When Did You Learn Your Father Was Fallible?
With Father's Day approaching, can you share a story of the day you realized even Father doesn't always know best?
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I was in my mid-teens the year my family set up for dinner at an old wooden beach house. My father was rigging a small 12-inch charcoal grill so we could use it to make hotdogs out on the wooden deck, even though he couldn't find the legs for the grill.
He pulled a pot out of the kitchen as a base, set the grill on the pot, put the whole contraption on the wooden deck, and commenced lighting the coals. I looked cockeyed at the contraption, wondering why the heat of the coals wouldn't flow through the grill, through the pot and onto the wooden deck.
But he was my father! Surely he must know something I didn't know.
He didn't.
Within a few minutes, a scorch mark appeared on the deck—a mark on the rented beach house deck that ultimately took the week for my father to repair. He told that from then on, I should always speak up if I saw him doing something ... well, you know.
With Father's Day approaching next weekend, we thought we'd ask for your stories about Dad. Am I the only one with a story like that?
Does anyone else remember the day you went from "Father Knows Best" to "maybe he doesn't"? Can you share a story about when you discovered your Dad was more fallible than you thought?
And if that's a story you don't have, maybe you can share the best advice he ever gave you. Maybe the worst advice? We'll take that too!
Phil Gonzalez
7:48 am on Sunday, June 10, 2012
I learned my parents were not infallible when I found out Santa Claus was a lie. The Bible says "Speak the Truth In ALL things."
My dad & mom ALWAYS gave me the best advice, but I did NOT always take it. Always the best advice.
For examples, when my dad was beaten in the head by a drunken St. Louis City Park guard to unconsciousness & bleeding on the ground BECAUSE I snuck a toy inner tube into the swimming pool, I said "I hated cops". But my mom and dad sat my brother and I down at the kitchen table and said "You must forgive them, sons. We have to forgive because The Messiah died for our sins and He said we must forgive all who do us wrong. And you must not hate anyone because "hate is an acid that consumes the vessel that carries it and splashes on those around."
A year later, I was 13, my mom was robbed and raped by 3 or 4 young men and she came home and collasped. My dad wanted to go out there and hurt those men but my mom said "Don't go out there, Joe. They will kill you.!" She didn't prosecute cause of fear of repraisals. I said "I HATE those ..." (people of a certain ethnicity)"
Again, my mom and dad sat my brother and I down at the kitchen table and said "You must forgive them, sons. We have to forgive because The Messiah said we must forgive all who do us wrong. & you must not hate anyone because "hate is an acid that consumes the vessel that carries it & splashes on those around."
Kurt Greenbaum
8:59 am on Sunday, June 10, 2012
Quite a story, Phil. Thanks for sharing.
Joe Barker
9:43 am on Sunday, June 10, 2012
For me it's pretty easy. When I was really young, the toilet in one of the bathrooms stopped working. My dad, not wanting to call a plumber, said he could fix it. He was wrong. Somehow, he turned the toilet into a fountain. My sister went to flush and water shot to the ceiling. We all laughed. He did not. A plumber was called shortly thereafter.
Ashley Nevilles
10:17 am on Sunday, June 10, 2012
When my parents divorced after 20 year because my father cheated. Awesome dad. I wouldn't trade him for anything. Not the best husband.
Rich
11:09 am on Sunday, June 10, 2012
Nope, never happened.
Really tired of the Michelle Obama ads at the top of the pages, too!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Larry Lazar
4:09 pm on Sunday, June 10, 2012
oh, I'd say the "gasoline and grill" incident was a lesson in Dad's fallability!
Elizabeth O'Fallon
4:32 pm on Sunday, June 10, 2012
I have yet to find something my dad's not good at. He's a good hard working and honest guy. I know no one is perfect, but I don't remember him ever lying to me or letting me down...or catching fire to anything! My dad is an old fashioned guy, he's a man of few words but I know when he says something he word is as good as gold.
Anon
8:11 pm on Sunday, June 10, 2012
I agree with Rich. Get rid of the Obama ads.
mormit
9:38 pm on Sunday, June 10, 2012
Ethos. I'm not getting any Obama ads but I'm getting Kenrick's ads and it's making me hungry.
Kurt Greenbaum
9:21 am on Monday, June 11, 2012
Thanks for your comments about the ads, but let's stick with the topic. Thanks, everyone!
Suzanne Gundlach
1:00 pm on Monday, June 11, 2012
We were working on a car and my dad was tracking a vibration and without thinking grabbed a hot exhaust pipe -- *of course* he knew it was hot, but at that moment he was concentrating so hard on locating the vibration. After a colorful outburst of language and some first aid, he sternly looked at me and said "Don't EVER grab an exhaust like that!"...in all my teenage eloquence I replied, "duh?!".
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