It didn’t matter if it was a scrape or a splinter being extracted, somehow it always ended up with something akin to Windex being applied. Later in life, the ‘suck it up‘ hardship lessons gained deeper appreciation, Fatherhood training.
Today we recognize men, Fathers who have the most consequential role. The rock, the foundation, the cornerstone.
From the very moment of conception, a father’s active and loving presence helps to determine the child. The quality of that child’s life is then tied to a man’s fortitude, a commitment to love, nurture and develop his children.
Many of us are fortunate to have experienced loving fathers; even when we may not have defined the expression of love in the moment. Often, we do not realize the extent of a father’s love and sacrifice until we ourselves become parents.
“A good and loving father is a foundation of strength and love on which a family is established, and it supports the growth of the family, and of the people who belong to the family. As a man gives of his strength, his love, his guidance, his wisdom, he builds something special and unique, something unrivaled in the world. He creates in his children the unlimited potential to go out into the world and thrive, to change that world, hopefully for the better. And most importantly of all, he creates the opportunity for his children to be strong enough to nurture and love a family of their own.”
Today we honor the men who gave us our lives and gave us their hearts. Happy Father’s Day. May you spend the day enjoying the fruits of your labors with those you love, and those who love you best.” ~ Menagerie, ’12
Windex was never an antibiotic, and each time I see the bottle in the closet I think about what it represents in that context. Weakness is not one of the options available. ~Sundance
Happy Father’s Day!
Ha! “‘suck it up‘”, the foundation to “Fatherhood training”. Agreed. BTW, poignant photo of father/son. Thanks, Sundance. I am glad you had a good experience with your father.
Love the avatar. I have that print too. “There were a lotta things you didn’t tell me when I signed on to this outfit.”
My dad was big on “There, there, it’ll feel better when it stops hurtin.”
Love it! Kids are all grown. Youngest Grand is a Junior in HS. Maybe I will be able to use it on the Great Grands. None on the way yet! Sigh!
Ha, we’ve got three great grand kids so far, time flies fast. The role of Dad is life long and teaching by example never ends, but is crucial to complete the role successfully..
My Dad said that, too!
My Dad had me drink Windex…
It stopped me from streaking during high school football games 🙂
The naked truth?
<My Dad had me drink Windex>
That way he could more clearly see a window into your soul.
Mine told me he could stomp on my big toe and it would fix the current pain I was feeling!
Ha ha ha .. my father, without fail, “Go take Milk of Magnesia. Guaranteed it’ll clean you out”. 🙂
Years later, the tiny 2 years old favorite grand-daughter would chortle it out before he could even begun to say it!
When I was growing up in the 50s, Father Knows Best was a top-rated TV show that had been defining the ideal American family since its radio beginnings in the 40s. It told us the mother was the heart of the family, the father was the head…and children needed both as they searched for their rightful place in society.
Only in the 60s did this view of what a family should be come under attack, from the counter-culture who traded in a father’s responsibilities for free love and neo-feminism who told us breaking a glass ceiling was more important than having a roof over our heads. Divorce rates rose, birth rates dropped and families who’d done just fine on one bread-winner now needed both parents working outside the home to survive!
And what did that get us? Are we happier as a result?
Honoring fathers who take their responsibilities to their families seriously is more important now than ever it was because it teaches irresponsible boys to be responsible men!
So Happy Father’s Day, America…and remember father really does know best!
Quick…. other then Roseanne, name a show with a white family in it , with both a mother
and father. The only other one I can think of is Family Ties with Michael J. Fox. That one
doesn’t count, because it was pushing the narrative to the limit. Dad ran a PBS station, as
I recall. Any other show, the dad or mom was widowed. No two parent nuclear families
allowed, comrade!
You put your finger on the problem, comrade!
Everybody loves Raymond, home improvement, the middle. Likely others I’m forgetting.
I love Raymond but his character wasn’t the brightest bulb, (like when he taped over his wedding video with a football game), so I don’t think he counts as a male role model for boys to look up to!
