Today was Father’s Day in the USA and that white-haired guy in the picture was my father. It’s the last picture I have of him, taken a few months before he died, ironically on my birthday. I was expecting a call, just not that call. That was in 1991. I had an InfoWorld column due that day and I wrote it, as I recall, about him. They indulged me.
We men spend our lives alternately emulating our fathers and rebelling against them, a process I was surprised to see lasts long after death. They give us their faces: certainly you can see a lot of him in me, though his face is mooshed a bit from landing a plane in the roof of a barn. I’ve so far avoided that fate.
The girl next to him is my mother, 66 in that photo and 89 today. She still lives in the same house and for 20 years drove the same car. They had a great love and I try to emulate that, too, but not rebel.
My father taught my mother how to cook. She was a southern girl who grew up thinking the kitchen was a room you passed through on the way to the back door. I suppose they more properly learned to cook together because his own cooking knowledge was mainly theoretical, gained primarily from a winter in World War II spent sharing a tent in China with another soldier who had been a sous chef at the New Yorker Hotel before the war. They spent three months talking only of food.
My father was a character. He was expelled from high school by a principal who was his aunt. So my having been fired three times by Steve Jobs should not have been a surprise.
My father ran a labor union, one of the construction trades, and while he may have had enemies I never knew that when I was growing up because he treated everyone the same. His members loved him and he created for them many programs that survive today — health insurance, pensions, and training programs that simply didn’t exist before for what were essentially itinerant workers.
And at least once my father probably saved lives. Early in his career there was a time of unrest when criminals were trying to force their way into the construction industry. The local godfather, Mr. Minetti, had a Christmas party to which he invited all his friends and enemies. A highlight of this party — at least for Mr. Minetti — was when he’d challenge the room to a contest eating hot Italian peppers. A few would stand against him, eat a pepper or two and retire. But that year my father stood against Mr. Minetti and won. The symbolism was lost on nobody, the war stopped, and my father was MISTER Cringely from then on.
We stand for something in life or we don’t and my father did. I wish I was even more like him.
Our fathers really are unique men in our lives. We get to test our limits with them, and sometimes even their limits. We get to experience subjugation under them for the first time and that experience defines our drive for independence. Even when we hate them, they’re doing something good for us. They teach us many of our first reactions to new scenarios because we go from witness to participant, and when we draw on memory for a response, oftentimes theirs is the one we provide. And yet as times change, we see how we must break from their example in so many other ways, too. In a way, what benefits us most in life is to be the biographers and scholars of our fathers’s lives, and to come to realize the ways in which they benefited us, but also in the ways that they failed us so we can seek other wisdom, thoughts, mentors. The more I know my Father, the more I know my children will have an even better father, and for that I will always appreciate him.
It’s a pitty we don’t believe in
“health insurance, pensions, and training programs”
For IT people, and continue training and education
Why is this considered a bad thing, but ousourxong is considered a good thing?
People used to believe in this, why do IT people, professional programmers not believe in this any more
We believe in greed and accumulating money at the expense of others instead
I’d have given a lot to have seen the reactions after that pepper eating contest.
The “dying on one’s birthday” phenomenon is odd, isn’t it? My dad did it, too.
Very nice post.
Awesome anecdote Bob. Keep reaching it’s what life’s about!
Great story about the pepper contest. I’m trying to imagine that as a scene in a movie.
Great column. At the risk of sounding like my old man, “The kids today…”
I find it interesting that in the old days, the godfather type would have a Christmas party and invite both friends and enemies…and I find it interesting that two enemies could go mano-a-mano, and people would listen and learn. Perhaps Washington could learn from this?
Perhaps the greatest legacy is that people like your father fought so hard for things many take for granted today: health care, pensions, and training programs. Unfortunately, taking them for granted means that forces in power are trying to take them away from us.
Unfortunately, there seem to be few of the men around today like our fathers…
“take for granted today: health care, pensions, and training programs” Speak for your own dad. Mind was a medic in WWII and a pharmacist the rest of his life. He fought for the opportunity for us to choose what we want to pay for, not have it foisted upon us by a government bureaucracy, however well-meaning.
“take for granted today: health care, pensions, and training programs” Speak for your own dad. Mind was a medic in WWII and a pharmacist the rest of his life. He fought for the opportunity for us to choose what we want to pay for, not have it foisted upon us by a government bureaucracy, however well-meaning.
