Fatherly Advice

This is a picture of my father at about 12 or 13 years old with his brothers, baby sister, mother, and, we think, his maternal grandfather. My Dad is second oldest and second from the right. The husband of one of my cousins had this photo and gave copies to everyone at my father's funeral 2 years ago. I love old photos and we all enjoyed marveling at how easy it was to tell which boy had turned into which uncle.

This morning I was thinking about the only real advice about growing up he gave me. We'd been on some outing together and were back at his house. Before I got out of his car to get into my own car to drive home he said, “You know, you're getting to the age where you need to start trimming your nose hairs.”

I said, “Thanks Dad” and got out of the car.

While driving home I remebered that my father gave my older brothers fairly nice electric shavers when they were old enough to need them. I taught myself to shave using my mother's shaver. At Boy Scout Camp that summer one of the Scoutmasters loaned me a disposable razor and encouraged me to use it. And it was my mother, not my father, who told me about love and sex.

When I got home I looked in the mirror and thought; no tips on sex, no advice about love, didn't even teach me how to shave, the man may be largely inadequate as a father, but he's right about one thing. So I looked for the smallest pair of scissors I could find.