BigDaddyRat - Lessons Learned

As I think back on the things that I learned from my Father, one thing strikes me. The lessons that I really took to heart; the things that are always with me and form the moral and theoretical underpinnings of who I am as a person; are the teachings that my Father didn't speak of but were conveyed to me through the way he lived his life.

There have been plenty of times when I've been fucked over in my life. Work, school, and athletics all provided me with plenty of gut wrenching and heart breaking experiences, some of which left me bitter and quite angry. Without ever saying a word the COL (as my Father is often referred to) managed to let me know that the idea of revenge was petty and beneath me. That any effort that I might have thought to put into some sort of hare brained scheme to get back at someone; to try and damage someone's reputation, to attempt to harm their business prospects, no matter how richly deserved; cheapened me as a person.

When I was being forged by these experiences, it always burned me to think that a person fucked me and "got away with it." In the fullness of time I have come to realize that's not true. You don't leave those situations with nothing, you come away from them more mature, more patient, wiser, but most importantly, you walk away with your dignity intact. There's no promotion, no amount of money, no possession that can replace your dignity.

The COL taught me about hard work; not by lecturing me about it, but by letting me see him working his ass off everyday. My Dad never had to tell me to get a job, when the time was right I decided for myself to start working. When I started working I gave it everything I had, it didn't matter that I was making minimum wage selling shoes at an outlet mall, it was a job and I owed it and myself my best effort. One of the biggest bursts of pride I ever felt in my life was when I was fucking up in school and my Dad told me he wasn't worried about me because I knew how to work. It was a powerful moment of validation that told me my Father accepted me as a man and knew that I had a man's resolve to overcome whatever obstacles were in my way.

Secure in the knowledge that I had my Father's respect as a working man, I always strived to make sure that I continued to be worthy of that respect. It is not always easy, there are the inevitable shortcuts to take and corners to cut when it comes to work. But what he ultimately taught me was there is right way to do things and wrong way and the choice to do the wrong thing is no choice at all.

Father, husband, athlete, warrior are all words used to describe the COL, there's no one who ever met BigDaddyRat that questioned his manhood. He was a man's man, from the bottom of his size 16 feet going up six feet six and a half inches to the top of the pointy head that we share. Tough and strong, smart and brave. These were the words that described my Father but through the way he lived his life he taught me that it was just as important (perhaps more so) that a man be kind and gentle, loving and merciful. There is no doubt that this is the most important lesson he taught me.

There are so many fucked up conceptions of manhood out there, I eternally humbled and grateful that I had a Father who showed me the right way to be a man. Who showed me with his every thought, word, and deed that the measure of a man is not kills on the battlefield or money in the bank or notches on the bedpost, but rather how does he use what he has to help others?

I love you Dad and I will spend the rest of my life trying to be a scintilla of the man that you were.

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BigDaddyRat - First Chapter

My father died suddenly over Labor Day weekend this year. He's been on my mind a lot in the intervening months, but I haven't been able to write about him until now. I had some crazy idea that I could say everything I had to say about him, his life, and his death in one post. I now see that's impossible and I've decided to talk about him and his amazing life in smaller chunks starting today. It wasn't until I was half done writing this post that I realized today is Veteran's Day and a fitting tribute to my Father's 32 years of military service.

This morning I was reading Ta-Nehisi Coates' column "Wild Cowboys" and it got me thinking that maybe I should tell the story of how I came to be a Raiders fan. It seems like a good place to start talking about my old man, those Sunday afternoons when I first started watching football with him were an important time for me.

When I first started hanging out with my Dad on Sunday afternoons it wasn't football that attracted my attention, but rather his weekly ritual of boot polishing. Sunday afternoons were when my Dad would clean and polish (depending on his schedule) two pairs of boots or a pair of boots and a pair of dress shoes. He would drag out on old ammo box that contained his shoe shine kit, lay out a couple of pieces of newspaper and go to work.

First Dad would pick up one of his massive (size 16) boots, stick a shoe form it in to help hold its shape, and give it a vigorous brushing. His powerful arms working in concert to turn the brush into little more than a blur as he quickly and confidently removed a week's worth of dirt from his combat boots. Next, he would set fire to the surface of his shoe polish before quickly blowing out the flame leaving the living room filled with a smell that I will forever associate with Sunday afternoons. Dad would take the old t-shirt in his shoe shine kit, wrap up two fingers, kind of twist the whole deal around his wrist, and dip the two fingers first into water and then the softened polish as he applied a dull coat of polish. Finally Dad would starting shining his boots with a soft cloth, finishing with a flourish by repeatedly and loudly snapping his cloth against the toe of his boot leaving it like a shiny black mirror before starting over on the other boot or shoe.

As a father myself now, I can't help but think how ridiculous the sense of trepidation I felt was as I finally gathered up the nerve to ask my Dad what he was doing as I sidled up next to him on the couch. And slowly a Sunday afternoon ritual began form, I would ask my Dad if it was time and he would give a small nod which would send me dashing to his closet to get his shoe shine kit. At first I was too small to even break the vacuum seal created by the ammo box and get the thing open, but after Dad popped open the box I would lay out a couple of sheets of newspaper, fill the dirty stained cup in his kit with a few fingers of water, and watch as Dad methodically went to work on his boots.

It was during one of those Sunday afternoons sometime during the 1975 season that the Oakland Raiders played a home game in the old Oakland Coliseum that was broadcast on tape delay a week later. At the time we were living in Germany and had just moved there from New Jersey (where I was born), but I felt no geographic connection with any team. I was immediately struck by all the fans turning the coliseum into a sea of black and I thought to myself, "That's my team right there." So from that day forward I was a Raider fan.

Over the years I started doing more and more of the boot polishing each Sunday. At first I would just get everything set up, then I started doing the initial brushing, and eventually I was doing the whole thing. I think I was in 7th or 8th grade when I went to go do something with my friends one Sunday afternoon instead of watching football at home. That night I was chilling on the couch in the family room after dinner when my Dad stuck his head in and asked, "Where are my boots?" I responded with a blank stare. "Aren't you supposed to get my boots ready for the week?" my Dad asked insistently. "Here, let me help you," Dad said as he came into the room with two pairs of combat boots, his shoe shine kit, and a couple of sheets of newspaper that he laid down neatly in front of me. And it slowly started to dawn on me that what had once been a bonding ritual between father and son, had just turned into another chore for me to get done each week.

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