Growing up, my father was prone to detours. We would be on our way to a family event or a Brewers game and he would inevitably turn off course to “show us something.” We all knew what it was. Eventually, we would pass by a factory, office building, department store, or other commercial structure and the reason for the trip would come out. My dad would point out the building and proudly declare “I helped build that.”
For thirty-plus years my dad worked as an ironworker in the Milwaukee area. His company provided the bones for lots of mid-level buildings in the metropolitan area. My father played a vital role in many of these jobs as one of the top foremen for the company. So it was with great pride that he would show us the end result of his daily labors.
And I was proud of it too. Being able to casually drop “My dad? He builds buildings,” in the what-does-your-dad-do conversation always had a certain caché. How many other kids could say something as cool as that?
But this sense of pride came at a price. Working year round out in the extremes of our see-saw Wisconsin climate, my dad endured year after year of cold, snowy winters and hot, humid summers. I remember him telling me that he would get so cold sometimes that it seemed to reach his bones. At night in the winter, he would fire-up the cast iron stove in our living room, creating so much heat that I would be sitting on the couch across the room sweating profusely. He, on the other hand, would be lying right next to it in jeans and a thermal shirt, peacefully asleep.
Then there were the injuries. From little ones, such as smashed toes and welding shavings in the eye; to big ones, such as a fall when I was only a few months old that put him in the hospital and left him with chronic back problems. The inherent danger of his profession was always in the air. It worried my step-mom a great deal and I know she bore the brunt of the concern for him, more than she ever let on. Thinking back on it now, a sense of calm always seemed to come over me whenever his green work van pulled into the driveway.
For my dad, though, it was all worth it. Born into rural poverty, his chosen trade allowed him to lift his family up and solidly place it in the middle class. His story is the quintessential case study of the post-World War II rise of the blue-collar worker. His own sweat and determination enabled him to achieve that more modest of American dreams: providing a starting point for his children that was better than his own.
It humbles me to think of all that he went through to provide this for us. The injuries, the rotten weather, the stressful deadlines - it wasn’t easy. But my dad has never been about doing what is easy. He did what was right, and we are the ones that benefited most from it. We were given a head start.
Of course, there is much more to my father than what he did for a living. There is the generous man who has always given of himself freely. Hours and hours of baseball games in the front yard, sock fights in the living room, basketball in the driveway. He has passed on so more than just improved lifestyle. He instilled in myself and my two siblings a fierce work ethic, a kind heart, and an unlimited devotion to family.
So it is on a day like this, my first official Father’s Day, that I hope he takes one more detour and looks at what he has built in us.
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