My Two Fathers

I waited a while to post in this topic. My father died in January 1973, when I was almost 16. My stepfather, Ed, came into my life about a month later (though I had met him randomly in November 1972) and died in December 2013.

I have plenty of good memories of my father. He always stood up for me and advocated for me. My mother thought he was unnecessarily difficult with me when he tried to teach me to catch a baseball, he more than made up for it on the ski slope. He formed and fostered my interest in current events. One of my fondest memories was his playing guitar, and, as was fashionable during the 1960's, picking up tunes and playing them by ear as well as sheet music. He succeeded in getting me interested in classical music. He and I formed great bonds over skiing, and with his attendance at school sports in which I was involved.

My mother started dating Ed, my soon-to-be stepfather, a bit more than a month after my father's death, in February 1973. They married in June 1974. Fortunately, it was a case of going from great to greater.

There were material differences between Ed and my father My mother could not have married two more different people. I never called Ed "Dad" or father. It was always "Ed", "Eddie" or "Edwin." I never kissed him until he was likely unconscious, before he died more than 40 years later. While Ed was intelligent he lacked my father's powerful intellect. And others, primarily a close friend from high school and my marching and symphonic band leader picked up where my father left off with classical music. But I digress. Both myself and his three children, Billy, Debi and Janet pushed heavily for Ed's and my mother's marriage.

He taught me how to drive. I gained my interest in the stock market and economics from Ed. I always read Forbes and Business Week when he brought them home from Loeb Rhodes, where he worked as a broker. I acquired that interest to make sure we always had something to talk about. I picked up his copy of Barrons from Big Top every Sunday after I got my driver's license, which was about eight months before Ed and my mother married. I was proud to have him at the high school graduations of myself and his daughter Janet.

Common sense, compassion and great street instincts more than made up for his minor deficits. I mediated or arbitrated many a squabble between him and my mother, as he did squabbles between my mother and myself. I was almost always neutral on his side, since I knew, on the merits, he was usually right. I learned by that age that my mother had a knack for picking fights, usually the wrong ones. Ed was of great comfort and counsel after my sophomore year at college had a disastrous ending, in 1977.

Over the years, when his athletic abilities declined by virtue of age, I was his tennis partner.
Back in what must have been late 2006 I took my Ed out to see the movie "Flags of Our Father." He had fought in WW II, in North Africa and I believe Europe. That was a major part in our almost lifelong bond. I believe, but am not certain, that I got the book from his shelf. Ed's life in many respects echoed that mantra of decency, integrity and kindness that I have cherished while he was alive and for the more than six years since his passing. When he died in 2013 at the age of 94, I wrote and delivered most of the eulogy, after a short statement by Janet and one of my sons.

I miss both of my fathers, especially as I have raised by two sons, now 24 and almost 23, and see what parts of my father and Ed reside in them.