Dad taught me to be who I am
News Editor
Stephen Guilfoyle
When he was born –
• a man named Franklin Delano Roosevelt was
not yet president.
• the greatest epoch of the 20th Century,
World War II, was nine years in the future;
• a small man full of hatred was legally
forbidden to speak in Germany, but Adolf Hitler, not yet elected to anything,
was gaining influence and backing from powerful industrialists of that country;
• there was a 40-foot deep pit on the corner
of Fifth Avenue and 32nd Street, where, 18 months later, would rise the grandest
building ever built, the Empire State Building; and
• the New York Yankees were the greatest
baseball team ever, with a lineup that included Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig.
I’m a mean kid at times and sometimes I make
fun of my dad for being old.
But I look back on the world into which he
was born and I realize that he has indeed somehow, behind my back, really
gotten old.
I’ve never much written about my dad because
it’s more fun to make fun of Mom, because her sense of humor is always taxed.
I often wonder why someone like Dad, who
always jokes, ended up with Mom, who almost never does.
Dad and I go to movies. That’s what we do. We
talk football now.
I am whatever kind of man one might think I
am because of what I learn from him.
But I learn not from him telling me what he
wants to teach, but from my watching what he
does.
I picked the historical markers, because they
all have some significance to either his life or my
view of it.
Roosevelt, well, that’s my joke. “Geez, Dad,
you were born before Roosevelt was President.”
And Roosevelt was president for a long time.
The Empire State Building, well, I connect
that with Dad because he’s always seemed to
me a New Yorker. He’s settled down fine in
South Carolina these past 20 years, but it’s just not his natural place.
If someone were to put him in an alien zoo
and were to create his natural habitat, there would have to be canyons made of
concrete and glass and subways.
Hitler is not included because Dad was a
tyrant. Dad is a gentle man. But Dad took a little trip to Ireland when he was
a youth and got stuck there for years because of World War II.
He was raised over there by his aunt.
It shaped him to be a very different sort
from his brother and his sister.
I include the Yankees because, despite being
born in the Bronx, the Yankees were never his team.
But it is important to note that the greatest
team of all time was the Yankees of the ’30s.
When my father was born in 1930, those
Yankees were a segregated team, white men only need apply.
One of the most important lessons I learned
from my father, and about my father, came unspoken
but etched in deep.
My father’s favorite baseball team was dem
Bums, the Brooklyn Dodgers. His favorite player
was Jackie Robinson.
My father loved Jackie Robinson’s ability to
make a play out of nothing, score a run after getting
walked to first base.
It taught me all I ever needed to know about
race relations and how to judge people. You judge a man by his ability, not by
the color of his skin.
What a fabulous teacher he was. I gained a
core belief in justice and fair play and fundamental human equality, just because
Dad said, “Jackie Robinson was my favorite baseball player.”
So my Dad turned 70 Tuesday.
I wish there were someway to stop it, but I
can’t. Instead, I’ll remember again all that he’s taught me.
And I’ll feel humbled, because I’m not half
the man he is, but I’ll feel lucky that I know to keep trying to measure up
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