Leave it to Beaver!
That unique theme song is whistling in my head while reading the article and the comments.
Leave it to Beaver.
Widower dad in My 3 Sons , and then ‘Aint’ Bee with Andy on Andy Griffith show.
Mayberry reminds me so much of the small hometown where I grew up back in the ‘50s and ‘60s. Floyd the barber, Otis the town drunk, Barney Fife, Aunt Bee and even Ernest T. Bass remind me of some of the folks in my hometown.
Yep. 540 folks at Christmas and Easter.
I once booked my 90 year-old dad a haircut at a Floyd’s barber shop, mistakenly taking the name for a nostalgic Mayberry experience.
Big mistake lol!
The shop was more like a Pink Floyd experience with black light posters, purple spiked hair and piercings. He did get a big kick out of it and they graciously cut his hair the old-fashioned way.
Memories. Miss ya dad.
Anybody remember Roweeeena!
All those series were from the 50s and 60s, so you’re proving my point!
The Waltons. Loved that show.
Another great one!
“Gee, Wally!”
<Leave it to Beaver.>
Does anyone remember the episode when Ward Cleaver scolded his son…
And the next morning, June Cleaver said to her husband:
‘You were a little rough on the Beaver last night’ 🙂
remember it? I wrote it!
Good times!
<You were a little rough on the Beaver last night>
Ward should have responded, “Well, June, sometimes you have to show the Beaver some tough love.”
Not funny…I’m tired of hearing that childish remark…
Relax
Chill out.
It was very funny. Get a grip.
I was always excited to see the Beaver, especially as he grew older and began shaving. The things that came out of those lips kind of took you aback, but you never forgot.
My Favorite
Classic!
<
Home Improvement.
There are many old ones. Haven’t a clue to recent because I just don’t watch anything with bad laugh tracks.
Going back you have All in the Family, Leave it to Beaver, Happy days, Brady Bunch, Rosanne, Married with Children, and almost everything in the 60’s.
You’re making my point because the more recent shows from the 70s onward depict fathers as idiots, bigots or just plain blah, like Ritchie’s dad! Where are the Dads boys can look up to and emulate?
That’s all part of the Hollywood indoctrination by the commies. I don’t watch any of the liberal woke garbage that is being pushed on us today. None of it. It’s all demeaning and disgusting.
The Waltons.
However the network Hated it.
little house on the prairie?
All in the Family
My daddy loved All in the Family. I think he probably identified with Archie Bunker. He didn’t like Meathead one bit.
All in the Family
Married With Children
The Munsters
The Addam’s Family
Perhaps the most level-headed dad on TV was Herman Munster, but I’m not sure if he qualified as white. I guess it depended on whether or not your family owned a color TV back then!
Tool Time, Last Man Standing
I love that show. It doesn’t matter the decade, the life lessons still hold true.
We need a remake of that show. Somebody call Netflix and tell them to do that instead of making movies of prepubescent girls grabbing their crotches while they dance like strippers!
Obammy’s netflix? Good luck with that!
They also took God, the Bible, 10 Commandments and prayer out of schools.
Thank goodness some are bringing it back.
Thank you, SD, for a wonderful and uplifting commentary.
Happy Father’s Day to all dads! May God bless you for the love and positive influence you have provided to His children throughout their lives.
I married in 1984, had a son born in 1986, lost my job, had a traumatic injury and was divorced in 1988. Homeless for a year. I never left my son. I followed him thru school, played the hero several times. We now work in the same building I got him the job and he won’t even talk to me. I never had a Fathers day. This crap all means nothing to me. I figure the State took my Fatherhood from me.
God bless you, sir. If you have not, please become a mentor to a young person. Show someone how to check their oil or unclog a drain. Everyone needs to know righty-tighty. Lifting you in prayer, dad.
I cannot exactly relate but my older is my best friend and my younger cut me out of her life 20 yrs ago.
I’m the same guy. What changed?
what changed?
…times…
Situation, you did your best. Some people just turned that way they do not appreciate anything.
