My father is one of the reasons I chose to have a child. Not to honor him or continue my lineage, but to fix the parts that he broke.  Too many of my memories are of a childhood and family irreparably damaged, achingly sad, or completely dysfunctional. I wanted to replace these memories with positive ones of my own creation, and to experience through my child’s eyes the childhood I didn’t have. Sure, it’s terribly selfish and probably more than a little misguided. But people have had children for far worse and far fewer reasons.  For example, take the playground. My father rarely played with us in the yard. There was no kicking soccer balls, throwing baseballs, no balls of any kind really. We grew up food-stamps-poor, so there were rarely any trips to local museums or science centers or cultural events. But we did have Sunday Family Day sometimes when I was little, where the four of us would pile in my father’s shit brown Ford mini pick-up truck and go somewhere l...

Many years ago I read or heard the line, “We were like strangers who knew each other very well.” I have more or less adopted this quote as a description of the relationship between my father and me. More than strangers but less than estranged, we talk on the phone a few times a year but we stick to surface streets. He thinks I am closed off and private; I know where his post office box is located but don’t know where he sleeps at night. He lives 1,200 miles away, so at least I am spared the awkward side-hugs and desperate attempts at normal conversation. My mother is dead and my brother has ceased contact, so he clings to me like his last hope at family.  That about sums it up. Father’s Days are tough. There just aren’t any greeting cards that accurately reflect our relationship. So a few years ago I decided Hallmark or American Greetings needed to get on this. Along with a friend, I came up with several gems I was going to pitch to them. The best one was: (front) When...