Wisdom and Fun

My Dad, Ed Carter is seventy-seven today. He does not look it since for as long as I can remember he has looked the same. I think that is a benefit of losing your hair in twenties. I ran across a picture my Uncle Wilson had taken of my Dad talking to my sister and me while we were eating breakfast in our house in Wilton, CT. From the clues in the picture I guess that it was taken in about 1969 or 70, which would make me about nine years old and my Dad about thirty-two.

Here are the things in the picture that have been constants in my life. If we are having a special breakfast, which pancakes certainly were, it was my father who spoiled us by making them. Rather than make some for himself he would rather sit and talk with us while we ate. Probably my mother was allowed to sleep. He was waiting to feed others who would be coming along later and then only eat after he was done working. The one thing that has always been a constant in my life is if my father was not at work he was doing something with his kids.

Now what he was doing with us was not always of our choosing, like cutting the grass or raking leaves, but he rarely did anything that was purely for him. He never played golf or played cards or spent time with only adults, until we were adults. What is typical in this picture is it looks like he is interested in us. He always has been and we knew it.

It does not sound unusual nowadays since parents are so over involved in their children’s lives, but back in the 60’s and 70’s my Dad was different from many other Dads. He constantly was teaching us things that were important for us to know, maybe not that day, but for sometime in the future. So many sentences started with, “I need to tell you this before I die…” and the following might be very important or not so significant, like “check your oil every time you fill up your gas tank because if it gets too low you will burn up your engine,” or “always look people in the eye when you speak to them.”

The car thing felt unimportant to a ten year old. Today our cars give us a warning light if you forget to check your oil, but many people don’t know how to have a face-to-face conversation with an adult. My Dad had no idea how the world would change, but he was going to make sure that he told us all the important stuff before we were grown up.

It was not just him telling us things, but about being genuinely interested in what we thought. Of course as an adolescent it was horrible when you did not really want to tell your Dad what you were thinking about and he hated when you answered his inquiry with an “I don’t know.” The best part about my Dad is that he never gave up being interested in us and eventually when I outgrew the “I don’t know stage” he was still there not holding it against me.

I knew he was a special Dad because all my friends loved him and appreciated the attention he gave them. Fun has always been a big priority to him and making sure that everyone around him was having fun was something he worked at. If you asked him what he wanted to do for fun it was almost always turned around to be something fun for you. That unselfishness is his greatest hallmark and something that is truly rare.

On this birthday I count my lucky stars that he is my Dad and he is still here to tell me the important things, but mostly I love just having fun with him. When Carter says to me in an annoyed voice, “Is this going to turn into a lesson?” I know that I somehow don’t have the same touch my Dad had of imparting wisdom. I hope that she grows up and likes spending time with me as much as I still like spending time with my Dad. It is a really fine line you walk, as a parent to raise great, successful, happy children and still be fun. If there is anything I need to learn from my father before he goes, it’s that.