connections: Argento's work features (sometime director) daughter Asia as Roman art student Sarah Mandy and there just isn't any way for Clint Eastwood's daughter not to be his daughter when acting or directing.

As Eastwood says, "...Everything I've done as an actor, as a kid growing up on movie sets, watching my dad, it's all brought me to where I am right now. ...But yeah, it's tough, being the daughter of someone who's so successful, so revered ...."

** Would this be following in the eye, not feet, of the father? **

Faux Macho

Today's objet d'eBay is (drum roll please) the comb-over of daddying, a camo diaper bag.

Who — or whom — could one believe he was fooling? Infant juices are staining clothing, bottles of formula are being juggled; eyes are propped open with toothpicks, a female voice is criticizing from the distance; and there is likely to be intermittent and seemingly arbitrary crying. But faux war exterior allows dad to keep his macho on?

Furthering the spirit of self-delusion, a secret list (inspected by No. 5) is stuffed in one of the bag's pockets and gives the purchaser permission to call yourself Brad Pitt and sleep with Angelina Jolie and wear geeky glasses so you can spend money like Bill Gates.

** The perfect daddy shower gift, assuming liquor or other stupefying substances are sardined in it from bottom to top. **

ED, fixed; PT Now!

Perhaps the answer is some sort of Viagra-like pill. Only for toddlers ... and to make them poop on a father's command or demand.

Viagra answered a question few knew needed to be asked. Although The New York Times did refer to somewhat limp (I know, but who could resist) sales in 2004, they also laid out that the little blue pill is part of a multi-billion dollar market. Who knew ED was a problem prior to the solution being made public. Why does it get a solution?

PT, however, is a very public problem. A worldwide crisis, if you carefully consider peruse your meida. Newspapers run the rants on the tribulation of potty training; bloggers tell tales of Wiggles in the bathroom serenading the successful scion; as well as the fear that decades of dirty diapers could doom the college fund. And there's more.

But that's enough. It's time for a crusade.

Until science solves potty training, I say boycott them.

** And when that's done keep up the pressure until science does something to help us out at the other end of the age spectrum, when we return to diapers. **

Good & Evil

Thanks to the internet it is pretty easy to steal and claim wisdom as your own (although it is also pretty easy to be caught at it).

So let me claim this story about a father and son. The middle aged son in his time of middle aged troubles, seeks wisdom from his father. "Dad, do you still battle with evil?"

"No, son. Certainly it was a constant when I was younger, but now, as I approach eternity, evil doesn't tempt me as much. I battle mostly with questions of good."

"So, you have it easy and I can look forward to the same?"

"Well," replied the father, "you can look forward to the same, but it is much harder to battle with the good in your life than in evil."

That story of father and son may be stolen from a better-told parable, but poorly related as it is, it is still of much greater truth and significantly less overall impact (most unfortunately) than
the father and family stories millions believe from America's wrestling arena.

** A dad's life is always much more soap opera than hour-long family drama. **

Hey, Hugh There

Is it too much pyschobabble to wonder what effect on the possible future POTUS was had by father Hugh Rodham, who according to Hillary Rodham Clinton biographer Carl Bernstein was"a sour, unfulfilled man whose children suffered his relentless, demeaning sarcasm and misanthropic inclination, endured his embarrassing parsimony, and silently accepted his humiliation and verbal abuse of their mother."

HRC loved him, worked endlessly to please him and, apparently, was left disappointed and at embittered. Perhaps that aftertaste of her father is the basis for her willingness to work hard but compromise early to settle for what she believes she can get (reality) and her quick criticism of Democratic opponents who have dreams they want to achieve?

** Could it be that America and the world will now pay for the sins of a father? **

Daddys' Man

Do you want the finger that can set off the Big One to belong to a sleep-deprived sexagenarian father of two pre-schoolers? If so, Fred Thompson — who with his first wife also has two older kids (a third died of a drug overdose in 2002) and five grandchildren — could be your man.

Or, to put it another way, do you want to support the a firm and focused stay-at-home-dad? A SAHD looking for work, but so committed to being with his young kids while trying to make work work that he has decided to run for the only government position you can perform while in your pajamas in your own taxpayer-provided house, whith a whole staff is assigned to the kids to help out while you're on the phone?

Daddytrackers may have their candidate.

** If it matters, he may also have policies. **

No Sleeping on the Job

By their existence, kids give to fathers ... but probably not in any way they'll understand.

Recent testimony comes from Baltimore Orioles journeyman infielder Melvin Mora and sometime-superstud, sometime-Mr. Jolie and Shawnee, Oklahoma's own William Bradly Pitt.

According to Mora, who speaks of no sleep and the pressure of suddenly being a dad five times over during the season, he didn't get much sleep, but, "the kids helped me in one way, because I thought about them, and it made me play harder."

In a recent interview, Pitt took the better scripted approach on describing fatherhood: "It's the most fun I've ever had. ...It's also the biggest pain in the ass I've ever experienced." He also said he wasn't getting much sleep and blamed it on the kids (as if it were all there fault and had nothing to do with a disheveled Angelina Jolie within easy pawing distance).

** Kids are the work and the work is for the kids. **

Crime and (Family) Punishment

On Labor Day it is hard to ignore the accepted notion of dad as the premier worker for the family. But, obviously, some work choices by fathers are easier on the kids than others. Criminal activity — despite the book and movie romanticization of crooks with hearts of gold — seems like something that takes a toll, whether the dad's a Japanese Yakuza or just a Chicago hood.

** Some days it's good to bring your work home with you; but those days are fewer than most dads think ... and the number probably lessens more depending on the work itself. **

Car Chat

This week's objet d'eBay is a father-son special (or, I suppose daughters, although Things 1 and 2 are unlikely to be interested in the grease under the manicures aspect) for those fathers and sons having one last summer weekend and not that much to do.

It's time to re-build a car, taking over from the father and son who built what is described as a "once in a lifetime project" and then unassembled it. Hopefully, we an wish you happy motoring! But at least we can wish you happy puttering around the computer for a while and then the garage.

** Cars. Endless projects. Dads. It all just sort of flows together even as everyone knows pieces everywhere in the garage or on the driveweay and lots of cursing is how the story is likely to end. **

Coming Home

Fathers among sailors returning to families in northern California after months at sea were greeted by children they had not been in hospitals to see born and by t-shirts reading "My Dad Is My Hero" and "My Dad Rocks."

Coincidentally, new in the world of books is the revelation that Dick Cheney's dad was in the U.S. Navy during World War II and his return inspired the future VPOTUS to believe for many years that the U.S. Navy intermittently turned him into a bird. Indubitably, this explains so much ... but what?

** War for dads is always "war-torn." **