Live your best life
“This crap all means nothing to me. I figure the State took my Fatherhood from me.”
Could be part of your problem. Always look inward, seriously, honestly question your life, and find someone you can look up to. It will translate to how your son perceives you..
If I could say F you here I would. You have no idea how I have tried or the circumstance of giving to someone that does not give a damn about you. Have you ever lived in a tent while paying child support? maybe that would humble you.
I get it, I know what you’ve gone through.
You are correct that the state and the courts have played a huge part in destroying the family unit and parents for that matter.
It’s so bad and so real that we’re working very hard to abolish the Family Court here in NH because there are too many stories like your own, so trust me when I say I get it.
I give you credit for having done right in supporting your own child, you sacrificed and you did it right by continuing to pay and do your best. Yes, it does sound as though you’ve been screwed over, but cut yourself a break, you can sleep at night knowing you did what you could- you did NOT walk away as so many do.
Father’s Day is a hard day for many of us, a lot of us have been put through the meatgrinder of life and this isn’t a pleasant day at all, instead it’s a reminder of all that you never had and often through no fault of your own.
I hope as your son ages he feels differently, age does this sometimes.. sometimes when kids become fathers themselves they get it and make amends with their own fathers. I hope for this for you.
Easy troop. Why would you wish everyone else the misery you’ve had? Not one single person here wishes or wished that on you. Spoiling their day due to your history feels like self-centered leftists (entitled all) act every day.
Again, your response may be part of your problem. You may think you’re best dad in the world but think about why your son doesn’t see that. Maybe your son gets the same response I just got and is doing what I will now. Bye.
My worthless POS father was kicked out of our home when I was 5 for stealing my Mom’s tips to gamble. I envy and I mean truly envy every man that had the opportunity to have had his dad in the home with him. I hope you love him to death and carry on in your life being the best son a man could want.
You are a good father and you are recognized and celebrated as such by all of us, if that means anything to you.
Mercurochrome, although that was mom, lol. God Bless the dads. Mine taught me how to hunt, fish, and forage.
Just rub some dirt on it, you’ll be fine. A classic dad response before the trip to see mom! LOL
Grandsons are two and four, that’s exactly what I tell them. Keep a roll of duct tape handy just in case.
Blow on it hard, three times!
I used to get ingrown toenails in my big toe when I was a kid. My Dad would get out his pocket knife and heat the blade over the gas stove a bit to “sterilize” it. Then hold me down and cut it out. I didn’t complain about them after that surgery. I just bit the bullet and let them grow out. Miss you every day, Dad.
Had a little wart on your finger? Compound W was expensive. Bleach and a razor blade took care of it.
So it wasn’t just something from My Big, Fat, Greek Wedding?
Haha, I guess not!
The Good LORD has allowed me to live long enough to begin to comprehend (at least) some of the horrors and terrors I brought down upon those who loved me in the days of misspent youth. I am a slow learner, but I’m learning better now, day by day, the blessings of God’s Hope in the miracle of repentance. Happy Father’s Day to every good man who sticks with it no matter what. I wish I’d known better a long time ago. The evil I did back then was NOT my dad’s fault. It was all mine in rebellion, apostasy, self-indulgence, you-name-it. Better late than never, eh?
All the very best to conscientious, loving Dads whose sons and daughters will love them forever.
Yours truly,
Maxx
‘Wish I didn’t know now what I didn’t know then’
I just listened to that song this week. Good song for reflecting.
My husband waits all day for his kids to call. They never do..I tried to fix it but it was too late..he never bonded with his kids. They turned out good, thank God.
Bless you Sundance for acknowledging this most important facet of society; the good father is modeled on Our Father who art in Heaven.
Happy Father’s Day to all our patriotic fathers!
Speaking of Dads,….. I read a post from one that recalled listening to his three year old son saying his prayers before bed, saying:
“Our Father, who’s art is in heaven, Harold be thy name!” Gotta love 3yos.
Great post! Happy Father’s Day to SD and all treeper dads!!!
