Andy Griffith set me up

It's true, Andy Griffith set me up. He made that father-son thing look far too easy. From the opening scene on all of his shows where he and his son were holding fishing rods to that famous whistling tune in the background. Me, on the other hand, I almost had to hand in my dad card on more than one occasion. Here are few examples.

My first attempt at an Andy Griffith moment gone awry happened when my son, Jordan, was about five. It was when I took my son out for a walk at my wife’s grandmother’s house up in the mountains of Pennsylvania.  My intent was to take him to a secluded baseball field, kind of like in the movie, “Field of Dreams”. So off Jordan and I went with a gym bag full of baseballs and a bat, pseudo Andy Griffith, albeit no one was whistling. All went as planned as we played catch and hit a few balls. Then it all went suddenly wrong when I tried to take a shortcut on the way back home.

Long story short, we wondered through the woods for what seemed hours as I got us terribly lost. In the end after my son got sick from drinking too much water at my insistence, we were rescued by a bunch of elderly ladies.  To make matters worse, Florine, the unofficial leader of the group, happened to know my wife’s grandmother personally. The worst part was they drove so slow taking us back I could have walked faster.  My heart was in the right place; however my directional skills had us in the entirely wrong direction.

You would think I would have learned from the previous misadventure, but apparently I did not. I, however subscribe to the try, try again theory. Taking another cue from Andy I decided a few years after the first debacle to take my son fishing, when he was about eight. I doubt however that Andy Griffith ever carried his bait in a Wal-mart bag. As you might expect it didn’t turn out too well.

Despite the assistance of an expert fisherman my line still got caught in the trees and after about 2 to 3 hours of nothing to show for our trouble I took Jordan pizza fishing. My heart was in the right place; however my fishing skills and rod were not.

This brings me to the other night, without going into details, when I unintentionally embarrassed my son, who is now a college student.   I called him late at night when he had stayed out later than I had anticipated.  It was awkward, but my heart told me it was the right thing to do. Every parent worth his weight in salt knows that sick feeling in the pit of your stomach you get when you think your child might be hurt or lost or in peril. You simply do what you must do, despite the embarrassment.

That moment helped me understand a little better what a dad truly is. He cares, even if he has to look dumb in the process.  Ever since my son was born I tried so hard not to embarrass him like my dad, who once embarrassed me when I was a seventh grader playing football.  He pulled me from a game because of a downpour. For many years I never understood why he would embarrass me like that. A few years ago I discovered from my dad that he just was trying to do what he thought was right for me. Heck, nobody can be Andy Griffith and believe me I wasn’t going to be Dan Marino anyway.

So, it is I love my son, maybe not always perfectly like Andy Griffith seemed to on the television screen.  But, in my opinion he set me up because my heart is in the right place, it just doesn’t always look like it.

Swavel