06.14.07

I want to tell you about my Dad

Posted in Life, the Universe and All that Jazz at 8:54 pm by Meg

He was a character. He had his problems and flaws (like us all), but the one thing he taught us (his kids) was acceptance of people’s diversity. It’s something that I hope I’m passing on to my kids.

Let me tell you a story (or 2) that will show you what I grew up with.

Dad was a full professor at SUNY Binghamton from 1970 until he retired in the 90s. He also fiddled and repaired anything that came his way. In fact, he had quite a side business of buying broken ‘whatever’ from the local stores and then fixing and selling (usually at a profit). All without the convenience of Ebay!

What did he fix and sell? Well, it depended on what was the hot item. Some of the things I remember are: 10 speed bikes, 35 mm cameras, CB radios, stereo systems, and then in the early 80s, he got into computers. I’m still using one of the cpus that he worked on right before he died in 2001. (though I’ve updated it a bit.)

Anyway, what this all meant is that when Dad had someone over you never knew what to expect. It could be someone from the university - a colleague, a grad student (possible foreign), or a current student; it could be someone to whom he was selling (or fixing) something - in which case it could be anyone; or it could be someone from the neighborhood - while we lived in a community with a strong IBM presence as while as the university, we had chosen to live where we could keep our horses, cows, sheep…… which was where all the old hillbilly families were.

To quote my brother (in about the only conversation we have ever had as adults) ‘you could never tell who the visitors were, but they were treated to the same amount of courtesy and respect.’ We never saw our parents treating these visitors as anything but honored guests and they all received the same sort of treatment.

His behavior impacted more than just us. After Mom died, Dad remarried. Step-mom was an elementary/junior high music teacher. Her classes would include some sort of performance for parents (you remember that sort of thing) and while they performed, Dad would rove about with a camera taking pictures.

Well, of all the people that came to Dad’s funeral, the one that really struck me was the janitor at Step-mom’s old school (she’d since retired.) He had come to appreciate and respect Dad, enough to come out for the visiting hours and then to find and talk to me. It turns out that while the teachers at the school regularly snubbed him and treated him lowly, Dad had spoken to him as an equal. The janitor was flattered that the ‘highly educated’ professor (which he assumed the teachers would have respected) considered his work important. That was just the way he was.

I can only hope that I’m modeling similar behavior for my kids. The diversity of the homeschool population certainly gives them plenty of opportunities to interact with people from all backgrounds. We regularly get together with homeschoolers that have different views and backgrounds. The kids get chances to see that different views, while they aren’t ours, do have value.

Hopefully it’ll stick.

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