Thanks Sundance, my father was the best, he was always there for me, thanks dad I Love you
“A pattern stands out in fatherless households, with 80% of juveniles in detention centers having father absence. By age 18, fatherless boys face sharp mental health and behavior gaps, including 4x higher odds of substance abuse and 4x higher odds of violent-crime arrests. This post connects that school-to-street divide with how missing paternal involvement can shape depression, anxiety, self-harm, PTSD, poverty, and academic burnout for both boys and girls.”
Source: https://worldmetrics.org/fatherless-children-statistics/
Happy Father’s Day, Gentlemen!
“You’re a chip off the old block
Why does it come as such a shock
That every road up which you rock
Your dad already did”
Thank you for this. My father was the salt of the earth. I really miss him. He died in 2015 at a ripe old age.
My Dad had a fierce determination….a patriot one among many. So I honor him, not because he was an extraordinary officer when that was really needed the most. (Vietnam, two tours, 2 silver stars, one purple heart). Not because of his medals. He never boasted about any of that. He was just his best self. A very powerful forceful and deliberate man.
I was maybe 5 years old. My Dad had just returned on leave between two combat tours. He spent of course nearly the entire week with his Wife, my mother while we were with maw maw and paw paw at the fishing camp…a favorite summer time getaway on Lake Bundicks.
After that first week, we finally got to see Dad after a long time. For me, it would be the first time I had in my memory actually seen and been with my father. He was at war. I had no idea what that meant, but I was reminded he was making American safe, doing his duty, and he would come home and we would all be together. So here he is, rolling up into the camp. whiskers…swim trunks way too tight for his physique. Mom holding his hand with the biggest smile I’ve ever seen on a woman. PRIDE.
I didn’t know how to react to be honest. This is my Dad. My first time. Many stories, but here he is. And I am too young to understand nearly anything.
My pawpaw tells his son….this one doesn’t know how to ride a bike and he doesn’t know how to swim.
My Dad leans over and says: “is that so? do you want to learn today”?
yes….I am all excited. I do …Dad.
He smiled.
Go get on your bike and I’ll hold you.
He holds me and then he picks me up and throws me in the lake.
I learned three things that day.
How to ride a bike
How to Swim
and how to dive for a bike.
It’s one of my favorite memories, really my first of my father. He wasn’t trying to hurt me. He needed to make sure I understood he was in control and he was never going to let me be hurt. He wanted to make sure that I also understood that in order to be a full grown man, you don’t take it easy. You do things other people think are just crazy and unnecessary. It’s been with me for a long time.
I did do the same kind of things with my Daughter. She is fearless…an incredible athlete who doesn’t have quit. Her mother of course never signed off on my “methods”…but there it is and it stands the test. She is 100 percent authentic and legit and others are inspired my her Ambition and relentless attitude toward getting things done.
That is the story of my Dad. He tells a similar story of his own father. It’s generational. A father forces upon a child those challenges to prepare them for the challenges of being alive really means.
This one is for you Dad. May God continue to Bless you and your family.
God Bless America
God Bless America
Lake Bundick in Beauregard Parish, LA??
yes. just up from dry creek.
for a very long time, that lake was my retreat and my training ground. I still have some trophy bass on the wall from that lake. What I consider trophy weight. 10 pounds or more. Very productive. I’ve seen it since and it’s really fallen on hard times. No serious water management. But every now and then I think about the good times and if it will still produce big fish. the nighttime fishing with kerosene Coleman lanterns and filling up two sometimes three Coleman ice chests full of sac-a-lait. Feeding everyone the best fish fry in the camp area for days. Such great memories. Building own own plywood skim board and getting sling shot behind a john boat and a 7 horse Johnson.
memories of a time so long ago, yet I can remember the colors, the voices, the stories and the time when we had to go up and find our refrigerator floating out of the cabin because of a great floor. And it still worked for 10 more years after we dried it out. rods that were built by hand using “rare” bamboo grown in the area…probably by mistake.
nobody builds “A” frame cabins anymore. But so simple and easy to build with just two people. And that is just how it was done.
sorry…I kind of got lost there thinking about all of it.
