No Father's Day weekend would be complete without the annual lighting up of the blogosphere with obligatory, often gratuitous and predictable odes professing undying love for fathers across the length and breadth of the internet. For, some it quite likely requires a great deal of effort (or plagiarism) to come up with the tired, trite and tenuous accolades bestowed therein. What is equally melancholy - for me - is that they may be given voice but once a year and only after the daughter or son has been reminded of the day by the piles of Hallmark Cards seen while they were cruising the mall or shopping for the next swim wear. In counterpoint, my heartfelt and deeply sincere appreciation of my father and his sacrifices for me comes easy. I don't need a designated day to tell him so. It is a part of every conversation we have. He is the true hero of my life.

Now, approaching 80 and slowing down considerably, I remember my father in his (cue Bruce Springstein's "Glory Days") when he was the rock of my little world. He was born the youngest of 4 boys to Louis and Carrie Albright in a small, 3-bedroom home they bought in the western suburbs of Birmingham, Alabama, circa 1920. His father, Louis, was a small-time attorney; Carrie, his mother, had a full-time job - one can only imagine - raising her 4 rambunctious boys. My father, born in 1928, grew up in the throes of Great Depression. He didn't make very much lawyering in those times as no one needed his services in those hard, hard days. I remember my father's stories of the deprivation of those depression times. He lights up, even now, telling the story of the Great Fight between his two oldest brothers - Claude and Norman - over the last biscuit at a morning breakfast. It was, according to dad, a knock-down, take-no-prisoners fistfight that no none dared break up. By the way he tells it, Dempsey-Tunney had nothing on Albright vs. Albright.

He also, more quietly and almost reverently, tells of his father going to his downtown office on the streetcar - they had a "family car" but couldn't afford the gas - and sitting all day in his office without clients. My grandfather would come home from work, saying to his wife, Carrie: "I'm not hungry. I think I'll just go to bed." He often skipped supper so that his wife and 4 boys would have more stew or soup to eat. The boys, according to my dad, would spend their days trolling the alleys and streets with their wagon, searching out discarded pieces of metal they might sell for some food money. They gave whatever pennies they would gather to their mother so she could buy some food for the evening table. But it was never much. Somehow they scraped by but not without it changing them all forever.

Dad, being the youngest, was the last to leave the family home, married when he was 18, long after the Depression had passed. He quickly (that's my dad for you!) had three children, each 2 years apart: a girl first, then a boy (me) and then another girl. After leaving the Albright homestead and marriage, totally uneducated and unskilled, dad worked for U.S. Steel in the Fairfield blast furnaces, then did a tour in the Air Force during the Korean War. When he came back home, dad made the best decision of his life: he signed on with the U.S Post Office. He carried mail for them for 32 years. By 1958, the marriage to my biological mother rapidly unraveled for a number of reasons that are beyond the scope of this piece. After the usual acrimony that comes with divorce and, with the dissolution of household belongings, the children were divvied up between the two parents. I was eight years old at the time. I went to live with my father and my two sisters with their mother. Though I didn't know it fully at the time, I got the best of the trade in all manner of ways. Primarily, I got to stay with the man who, after so many years of hostilities, make such an indelible imprint on my life and my almost every aspect of it. I count the many blessings of those strange series of events to this very day.

After being a "bachelor" for 2 or 3 years, dear old dad got luckier than he thought he would ever deserve. He remarried on July 6, 1961 to the woman who would bring much-needed love to my father. I remember the date because of a silver ashtray someone gave the new couple that was engraved with congratulations on their nuptials. It proudly sat on an end table in our living room and sits there still today. My new mother was a perfect compliment to my father: she was ice to his fire, patience and calm to his lack of both. Were it not for her, I am not sure what might have become to my dad. She "completed him" to use a tired phrase, and made him whole. She gave purpose to his life. They remain newly weds to this day, some 46 years later.