First of all only the very rich can afford healthcare in the us, just like south Africa
The us has the mos expensive healthcare with the worst results of all the European countries and developed countries, see Hans rosling on Ted talks
The middle class cannot afford healthcare, and coverage is incomplete and denied when for profit insurance companies are the only choice in a closed market where drugs cannot be imported from Europe or any developed place
Only through government can everybody receive healthcare when they are not paying in, when they are ill or unemployed, and have full coverage at the same time, otherwise only the elite 10% can afford healthcare
We did not fight WWII so only the rich could have healthcare and education, quite the opposite WWII made sure everybody from the queen to a commoner could get healthcare regardless of class or income, which is no longer true in the us
In the us people have lost the right to good jobs, a cheap education and cheap healthcare
You are defending that only the people in the top income braket get healthcare, the average person when sick will lose their jobs and healthcare and be denied as they are at will
We have in the us the exact same healthcare system as south Africa, the healthcare software is the exact same
The us shares many of the same problems with south Africa and undeveloped countries, many undeveloped countries are actually better, and all of Europe and is better and with equal GDP but better social working and living conditions
What is done in the us is a criminal and shameful act based on lack of empathy and greed, and should be condoned for what it is, vile and evil
There is a better chance of dying from lack of health care, than a terrorist act, or lack of surveillance
The real terror in the us is not having full coverage healthcare and university education at nearly free prices, and poor working conditions, every other country does better, and when they don’t we criticize them
Any other country doing what the us does would be codoned, but capitalism and greed justifies everything in the us
The people are so oppressed and brain washed they actualy are apathetic or even justify the situation
May more Americans dye from lack of healthcare than any foreign terror or criminal act, the us priorities are messed up
Who are the real criminals
Health insurance is a very high tax, and payment by the insurance industry is a liability
Mean while the insurance people are dinning at the beach in Europe while their fellow Americans go without health care and die from even minor preventable illness and poor nutrition
These things should be televised exposed and discussed
The elderly get no home help, are thrown into homes, receive poor nutrition and little health care, for exorbitant prices, lose their homes and pentions, and cost the government and elderly thousands a month, for macaroni and cheese and a single toilet
Americans have lost their rights under both democrats and republicans
To defend the us system is criminal, it’s criminal for working middle class to have no access to health care
The lower classes in Europe live under better conditions, the American system was abolished after WWII in Europe and the developed world, which have higher GDP, the same goes for Australia
I guess my dad’s philosophy, and mine too, is that “from each according to his ability and to each according to his needs” is the cause of shortages of any commodity it is applied to, hence the failure of communism. If the government makes health care “affordable” enough, there will be no one left willing to provide it.
So now you are calling all of Europe communist and saying they can’t provide healthcare
This is false, they have a higher GDP, doctors do very well or better than the us, and doctors gave a free medical degree, live in some cases better than the American doctors and are well respected
Obviously you and many Americans do not understand socialism
Socialism is necessary to spread risk and control costs and maintain quality, none of which capitalism is capable of
Many things are done by the government in the us, they funded AT&T and unix and boeing and the Internet, there are certain things only the government can do and private industry cannot
One exception might be xerox
If communism did not work, the American capitalism did not work either
Scarsety exists because the money is applied to the wrong things
The us is no pooreer than other counties yet, it can afford education, health and pentions and vacation as well as any other European country or Australia, it just chooses not to
Let’s hope you don’t fall victim to the American system if you become to old or sick to fend for yourself
Healthcare and education should be a right for those paying taxes, it should not all go to war and home land surveillance, the private insurance is a tax and it’s worse than a tax because it is refused once the person is not able to work due to age or sickness, the national heal are allways pays out for the life of the person
People should get health and education for taxes instead of sod all
Very few people have the abily to pay for the American system for the whole of their lives, and this costs lives or working middle class and upper class people in the us
It’s not a problem for the very top,but the very top don’t have any problems at all, they can just live in Switzerland for the rest vast majority this is a problem
Great story Bob, thanks for sharing.
Life was simpler and values were clearer in their generation.
My 88 year old Mum is with us from Australia for a couple of weeks and over dinner we talked about their growing up as kids in the depression and young parents in the post war years in Australia. No one had anything other than the house they grew up in and a few clothes. Putting food on the table was the principle preoccupation. There wasn’t much stuff to have then…we didn’t need it then and we don’t need it now, yet our generation spends its waking hours striving for the money to buy more stuff.
We’ve made a lot of progress on so many fronts, but I’m not sure people are any happier now than my parents generation were in the 60’s and 70’s.
I think you mean Mr. Stephens.
” MISTER Cringely”. Good catch.