from Storyworth
My dad worked hard to earn money to support his family. For one period of time, he worked swing shifts – and so wasn’t around in the evenings. He eventually moved into management and had better hours.
My dad was the father of six children, so the free time he had was spread across all those children. Having a lot of children limits the degree to which you can invest time in each child. For example, I never played school or league sports – I’m assuming it was because carting six kids to six different sporting events each week was too much for my parents. I did play recreational sports with my siblings, and also with friends.
My dad was a nice guy but, as I mentioned above, his time with me was limited. My oldest sibling is nine years older than me, and we’re all on average two years apart – so I was supervised/guided/raised by my older siblings as much as by my parents.
My dad did teach us to fish. We would go to a local recreational club that he had access to because of work. I took swimming lessons there, and learned to fish. My dad also taught us cards. He was a very skilled card player, and was good at most table games. It was funny because, when my mom would leave the room (to go to the bathroom, or something) my dad would ‘stack the deck’. He would choose the cards in my mom’s hand – it would alway be something quite good to get her excited. But he would also choose his own cards, which would be better — and he would beat her. It was quite funny, because my mom couldn’t say ‘my cards are really good, is this real?’ – but she would always lose.
I did have a good connection with my dad because, when we moved to the Chicago area, I worked a few summers at the chemical distribution center that he ran. As such, I commuted with him, and even interacted with him some when on site.
It was interesting that, the first week of each of those summers, I would be exhausted – pretty much sleeping whenever I wasn’t working. This was because my job at my dad’s distribution center was manual labor – stacking 100 pound bags and rolling 500 pound drums. I’m not naturally that strong of a guy, so it took some time each summer to build muscle to do the job. I would pretty much double my calorie intake.
I eventually transitioned my summer job to writing software for an actuarial firm – which I did for one summer. That summer was when I weighed the most in my entire life – because I bumped my calorie intake out of habit, but wasn’t burning that many calories at my desk job.
At the end of the day, my dad was a good dad. He worked hard to keep us fed, and did spend time with us when he could.