The local dad

In instant family, first do no harm

Ihave a friend whose husband got deployed to Afghanistan about seven or eight years ago. I helped her out with guy stuff occasionally during this time. I sent her to my mechanic, did a little legal work for her, and just mainly listened to her from time to time. Stuff like that. She jokingly referred to me as her “local husband.” Albeit one with no expectation of the privileges of consortium, I hasten to add.

About two years ago I stumbled into not only matrimony but an instant family as well. My wife has two kids. Young adults, really. Sarah is 22. Joe is 20. I don’t much like the word “stepfather.” It sounds too much like something out of the Brothers Grimm. Besides, the kids already have a father who lives out of state, and he is a fine gentleman at that.

So call me, in my friend’s parlance, the “local dad.”

My duties as the local dad, such as they are, are mostly ceremonial. Think Prince of Wales without the twit factor. I view my job around my house about the same as I do my duties with my law students and with the knuckleheads at Catholic High. I strive to “do no harm.” That’s a low bar, but it is nonetheless a bar. Noted relationship expert Woody Allen once said that half the trick to being a dad is showing up on time. I have always assumed that this applies with equal force to a mere “local dad” such as myself. I show up on time.

I don’t really consider what I do to be “parenting.” Step or otherwise. Like I said, they are young adults. And they are great people, the final product of their competent raising.

However, I do have my discrete uses. I got Joe a camera for his photography class. I assume he has sold it by now. I got Sarah an FBI agent. Which was not remotely as interesting as it sounds.

I accept the fact that I am occasionally banned from areas of the house when Melissa or Sarah are on a video conference. In fact, Sarah sometimes holds forth in Arabic to somebody somewhere on a distant shore. With my luck, these calls are being monitored and the door is about to be kicked in.

I take out the trash, carry in groceries, wash dishes and help pay the bills. I keep milk in the fridge and gin in the freezer. I cook stuff on the grill. I fiddle with the Wi-Fi when it goes out. And I, for the most part, keep my mouth shut. It is just as well, as it is rare that anybody around here solicits my opinion about anything.

But why should they? Sarah is an honors graduate and a Fulbright Scholar who is fluent in Arabic. Joe is on the Dean’s List at Hendrix, majoring in real subjects. Unlike his hippy-dippy local dad who did music and philosophy when he was taking up space there at the Little Utopia years ago. And Melissa, not being content with two master’s degrees, is working on her doctorate.

I am, by far, the stupidest and the most shiftless person in my house.

No, this little household rises toward convergence without my active intervention for the most part. Then again, I have no particular need to be a fount of wisdom. That’s too much pressure. And the folks I live with obviously have no need of one either.

So most evenings I typically may be found on the porch in my rocker with a glass of amber liquid, reading a book on my iPad. Pretty exciting. I may never be named local dad of the year. Most of the time I don’t think I’m much good at this. But I have tried to do no harm and I show up on time. And I like to think that my instant family knows that I am always here for them.

Perhaps that is sufficient.

Joe is spending the summer away on an internship. Melissa reports that he claims to have sunk a 40-foot putt for a birdie the other day. “Maybe he’ll be a golfer when he gets back.”

Maybe. He’s already got the lying part down.

I hope we can get in a round or two when he gets back. I never got to play golf with my own father because Buck could not abide the notion of a left-handed golfer. That, and he was lost and gone forever by the time I took up the damn game in my 40s. So it would make me happy to play golf with the only son this local dad will ever have.

And perhaps from a perch in that great somewhere, Buck will call out to the cloud of witnesses therein assembled doing whatever the departed do for an eternity saying, “Hey! Look down there. That’s my oldest boy and his boy. How about that?”

Playing golf together. Local dad and son.