Long Gone with the Wind

Do good things, be at most a bit player in your kids' lives. Such is the cruel twist of fate for most dads, at lest as exemplified with this week's objet d'eBay, a Gerald O'Hara figurine.

O'Hara, of course, is the Irish-dandy turned confederate plantation owner of the little read (by dads) or rarely seen (by dads) chick-lit/pic masterpiece, "Gone with the Wind" by Margaret Mitchell. And he is also the charming gent responsible for the sunnier, less strident side of his well-remembered daughter Scarlett, who inherits the Tara plantation following his death-fall from the back of a horse.

Note to dad: you may start off as the king on the back of a horse, but, eventually, you'll get knocked off ...



In any case, the doll serves as a reminder of the average father's fate, while also raising the question of how and where little girls form their images of what dads do ... and the extent that their fathers should be worried.