I'm going to take a step back from the political and public opinion realms and just write something about Father's Day. It's always been the most special day for me. From a young age I felt a bond with my father that many boys do not. I understood his anger at me when I did something wrong. Although I didn't like the reprucussions, I always knew that it was meant to help teach me about the ways of the world and the differences between right and wrong. My father worked alot and his work was hard. He was often tired when he came home and it showed. My brother and I always got attention from him despite the bags under his eyes and aches in his muscles. He helped with homework, he coached our baseball teams, he took us to other sporting events and he did it all without complaint. On weekends he would spend much of his time building something, landscaping or playing Mr. Fix it around the house at my mothers request. In reality my father has performed manual labor 7 days a week for as long as I've been alive (that's almost 28 years to this date). My father was never a drinker, the occaisonal party imbiber but never an alcoholic or drunk. He didn't partake in drugs (at least after the 60's/70's that I was ever aware of but he did swear like a sailor and was known to have a temper. Our family enjoyed a couple weeks of vacation every year thanks entirely to my dads hard work and sacrifices. There's no way he enjoyed working outside on roofs or digging in dirt pits in the 90+ degree heat of the summers, sweating and aching and burning, or outside in the cold windwhipped skeleton of a building not yet with standing walls in below freezing conditions. He gave us all he had to give and more and I'm not sure we really ever appreciated it. Not only did we have our 2 weeks of vacation at the beaches anywhere from Rehobeth to Cape Hatteras, but on weekends he would take us to historical battlefields. It was these times that I saw a father in his completeness. His time became our time. Most of the year he would sacrifice for my brother and I but during those times when he asked without asking that we sacrifice for him we saw the things that made him tick. We saw a father who valued history. One who valued ideals and values over "things". My father was more interested in seeing, smelling, hearing and learning about the past than he was about souveneirs or collecting. He was content to walk the fields of history, reading the plaques and imaging the scenes of our past. It was in THESE moments that my brother and I saw a man at peace with all. Even with my brother and I antsy and bouncing off walls, my mother whining and dragging along my father was able to have his moments of peace. I lost sight of this respect and turned my back on the man who gave me more than he thought he could or did. I've taken him for granted as a young adult and only now, looking back, and being a father myself, can I understand that. People who only hear my jaded versions of stories, or who were not present to look objectively at my life from birth cannot appreciate the father I had. They can't understand why my father is held in such great esteem based on the current threads of our strained relationship. The truth is, they don't need to understand any of it. They don't need to understand why I hope that I can be even half the father he has been and still is to me. Happy Father's Day Pop.