So, exactly what am I grateful to my father for? For all my faults, shortcomings and flaws, whatever that is "good" about my character, I owe almost entirely to him. Mind you, Dad was not always a good listener. Now was he home very much as working 2 or 3 jobs cuts into family time considerably. Also, like his father before him, he was too much the stoic to really express his emotions; a byproduct of the Depression, I suspect. But, I always knew that when he did offer advice, it would be good advice. Not that I always took it (I was far too rebellious) but, in retrospect, I see now how truly wise someone with only a high school diploma can be. But, despite our lack of lengthy, arm-over-my-shoulder, heart-to-heart talks, I never doubted one thing: my father loved me. It came through in smaller ways than one might expect - a simple pat on the back (Albrights are not "huggers"), a smile when I brought home good grades, and predictable, unwavering discipline when I (frequently) needed it. Specifically, then, here are the invaluable gifts my father gave to me:

1. Get an education

Since dad was a postman, I would see him come home after a typically hot Southern summer day, completely exhausted, miserable, and wrung out. Wrung out, physically, like a washcloth after a bath. I thought to myself : "I sure as heck do not want to do that for a living!" Corollary: "Easiest Option? I am going to get an education so that I don't have to kill myself like that!" He showed me, also, that any job that pays your bills is worth your diligence and worth doing well. He worked hard, he worked sick and he worked tired. He was a living, breathing embodiment of the age in which he grew up - the Protestant work ethic. I admire him, to this day, for that lesson so well taught by example. For his part, he also made sure that, from age 14, I worked every summer. I remember my first job: clerk for the contractor of the subdivision where our family lived. I think it was at a rate of $0.65 per hour. The next summer, between sophomore and junior years of high school, I got a look at what my life might be like without an education: I worked "in the food service industry." Then, to finalize my education, the final summer of high school, I worked for Alabama Power clearing power lines of overgrowth. That involved climbing sap-sweating Southern pine trees in the heat of summer with a rope and a saw. Having negotiated that unpleasant task and securing myself in the heights of the pine, I would proceed with sawing off limbs that threatened pole lines. If my father's misery was the coffin for any thoughts I had of me earning a living through physical labor, the Alabama Power job was the lid - nailed, caulked shut and hermetically sealed. I would never, ever work-for-pay outside again.

2. O.K. is not good enough

My father, teaching by example with his own job and assuring that I, personally, experienced the "joys" of physical labor, also was a driving force psychologically. I am not sure if he was conscious of this but it was clear, at least to me. Nothing I ever did was, in his eyes, "good enough." If I brought home all E's ("Excellent," the old equivalent of an "A") and one "S" ("Satisfactory," like a B or C), his comment would be something like "Why did you get an S?" If I played a little league baseball game and got 2 hits, and we lost, his "praise" would be "Too bad you guys lost the game." When I was appointed "Captain" (the highest rank) of the elementary school Safety Patrol (uniform, badge and all), it was something like "How much time is that going to take away from your studying?"

That was my dad. Now, today, we would look at this parental approach and condemn it. Contemporary parents and "experts" would see this as completely wrong and "detrimental to the child's self-esteem." Perhaps, they would label it "unsupportive negativism." I, on the other hand, looked at it, even as I do today, as a constructive and very personal challenge. As has been a lifelong trait, I took it as a gauntlet. As in: "You son-of-a-bitch, if that was not good enough, I will do something even more spectacular!" I simply viewed this parenting approach as grounds to charge, more determined than ever, full speed ahead.

One might ask - after enough Dr. Phil shows - "Did it 'damage me,' psychologically?" Well, yeah, quite possibly. Maybe that's the reason I am an obsessive-compulsive personality, always seeking perfection and never settling for anything less. But, at least I am not pumping gas or working as a plumber, mechanic, or roofer. Regardless of any possibility of a "damaged psyche" or "low adolescent self-esteem, I guess it all comes down to a trade-off. I might add that it is a trade that I would sign upon the dotted line for, again, in a heartbeat. We are all formed, more or less, by our childhood experiences and I am a product of mine, for better or worse. [For the record, I tried the "You can be anything you want; I will not pressure or demand anything from you" with my own kids. It did not work and never does.] I have absolutely no regrets for the life my father worked so hard to provide for me.