I do that sometimes. I start writing to make a record of things…I’ll copy and paste this one to my journal. My Daughter will find it amusing some day.
God Bless America
I have not had productive fishing in the lake seems to be better in the creek, I have lived localish to the lake for 4 years. It does seem to be a neat place to grow up, but I had my boyhood haunts in Arkansas.
I live nearby for now. I would like to meet you if you are in the area still. Will ask adrem to provide you my email if you still live in SWLA.
Another great story of an amazing country two parent families and a Loving God Thank You
(I have a daughter.)
Because I was such a horrible kid / young man, and there were 4 younger sisters to be raised, my father had to scope down his advice:
1. Never gamble more than you can afford to lose.
2. Never open with less than a pair of kings.
3. Never loan money at the poker table. You will be gambling against your own money.
4. Never mess around with a married woman. You get sent home in a pine box.
5. Don’t get married if you aren’t in love.
6. Carry a gun and you’re going to get shot.
7. Don’t put any identifying marks on your body.
8. Don’t quit your job without having another one.
As a Father of three boys…who are all now grown, successful and employed and in their 30’s…
Happy Fathers Day to all…
Disappointing to see the lack of acknowledgement from the media in broadcast and print of the importance of a male figure in the household…
Let’s Thank LBJ for his “Great Society”…paying out of wedlock Mothers for having children and also thank the internal Black family structure for allowing this to happen with no repercussions…oh sure the mother gets paid, but its an accepted practice in the black community for the “Father” to hit and run…disgusting…and i fault black churches and high profile athletes to allow this to happen….
Also at fault is the Media for not addressing this problem head on…ignoring Father’s day celebrations because there are no Fathers in the black community…of which over 1/2 will end up in the arms of the law per FBI stats…
Liberalism failure…of which there are zero successes…
A male figure is important for guidance and discipline in the household…if my sons stepped out of line they would be introduced to Mr. Hairbrush and there would be not any more of that problem. Sure libs and lefties say corporal punishment is cruel and inhumane…but to hell with them and their BS narrative…I’m their Father and what i say goes in the household…
That’s the problem today…no guidance, discipline, leadership in many households…Fathers just take the time to love your kids but there has to be guidance…take the time…use your head and common sense to do what’s right..
And I get emails from retailers asking if I want to opt out of emails on Mother’s or Father’s Day? What is happening to this world?
We have had some bad presidents but I think LBJ was the worst. He was a real scoundrel and POS.
Happy Father’s Day blessings for Every father at Treehouse.
To W. D. Kirk:
In Mayberry, only Otis (the drunk) was married. Andy, Aunt Bee, Barney, Gomer, Goober, Floyd,
Howard, Ernest T. Bass, Flora, Helen, Ellie, and Thelma Lou were all single…
Andy was a widower.
Good point, Albert. I hadn’t thought of that.
My favorite Dad story:
My young brother was walking with my Dad and a big ant ran across the sidewalk in front of them. My brother just jumped out and stomped it.
My Dad stopped walking and looked at his son and calmly asked “Just what did that ant do to You?”
Hmmm…life lesson there I think….
I miss you Dad….Happy Fathers Day
I’m glad my sister taught me first aid when she was in high school and I was in 2nd grade. I was her “patient.”
My dad would warm a “warshcloth” on the bathroom light and slather Vicks on my throat. Wrap the hot cloth around my neck and fasten it with the largest safety pin he could find. Then he would mix honey, lemon and horseradish to cure a sore throat. Horehound drops for a cough, bought in the candy bag at the pharmacy and him carrying me in my pajamas into the backdoor of the doctor’s office on a Sunday morning. Flat, room temperature 7-Up for an upset stomach. I always got liquid penicillin. It was always a virus. He paid the doctor $5 a month, as I noticed when I sat with him when he made out the bills. What a great man. Born 1901, fought in World War II. Then he came home and had four girls with his new wife. He is my hero!
