Reds World Series game when Carlton Fisk hit his famous home run. Now, I saw Dad as a hardworking man who enjoyed a highball after a hard day’s work, taught me the proper follow-through for bowling, and let me stay up to watch that Red Sox vs. “He’d leave us all roaring,” Hank told me. A couple of months ago, I had the pleasure of talking with Hank Phillips, who said, “Your father was one of the funniest guys I ever knew.” They bowled together on Thursday nights back when our Price Chopper was the Bowl-a-Rama. I’m gratified by the number of people in and around Cooperstown who still remember him. Naturally, I would love to have had more time with my Dad, but that cigarette habit he picked up overseas in World War II and his life bent over barrels of dry cleaning chemicals got the better of him not long after I turned 14 years old. He would laugh and say, “Jane, don’t worry about it.” “John, not this road!” my mother would say, every time. When he was feeling particularly mischievous, he’d turn right onto what I think GoogleMaps now defines as Sibley Gulf Road. But I can still remember the little gleam in Dad’s eye as he’d occasionally steer the car out of Cooperstown toward Bowerstown: that meant a nostalgic pass across Cornish Hill where he would point out the location of the house where he and his siblings grew up. Cheap entertainment and a chance to get out of the house. Like this one: he and Mom would pack into the Country Squire however many Potrikus children were in the house at the time and we’d take a Sunday drive. I learned a few things from my own Dad’s bag of tricks. Your wife goes through all the hard work of pregnancy and labor and nurturing and we instead turn into pun-wielding groan generators who can make the entire car erupt in unison and stretch the word ‘dad’ into several syllables while we think we’re the funniest dudes on the planet. And while I’m not big on brands or barbequing, I plead guilty to torturing my family with that daddest of dad things, the Dad Joke.ĭad Jokes are an important chapter in the Unwritten Book of Dad Rules. I don’t think we care, provided it fits or is a t-shirt with a band or slogan we can comfortably endorse. I’m not so sure that the general population of dads carries a torch for a particular brand. Angie chuckled and asked, “How many dads out there have a ‘favorite brand’?” “Find all of your dad’s favorite brands!” they promised as various pictures of things like pants and watches flew by on the screen. My wife and I were watching television over the weekend, and a commercial came on advertising a big Father’s Day sale at a department store. Hello to all my fellow dads, and a Happy Father’s Day to you.Īdvertising tropes these days tend to portray dads as bumbling oafs who make questionable fashion choices, fumble with modern technology, snore, and barbeque a lot. Here, Dad has just recommended that I play the funeral march all the way up Main Street, which is a bona fide Dad recommendation indeed. Looks like spring of 1975-ish, and the Cooperstown Little League Parade is about to kick off with a Very Serious Ted ready to lead the way.
Here’s the only picture that I can find of me with my Dad, John Potrikus.