Close, Closer, Close Enough

Inarticulately considered and stated, one of every father's missions in life is to get close enough to his children so they can go away (but come back when he wants or needs them).

But how to do it?

Some dads choose to drag the kids into the family biz. Joe Spano, a failed oiler from Brooklyn, opened a restaurant — not letting his lack of knowledge of how to prepare food get in his way. Joe Jr. appears grateful for the lessons imparted and has even grown up to buy dad's eatery, he still appears somewhat chagrined by what he had to go through, reminding his dad that,"You sure knew how to draw the line between 'son' and 'employee.'"

While the Spanos have a chance to spend a bit of time away, the Kindleys, unfortunately, went into a joint venture that will be forcing them together ... in prison. Father George Hoyt and son Bryan Scott are in the court calendar for trial on six drug-related charges, five of them felonies. It was mostly location, location, location that got their venture in trouble: they decided to sell their cocaine within 1000 feet of a school. Police objected.

If you are going to do something harmful as a dad that will bring you closer to your child, it has to be some sort of noble damage. For example, doing double duty on physical loss, Herb Barber is trying to lose 80 pounds so that he can drop a few ounces — a kidney for his 16-year-old daughter. When all goes well, she will be able to get around, but he'll always be a part of her.

Also, having given a part of himself that keeps them together is Robert DeNiro Sr. The painter brought his son into the arts by passing along an "obsessive focus on perfection." For the father, it means resketching studies and painting over well developed oils; for the son it means gaining or losing enormous weights and digging so deep into characters in preparation for acting roles that he sometimes seemed to getting lost.

But he always wandered back — as we hope all children do — to the path of life and work his father set him upon.