My late great WWII Merchant Marine Dad would say to me when I got a bleeeding cut, “You Just Need To Spit on It.”
Then my Grandma, who was a nurse, used to take our blood pressure when my brother and sister and our cousins where at the bungalow that we went to when we were kids. We were 8 years old and I wondered why. I thought she was practicing. She did it right before my Aunt made burnt Scrambled Eggs
Blessings to Menagerie today – just want you to know that you are missed! Hope all is going well!
God Bless Menagerie and Sundance and all The Great Brillant Treepers who contribute to this fantastic blog that captures so many . God Bless all your Dad’s today.
Agree, Viking Mom!
Being born in 1955, I don’t know anyone I grew up with who didn’t have Mercurachrome put on any cut as a disinfectant. This orange liquid, dispensed from a dropper in a brown bottle, stung so much that my 4’ frame imagined that I would jump so high that my head would hit the ceiling. It certainly made you not want to get another cut that might require stitches. It remains one of the most painful things I have ever felt in my 71 years. It may also have something to do with my having an above-average pain threshold. (Novocain is for your sisters). And, that new stuff, Bactine, “is so expensive”, many Moms said. It, mercurochrome, was outlawed during the Carter administration, but it is hard to find a profession today where the younger pros have sufficient toughness, mental or otherwise, and you wonder.
I had the greatest dad ever.
EVER.
And with all the amazing, wonderful, truly loving, trusting and giving things I saw in my dad, the number one thing I saw him do was love my mom.
He loved me. He loved my four sisters. But he modeled for five girls what it looks like when a man loves a woman.
He modeled strength, he modeled devotion, he modeled sacrifice, he modeled that she — the woman he vowed to God to love until they were separated through death, my mother — was the most important person on earth and the woman he would stand beside and in front of, no matter what. And he did.
At one point in my life, when my mother, who had some severe mental health issues, was really going crazy, I told my dad to divorce “that woman.”
I laugh writing that. Not that it is funny, but that years ago I called my mom “that woman.” After being without my dad and mom for over 35 years now I would love to spend even a few minutes with them. . .
But I told my dad to divorce that woman because she was out of control.
Instead, he held her closer and fought her demons while moving through hell with her.
My dad taught me and my four sisters what a husband looks like. What a godly husband should be like, and how a husband should love his wife.
So today is also Husband day in our house, because the greatest Father of all, Abba, Yahweh, God, blessed me with finding a man just like my dad.
Awww Raven – what a beautiful tribute to your Dad and husband. Blessings on you and yours, dear friend!
Blessings and continual prayers to you, dear J.
Blessings and prayers to you.
Rub some dirt on it.
There’s a reason real men don’t cry….theirs is a protector role. Its required…..someone has to be responsible and take the lead. The man used to walk in front because that is where danger was encountered first.
Life is tough, real men shield their families as much as possible.
From second hand lions the movie:
“Sometimes the things that may or may not be true are the things that a man needs to believe in the most: that people are basically good; that honor, courage, and virtue mean everything; that power and money, money and power mean nothing; that good always triumphs over evil; that love, true love, never dies… No matter if they’re true or not, a man should believe in those things because those are the things worth believing in. “
Are you bleedin’?
Is it crooked?
You’re good. Walk it off.
For good men are the pillars of whole communities, and they support cities and city governments as if they were great houses.”
Philo
“For whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world”
1 John 5:4
Whatever your thoughts on Richard Nixon, this is a beautiful tribute to fathers!!
https://x.com/nixonfoundation/status/2068741190414135468
“Toughen up” was my Dad’s phrase. I hated hearing it at times, but it was good advice!
Kids got me the “Make Dad Great Again” audible card for FD. Wonderfully Trump. Hilarious and fun.
Hope all you Wolverines had a great day! I did.
My Dad was the “Master of Mercurochrome”. Once my brothers tonsils were infected and he swabbed them. When he got to the Dr. he exclaimed ” who the hell did this? ”
My brother still has his tonsils.