3. Men do men things - despite the consequences

I remember, for example, going to the Gulf Coast on vacation and playing in the sand and the salt water. I remember dad and I being "recruited" to help some fishermen pull in their trawling net to their boat about 100 yards off shore. "Come on, men, it will be fun!" I remember seeing hundreds of fascinating clear balls bobbing up and down inside the net. As we pulled and tugged the net tighter and tighter, closing the circle and moving it closer and closer to the boat, I remember others in the motley crew of volunteers laughing at these strange little, innocuous-appearing balls. Someone from the boat mentioned that they were jellyfish and not to pick them up. I certainly didn't have any intention of that, being a devout landlubber.

Then, I remember - our "man thing" done - wading back to shore and soon having this unusual stinging sensation on every inch of my skin that had been below the water line. Being the shortest participant in this impromptu struggle with a fisherman's net, this meant pretty much any skin lying south of my neck. As we reached shore, the stinging rapidly evolved from merely irritating to sheer agony. Apparently, the tentacles of the "they won't hurt you unless you pick them up" little jellyfish had come through the net and stung me. Repeatedly. It was a feeling I will never forget. I tried to keep laughing at it, like the other men (I was about 11 or 12 at the time), but I ended up rubbing sand - and everything else I could possibly find - on my skin in a futile attempt to ease the pain. My skin, for all practical appearances, had been flogged with a prehistoric cat o' nine tails. After about 24 hours, it did go away. I don't think I cried, but I may very well have. I am quite certain I didn't let anyone SEE me cry. That, dear reader, IS a memory.

3. Fathers and son need "rituals" to share

Despite his work demands, he did make time for me when he could. There were important father-son "bonding" rituals. Much to my father's credit, since I am quite sure I could be a terrific pain-in-the-ass as child, he would - once or twice a month - take me to work with him on Saturdays. I looked forward to this grand day, each and every time it was possible for him to pull it off. On Saturdays, his off day at the Post Office, Dad would also work a 6 or 8 hours, day shift at Pizitz. On these wonderful Saturdays, he would take me with him downtown. The activities would include a Saturday "kid's" matinee at the Alabama theater (I think a quarter was the admission price), a thorough exploration of the Woolworth's 5 & 10, and concluding with a soiree through the Pizitz Department Store. And then there was always the grand finale: sitting up in the store room with Dad and his boss, Al Hancock. It was always fun, come rain, cold, it didn't matter. I was on my own in the heart of the "big city," an definitive oxymoron for Birmingham, even today. As is letting your child roam the city streets. Dad always seemed proud of me and seemed genuinely fond of having me around. When I sat around, with Dad and Al "shooting the breeze," I felt like one of the guys. It was the highlight of my week, my month and, for the most part, my year.

4. Family first

My father and my new mother gave me: stability, peace, and love. I could see and feel the love they had for each other. My new mother was feeling her way along with me and didn't do a lot of hugging and kissing and "mother stuff." My dad was, well, my dad. He was of the generation where showing affection, particularly to a male child, was just not the way to go. He was a stern taskmaster. If my father said "Go rake leaves" he didn't mean "Finish your TV show. You can do the leaves when you have the chance, son." He meant RIGHT NOW! He did not "spare the rod" and certainly did not spoil this child. I am sure I gave him many opportunities to not spare any available rod. I am equally convinced that I tested my limits with this new couple every chance I had - at least early on. But, through the occasional belt (his personal favorite: the U.S. Postal Service issue, 2 inch wide model) and, when he felt particularly energetic, a "switch." [Those born in the post-DHR age have, tragically, been spared this learning device.]

