Happy Fathers Day! Part 4

You never know what you will pass on to your children. When children are young they often model the behaviors they see in their parents. When they are old enough to determine their own interests, sometimes they run the other way.

In my case, it's surprising to consider how many of my Dad's passions have become a part of my life. We've already seen that Dad influenced my life with books. In addition, I've inherited his love of travel, music, food (although he won't often be found in a kitchen, and I will), sports (Dad and his wife enjoy spectator sports with an amazing intensity and frequency--GO BEARS!--, while I merely enjoy them from time to time),exercise (I mostly partake of exercise on my own, while Dad was a track star at SRJC and UC Berkeley), education (I'm an educator, while Dad holds the record for having accumulated the most credits of any student in the history of Santa Rosa Junior College). And let us not forget the accordion! In our family, that most wonderful musical instrument skipped a generation: Dad's accordion is now being played by our daughter.


This series is about my Dad, but I can't help but mention the first image that comes to my mind when I think of my husband's influence on our children. Picture a little kid (it could have been any of our children, but most likely was each of them), maybe three or four years old, sitting in a chair slowly and thoughtfully turning each page of, say, PC Magazine, pretending to read it. Before they were old enough to read at all, our children were carefully turning the pages of a technical magazine that didn't have interesting pictures, just because they wanted to be like Dad.