In observance of Father’s Day, I’m going to share an excerpt from my book. It is the best tribute I came summon for my father.
From Chapter 4: Generosity—
My father—God rest his soul—was the best storyteller I’ve ever known.
His favorite subject was an old friend named Rob. From a distance, Rob seemed pretty unexceptional—dark hair, glasses, medium height, medium build; he worked as an engineer, had two children, and lived in the suburbs. But up close you could see a wild gleam in his eye and a hard chin. Rob’s defining feature was his love for fighting. The man had a reputation.
My father would tell the stories of Rob mostly in the present tense. For kicks on a Saturday night he drives alone to a bar in a rough part of Minneapolis and asks the bartender where he can get some crack. The bartender nods toward the door leading to the back alley. Rob goes to the alley alone and in a few minutes is joined by a couple dubious-looking fellows. They discuss price and quantity and come to an agreement. But just as they’re about to finalize the deal, Rob shakes his head. He says he’s changed his mind and doesn’t want any crack after all!
At this point in the story my father could hardly contain his delight, his pure appreciation for whatever would compel a man to seek this kind of trouble. Normally a bard should refrain from laughing at his own stories, but my father’s laughter was high-spirited and contagious. It was one of the best parts of the experience.
So this is Rob’s plan from the start. All he wants is to provoke the dealer into taking a swing—because apparently Rob has scruples about who starts the fight. Once he’s been swung at, Rob proceeds to pummel the dealer and his goon in the back alley behind this bar, and afterwards calls it a night and drives back home to his family in the suburbs.
I don’t think Rob had any sort of vigilante-aspirations that made him want to bust up dealers; he just liked fighting and found them to be the most convenient partners.
My father wove this tale into a wild anthology of Rob’s exploits, which I cannot recreate or do justice to. In one episode, Rob and a buddy fly to St Louis for game three of the World Series and cheer obnoxiously loud for the Twins in a hostile stadium. This is more than enough to tempt some Cardinals fans into a mini-brawl after the game. In another, Rob and my father go golfing, and they don’t make it to the first tee before my father has to intervene between Rob and a guy whose wife Rob is hitting on. “My goodness, you’re beautiful,” he says to the lady, for no other reason than to get a rise out of her husband. In another, Rob goes back to his favorite Saturday hobby. But this time the dealer is an undercover cop. He is no match for Rob, but the “flying squad” he radioes certainly is. Flying squad—my father loved this term and pronounced those words as expansively as possible to conjure the image of a helicopter full of pissed off commando-cops coming after his friend. Soon the flying squad is there and Rob is in deep. He doesn’t get any jail time but does visit the hospital for a stay after they get done with him.
What made my old man so good at telling these stories was his enjoyment of them, his fascination with his subject, his gratitude for having known such a colorful character. He combined the brutal implications with an old-school humor that Hallmark Family Channel moralists certainly wouldn’t approve of.
And the stories were more than just entertainment. They drove deeper in unspoken and tragic ways. Ages ago, Rob’s great deeds would have made him a local legend; generations would have remembered him. But our times have little use for this rowdiness which might be channeled into something like heroism. Instead we pump boys like Rob full of medication so that they’ll behave more like the good little girls. I grasped this commentary without needing it explained. And just as Rob was rendered obsolete, so was my father. Who needs bards when you’ve got network sitcoms and studio movies? Our case was all the more poignant because my father was an enthusiast for the screen and gave over so much of our family’s life to it—even though his offerings were so much better and weren’t interrupted by advertisements for life insurance and light beer.
When he told me the stories of the last generation of boys who weren’t zombified with pills, I couldn’t get enough. There was something intensely real about them.
My father’s example tells a lot about the essence of generosity: gratefully receiving God’s gifts—the blessings and talents bestowed upon us—and putting them to good use, which means giving back to him and to others. This virtue bears real fruits. My father’s stories made me love him more, and he loved me more because I understood. Rob, who died around the same time as my father, lives on fondly in the memory because of his bard and now has at least one more person to pray for his soul. It’s hard to imagine a more far-reaching gift than that. And I was made to appreciate forms of liveliness which had no place in the public school curriculum and pop culture schlock. Seeds were planted in my mind which are still sprouting now, as I write this. The gift keeps on giving.
Another subtle gift of a great bard is the unmistakable call to live bravely. He makes you want to become the kind of man who has a real story and who deserves a skilled teller to share it. Anyone who breezily dismisses this as “pride” or “vainglory” has likely never heard a true bard and never gotten swept away in the rush.
So generosity isn’t just a matter of writing a check or logging a few hours of community service. Any kind of commitment to excellence that can be shared with others is inherently generous. This is why the chivalrous man must develop his talents, so that he has something to give.
That last line is rich. Each man has valuable things to share that could bless others.