Father’s Day Blues

Father’s Day Blues

I have three children who are all grown and out of the house at this point. This is the last Father’s Day when they know for sure I am in the neighborhood, as we have been planning to move to Sam Diego in about eight months. I’m sure we will be back regularly and I will probably even try to be back for Father’s Day. For one reason or another I have always held Mother’s Day very sacred, but not so much Father’s Day. It probably relates to my own upbringing with a strong dual-hat mother and a completely absent father. I grew up feeling that If Christmas and birthdays could go unnoticed by him, Father’s Day must not mean much to him. I have been a father for thirty-seven years now and some combination of my kids or their mothers have always made sure to demarcate the day.

My oldest son is busy trying to relocate and sell his house (several offers have fallen through so far). He is fixated on that transaction, which is understandable since he feels his and his wife’s lives are on hold until he can sell the house and orchestrate their move to the town in New Jersey they have selected. He is an attractions guy and merchant who loves the Jersey Shore and it’s boardwalks. My daughter is married with two beautiful little blonde girls of six and three years old. They live in Brooklyn in the Columbia Waterfront area. They are happy in their home (a duplex with a small yard), happy with their neighborhood and schools and generally settled into the Brooklyn way of life. My youngest is also living in Brooklyn with two of his college pals. They are moving apartments right now and fighting to a avert a bedbug problem with a used sofa they purchased (my wife warned him, but boys will be boys). He is taking that all seriously enough now.

The youngest is the artist of the three. He was the male lead in all of his middle school and high school musicals. He played drums in a band that played at notable NYC venues like The Bitter End, the Iguana and 54 Below. In college he was in an a cappella group and it was the center of his college life. He was a performing arts major and in the few years since college has worked mostly in attractions and entertainment related jobs. He is right now awaiting word of several jobs as TV assistant producer and a restaurant group online marketing guy. But the most interesting thing on his plate right now is that he has an audition next week for Blue Man Group, that group of performance artists that are all….blue….and use percussion and screwy antics to entertain audiences for the last thirty-two years. Blue Man Group is a global phenomenon and it would be a sweet gig and a great experience.

My son has been part of an improv group (Upright Citizens Brigade) where many great comedians got their start and, strangely enough, his drumming experience includes knowing the Blue Man Group drum finale. Even though the odds are apparently 1,200 to 1 against him (Blue Man is quite selective, I guess), we are figuring him as a better-than-even odds on favorite to get the gig. He is just the three degrees off top dead center kinda guy that Blue Man Group probably likes. We’ll see.

When my kids checked in with me and my wife this week (they usually know to schedule our dance card through her), they referenced something about seeing us on Sunday. Neither of us could recall any arrangements for Father’s Day, but they quickly produced the texts (have I mentioned I hate the trend of texting rather than calling). I don’t check texts very often and I have no idea how to index them and find past texts other than to thumb though all recent texts. No bother, we just assumed they were right and we were being forgetful. The plan was for us to meet at that playground of the Borough of Brooklyn, Coney Island. For years now my wife and I have driven our new cars out to Coney Island as our shake-down cruise for the new vehicle. We just go to Nathan’s Famous, have a bite and drive back into town. We rarely go otherwise, unless the kids want to go. My daughter with the grandgerms is very much into theme parks (Disney figures very prominently in her life) and Coney Island is the local Brooklyn theme park. My oldest is an attractions guy with an affinity for the boardwalk and its honky-tonk. And my youngest just goes along gleefully. So, Coney Island it is.

As a father who considers it his obligation to give my kids a raz whenever possible, I texted (very deceptive, right?) all of them except my youngest and told them to all wear blue clothing from head to toe in honor of my youngest’s upcoming Blue Man Group audition. The idea was not to say anything, but just to make the uniformity so obvious as to be…obvious. I think I was the only one who thought it was funny, but everyone tried their best to go along. I wore blue suede bucks, dark denims, a blue suede belt and a dark blue denim shirt. My oldest boy told me I was wearing a “Canadian Tuxedo”, which denim on denim is apparently called. My wife wore a blue striped French top, which defeated the purpose. My son wore a blue t-shirt with some derogatory statement on it. My daughter and family tried, but wore an assortment of blue designs. Basically, my plan fell short for lack of uniform color. Oh well. He got a chuckle out of it and knew that he had us all pulling for him.

We did the rounds of the rides and over-priced carnival games. As luck and one good basketball throw would have it, we won a four-foot high stuffed dog prize, which meant we had to tote it around with us for the afternoon. This was thirty dollars worth of basketballs for a three-dollar Chinese-made toy. The rides were the standard flume rides, rocking galley boat, an exciting steeple-chase coaster and a roller coaster (the three-year-old’s first, so a rather small one). The games were water gun races, ring tosses and the other usual suspects.

My kids all love theme parks and love Coney Island. I love my kids. Therefore, I love going out to Coney Island with my kids and their kids. I may have dressed in blue to celebrate my son’s upcoming audition, but there was nothing blue about this day or Father’s Day. The Universe has evened the score with me. I celebrated no Father’s Days with my own father, and I have never missed, nor will I ever miss, celebrating a Father’s Day with my kids. There is nothing to be blue about on a great day like this.