Growing Out of the Shadows

It doesn't matter the shadow a father casts, his kids are challenged to emerge from it.

Part of the entertainment of life is seeing how they do it. So what will the son of the world's tallest* man do to own his life. (The asterisk is because the world's "other tallest man" won't get measured.) His father says he should play basketball.

But that seems too easy an answer and one that will carry undue pressures. Not necessarily the pressures carried by Patrick Ewing Jr., who didn't start for the college his father attended and is unlikely to do so on the professional team for which his dad "starred." (In a reverse lay-up that "star" comes with an asterisk as he never won a championship on the team, preferring the fade away jump shots that often went in to the going-to-the-hoop drives and dunks that inspire a team.)

No doubt it is easier if people can't see you physically and make the connection between the ran son. Although that doesn't mean there isn't nearly inexplicable pressures when Giles Martin takes on the adapting the music of the Beatles, a group that made famous his music producer father, George — who would only be highly esteemed and accomplished without them.

And it certainly shouldn't be taken to imply that it is most easy to escape your father's shadow when he can't be found. The life of Randy Tran, an Amerasian denied citizenship but given residency in America as recognition that his serviceman father did more during the Vietnam war than just fight.

Each shadow is cast slightly differently; each emergence is unique. But it always has to happen so the best advice is dads be aware and everyone else, enjoy the entertainment.