Trout Republic-Happy Father’s Day

Another Father’s Day has come and gone. That means Dads all over got a card or phone call or some other recognition for being a father to some child.
Having worked on the railroad for 32 years and being away most holidays and events, things like birthdays and Father’s Day never had much significance to me. I think we had to learn to “not care” so that we were not constantly disappointed in not being home for those times.
But regardless I was home enough to end up with two great offspring. All in all, they are pretty good children and never had any trouble out of either of them.
Cricket, my daughter, is a professor at Idaho State University and has her P.H.D. Selfish little brat won’t write me any prescriptions but I did get a subscription from her to the magazine Outdoor Life once for my birthday.
“The Boy” has some important job in Dallas and does pretty good by me, mostly. His wife told a group of ladies the other day that she and Miss Trixie are married to the same man, just 30 years apart. I guess she was saying that the old acorn didn’t fall too far from the tree.
Not sure if that is a compliment or not but gonna take it as one anyway.
Now for me being a son to my Dad, I was lucky to have a good father and grandfathers who were still alive while I was growing up. My grandfather Kirkpatrick didn’t marry until he was 40 and so he was a tad older as a patriarch and let me tell you that was not an easy row to how.
Kids will generally wear an older person out and probably kill most of them and it’s why we all have children when we are young. It also helps that we are dumb enough to think it’s a good idea or at least our wives and partners did.
Most of us men really never had much say in having kids or how many and when. It’s the women with the nesting instinct and the power to bring that about.
Oh we were THERE for the initial event for sure and there was no argument about helping out there but little did we know that there was an agenda on what used to be just for fun.
Of course most things that happen to a man once he settles into domestic domicile, he has little control over. If it was up to us we would probably live in a hovel and have fun all the time. Adding that partner results in buying houses and furniture, having cookouts with her friends and eventually driving a minivan -- God help us.
It is said that one of the most brilliant men ever to live, Albert Einstein once said, “Women marry men hoping they will change. Men marry women hoping they will not. So each is inevitably disappointed.” He may have had goofy hair but that man knew what he was talking about. And, thanks to the Internet, it doesn’t look like he said that at all, but who am I to question it?
So here we sit on the other side of a day celebrating at least some if not minimal participation in the arrival of children on planet earth and hopefully you heard from your kids in some fashion.
If you are fortunate enough that your father is still alive and you did not get around to calling him, at least find a cheesy card at the dollar store and send that off and make his day.
Even if he was a tyrant, send one anyway and maybe start down a path of reconciliation.
Try and avoid the bald, fat, old jokes and get the ones that lie so you don’t have to.

Kevin Kirkpatrick and his Yorkie, Cooper, fish, hunt, ATV or hike daily. His email is [email protected]. Additional news can be found at www.troutrepublic.com or on Twitter at TroutRepublic.


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