Cinemorphosis

Tag: fathers-day

  • Demoted Dad: A Suburban Fall from Instructional Grace

    Demoted Dad: A Suburban Fall from Instructional Grace

    This morning, mid-swing in a blissful kettlebell session in my garage—a sacred temple of sweat, steel, and solitude—I glanced out to see a domestic drama playing out on the asphalt stage of my street.

    There he was: a dad in safari shorts and a floppy bucket hat, walking ten feet behind his five-year-old son, who was waging war with a two-wheeled bike. The boy had the wild energy of someone determined to conquer balance through sheer will. He fell. Got up. Fell again. But on the third tumble, he’d had enough. He plopped down in the middle of the road like a pint-sized union striker, arms crossed, lips pursed, radiating silent defiance. He wasn’t hurt. He was done.

    The dad—poor man—begged him to rise. Pleaded. Offered bribes, probably. But the child had entered the iron-willed resistance phase that all seasoned parents recognize: the Sit-In of Doom.

    I considered emerging from my kettlebell cave to offer peace offerings. Coffee for the dad. Lemonade for the boy. Something to cut the tension. But reason—and David French’s podcast on the masculinity crisis—pulled me back into my dungeon. I resumed my Turkish Get-Ups as the father stood in the street, trying to lead someone who refused to be led.

    Thirty minutes passed.

    When I looked again, the scene had shifted.

    Now the father was on his own bike, trailing behind his son and wife. The boy, steadier now, was pedaling confidently while the mother jogged beside him, holding the handlebars like a Secret Service agent shielding the President. The boy beamed, triumphant. The mother wore a face that said, without saying a word, “This is how it’s done.”

    And the father?

    He wore the same sullen expression his son had half an hour earlier. He looked demoted. Not from fatherhood, but from a very specific rank: Lead Bike Instructor.

    He was now an observing sidekick. A support staffer. An unpaid intern in his own household. Whether he’ll regain his instructor’s license remains to be seen, but one suspects the road back will involve bureaucratic hoops, penance, and perhaps a formal review board chaired by his wife.

    Such is the quiet theater of suburbia—played out between fallen bikes, bruised egos, and the eternal struggle for parental credibility.

  • The Guardian of the Butt Crack

    The Guardian of the Butt Crack

    I grew up believing my father was a superhero in a gray IBM suit—equal parts Clark Kent and Anthony Nelson from I Dream of Jeannie. He carried a leather briefcase that smelled like pipe tobacco and was filled with mysterious implements of tech sorcery: slide rules, mechanical pencils, drafting rulers, protractors. To my wide-eyed, baklava-smeared face, he wasn’t just an engineer—he was The Engineer, an astronaut of logic and slide-calculation who probably held dominion over the machines of the future.

    There’s a particular memory that still shimmers with childhood awe: we were at an IBM science exhibit, and there was a robot—yes, a real robot—shaking hands with people like it was running for mayor of Tomorrowland. My father and the robot exchanged pleasantries, and even at seven years old, I could tell who was in charge. The robot was the help. My dad was management.

    On the ride home from a Greek deli, sitting shotgun in my father’s red MGB convertible (a car that felt like a rocket ship with leather seats), I asked him how far the Earth was from the sun. “Ninety million miles,” he replied without hesitation, as if he’d just returned from measuring it himself. “How’d you know that?” I asked. “I’m your father. Fathers know everything.” And I believed him. I believed him.

    So deeply did I believe, in fact, that I told every kid at our apartment playground that my dad could attach rocket boosters to the jungle gym and take us to Mars. We camped out in the carport like cult followers awaiting a prophet. And when that red MGB finally purred into its space—the exhaust trailing behind it like a comet—we erupted into cheers. Mars was within reach.

    But when I presented our request, my father, ever the civic-minded Boy Scout, informed us that launching a rocket ship from the Royal Lanai Apartments without FAA clearance would be a federal offense. “I could go to prison,” he said gravely. Naturally, we accepted this logic. What was Mars compared to civic responsibility?

    Then came the cracks.

    First, the red MGB started overheating. Constantly. It preferred fog to sunshine and finally coughed its last in a Jiffy Lube parking lot. He traded it in for a turquoise Chrysler Newport—the vehicular equivalent of orthopedic shoes. I watched that red convertible vanish into memory like a fallen deity. The myth of my father’s invincibility began to wobble.

    Next came the toast. One morning, I watched him mangle a slice of Wonder Bread with a cold slab of butter and curse under his breath, “There are three things I hate in this life: death, taxes, and hard butter.” The man who could explain orbital mechanics couldn’t conquer spreadability. It was a blow.

    Then he tried to cook. Once. His chicken cacciatore effort triggered the smoke alarm, three fire trucks, and the sincere question of whether we were insured for “chef-related catastrophe.”

    But the real unraveling happened when we moved to Venado Court, a suburban cul-de-sac so idyllic it could have been sketched by Norman Rockwell and pressure-washed by a Stepford wife. While other dads were grilling in polo shirts and dockers, mine was shirtless in the front yard, yanking weeds from the juniper bushes in low-slung Army jeans with his butt crack on full display. He had an Army tattoo on one arm and the defiant posture of a man who didn’t care if you judged his lower lumbar. And I, poor fool, tried to save him.

    “Dad, your butt crack is showing,” I whispered with the urgency of someone reporting a biohazard spill. He just grunted. Again. And again.

    Eventually, I gave up on words and assumed a new role in our family drama: The Guardian of the Butt Crack. I stood behind him like a human modesty panel, my small frame casting a loyal shadow over his defiant anatomy. I lived in fear of pedestrians. If a neighbor approached, I shifted like a Secret Service agent guarding state secrets. I was prepared to dive in front of scandal.

    But deep down, I knew the truth: my father didn’t care. He was a country boy from Michigan who grew up wrestling snakes in Florida swamps. He’d survived Army barracks and IBM corporate life. No HOA newsletter was going to break him. And eventually, I had to let go. The crack would remain, and the world would keep spinning.

    He was still my dad. Maybe not a superhero—but certainly a super character.