Well, maybe not so little these days.

Walter Lee McCrarey, aka Dad

Today is the day we celebrate Father’s Day in the USA.  All that remains of my father are the memories.  To be bluntly honest about it, I spent my childhood mostly in fear of my dad.  He had a hot temper and was quick with the hand or belt should I stray from the path of good behavior.  In later years we argued loudly about politics and rarely saw eye-to-eye on anything.

But he was a good man.  Smart, hardworking, and extremely talented in so many ways.  He could do just about anything he set his mind on–woodworking was a special gift of his (sadly, that gene skipped a generation).  He also loved gardening, camping, the sea, poetry–and in his own unique way–his children.

It’s strange the things that come to mind unbidden.  The other day I recalled how my father served as my personal seatbelt back in those long ago days before vehicles were so equipped.  During a hard brake, his arm would reach out to keep me from sliding off the seat and into the cold hard steel of the unpadded dashboard.  It looked something like this:

I also remember he’d on occasion sing me a song as we drove along.  I remember the lyrics as going something like:

Papa writes to Johnny,                                                                                                         but Johnny can’t come home                                                                                               No Johnny can’t home                                                                                                         Papa writes to Johnny                                                                                                          but Johnny can’t come home                                                                                         ‘Cause he’s been on the chain gang too long

Oddly enough, I have never in my life actually heard this song performed.  Until today when I found it on YouTube.  Either my dad got the lyrics wrong or I’m thinking of a different tune, but the song was hauntingly beautiful regardless.  And somehow fitting for the occasion of this fatherless father’s day.