5. A family needs a King and a Queen - and I was neither

One distinctly memorable episode was a seemingly innocuous remark I made, probably - again - as a test of my boundaries, after the evening meal. I, being full of myself as usual, was not

particularly pleased with what was being offered up by the hurried, rushed, 3-jobs-to-make-ends-meet couple. Mom had rushed in after a hard days work at Hayes Aircraft and only had time to cook TV dinners. Now, remember, TV dinners in the 1960s still had to be oven-cooked. There were no microwave ovens then, so even though they were pre-cooked, they still required significant time and trouble. She was clearly rushed and prepared what she could. So, sensitive child that I was, as I walked away from the table I made a sarcastic "Thanks for supper!" and ambled outside. As I left, I probably smirked at my little dig at this interloper. Big mistake!

Well, it just so happened that she had a particularly bad day and was, apparently, PMS'ing at the time. [I only learned this recently as she recalled the incident for me from her view] How was I to know? She started quietly sobbing (she was not one for histrionics) and Dad asked what was the matter, He, then, heard the story of my haughty deed. I, of course, was merrily tossing the football in the streets with some locals. I distinctly remember him yelling for me to come back in the house, right then! Dad, understandably, went into a rage, the worst I can recall. I receive - politely described - the spanking (beating seems like such a harsh word these days) of my life. The belt kind. I think Glenda, herself, had to call the old bull off the backside of the younger bull.

I learned two things. First, as if from a Chinese fortune cookie, always "be happy with what you get." And, more importantly, I understood where I stood in this little threesome - the family "pecking order." My position would be, for those keeping score, dead last. I may have pouted for days afterwards but, in retrospect, I certainly deserved what I got. I found out who was the functioning head of the newly family unit and - lo and behold! - it was not my father, as I had previously assumed. And it was assuredly not me. Valuable lessons, learned early, may be painful but they are well-learned. From then on, I knew to tread lightly.

6. Learn, learn and learn some more

Episodes like the one described above probably lie at the roots of my perceived isolation as a kid. As "odd man out" in our little family unit, I spent a great deal of time in my room. It was a nice room with a triangular, desk-bookshelves-dresser combo tucked into the far corner from the door. My parents made sure I had a "Book of Knowledge" 20 volume encyclopedia, a 10 volume science encyclopedia, and a 10 volume set of the classic novels. I absolutely had the world's wisdom at my fingertips. I read constantly. I would drop into the basement "family room" and watch television occasionally in the evenings, but I cherished the time in my room. Notably, when I was 12 or 13, I asked for and received a typewriter for Christmas. I wore that little portable Royal typewriter out with typed reports and assorted compositions or personal woes. While my fellow students were turning in handwritten homework, "Ronnie the Super Student" was submitting neat, typed (even if often carrying the blurry marks of my corrections) reports on ivory-white (erasable-bond) paper. My content was impressive and invariably pedantic and verbose. The teachers at school loved it. I used my little reference library to good purpose. Typing, even with untutored fingers, was therapeutic then just as it is today.

There are some of the things my father gave to me. As I see him now, tottering along at 79 and beginning to fail a bit in his health and his mental faculties, I still see him as the mighty oak from which this little acorn feel and was nurtured with all the love and attention any child has a right to expect. My folks have earned and now have a good life. Dad, for most of his life, worked two jobs (sometimes 3 jobs), saved like the depression-era product he was and my parents live very comfortably since his retirement 25 years ago. He life was spent providing, as best he could and as best he knew how, for his family. It is little wonder to me that he did not always have time for both a new wife and a self-centered (aren't they all?), strong-willed (my father's son to the bone) kid. I was never the center of the family universe but, of infinitely more value, I was part of a wonderful and principled little family. Now, I simply understand what my folks sacrificed for me and allowed me to pursue. I admire him to this day. Check that: I am in awe of him.