The Bagel Suit
My father was married seven times, as best I can count. He had three of us with my mother (marriages #1 and #2). He had two daughters with Shirley (#3). He had another daughter from a marriage in Northern California (#4). He had a son from an annulled marriage in Mexico City (#5). I can’t identify #6 or the possibility of children, but I know Bobbie, #7, with whom he had no children, but did have a step-son. That would be seven marriages with six women, and seven children spread out across the world.
Andre (birth first name, Silvano) was quite the charmer, but not such a committed father. My two sisters were not so impacted by his absence in our youth, but he left my oldest sister high and dry as an adult and let me down mightily the one time he met my oldest son and ignored him in front of me. I spent a fair bit of time getting to know my half-sisters (Shirley’s girls) and trying to fill in for whatever wounds of youth he inflicted and I could address. I even spent a dinner in NYC explaining to my Mexican half-brother (now a renowned TV soccer announcer in Mexico) that the fact that he never met him was not a reflection on him, but just the way the man rolled.
My reason for the post-mortem review of my father’s life as a parent is not to cry about my father’s failings or to get something off my chest. I was only four when he left and I had minimal involvement with him over my life and whatever inner demons existed were exorcized at his death when I arranged and paid for his funeral and gave the eulogy. I am merely setting up a contrast for my story of my path as a parent.
I have two children from my first marriage and one from my second. I am married a third time and have no children from that, but all three children get along famously with my wife. At this stage they are 37, 33 and 24 and all act like full siblings to each other (a source of great joy to me). I have worked very hard to be a good father to all three children and I think they and my ex-wives would not debate that presumption. But understand that from the ages of 7, 3 and 5, I was an absentee father to all three (although, my older two have lived with me for up to a year as young adults).
I have no good or bad memories of life with my father other than a few birthday promises made, but not kept over the years. I am happy to say that I think my children have many, many memories at all ages of life with Dad. They may be heavily oriented toward vacation memories as opposed to work-a-day life memories, but they certainly exist. I think of my oldest son, who shares my love of movies. His very prudent mother restricted him to one video rental at a time in the Blockbuster years. By contrast, when we would go to Utah for a week, he and I would go to the video store and rent 20 videos for the week, so that everyone would be happy. The video store told me, with my son standing there, that I was their best client even though I spent no more than thirty days a year in Utah. I’m sure that made an impression. So did making him use his driving permit to drive us home on the Southern State Parkway from the Hamptons. He peeled his fingers off the wheel after getting home safely after an hour in traffic.
My daughter liked a boy in high school who liked hockey. I got us invited to a corporate hospitality suite at Madison Square Garden for a Rangers game for the three of us. When she graduated from college, I threw a big bash for her and all her roommates and their families. The trips to Europe hopefully also made an impact. But I suspect going home early each day of skiing at Deer Valley (as was my habit) was her best memory since she just barely liked skiing.
My youngest son has lots of good memories, but I tend to think his best memories involve an ATV at our house in Ithaca. There was a mixed memory involving a treehouse in Quiogue that he thought of as his when I sold the house out from under him. I think that may have prompted the ATV purchase in Ithaca, in fact.
All three of my children take the greatest pleasure in memories and stories of Dad screwing up, doing stupid stuff or Dad taking an embarrassing prat fall. Stories of Dad yelling on the back roads of Umbria are classic. Videos of Dad crashing a drone on its first flight was good value. Watching Dad wreck his knee on a granite step (3 foot versus 9 inch drop) on the shores of Lake Geneva at the mouth of the Rhône River was more fun for my son than it was for me.
Back in the 1990’s I owned a house in Quiogue in the Hamptons (the house with the treehouse). The house was about a half mile to the town of Westhampton Beach. It was my habit on summer weekends to ride my bicycle into town and buy a New York Times, a bag of bagels and some crumb cake. These goodies would sit on the kitchen island and be the source of nourishment for the household for the morning (I was always the early-riser). We would then alternate between lying out at the pool, sitting under the porch gazebo or watching a movie in the den. It was a pleasant and casual routine. My attire was standard summer attire of shorts (or bathing suit) and t-shirt. Vacation houses end up being the repository of all the reject clothes one buys and doesn’t want to discard, so I’m sure I had a few very marginal summer outfits.
But here’s the thing, my kids are convinced that I wore a bagel suit when I went to the bakery. I suspect they are mixing the act of my fetching bagels and the NYC stereotype of people wearing track suits to run out for bagels. Hence, the family legend of Dad’s bagel suit. I have told them over and over that I never owned a track suit….I would remember. But they insist and always get a good laugh over it. I’m not sure why I resist it. It’s a good story and better than any story I or any of my siblings or half-siblings have of my father. I guess maybe I just need to adjust my memory and own the bagel suit story.