Dad’s Lessons

The Man Upstairs

It’s July 24^th, 2020.  It would have been my Dad’s 102^nd birthday today.  He passed away four years ago, just a couple of days shy of 98 years old.  The light of his life, my Mom, had gone five years before that.  They had an amazing life together, so much of it full of joy and adventure.  It was only in those final couple of years before Mom died, and the last couple years for Dad, that things got sad.

When Mom died, none of us were prepared. The days after her death were a flurry, planning a funeral, and then finding that our “family” Weil Funeral Home couldn’t do it on Yom Kippur. They were still great, and helped us move to the Catholic Gilligan Funeral Home. We were all worried about Dad, but he was more concerned about us. When the funeral was over, the Irish in us took over (after all, Mom’s maiden name and all of our middle names is O’Connor). With Jameson’s in our glasses, we drank a toast to “the man upstairs”. It was Dad; he’d gone up to bed, the last night he’d spend in the house where they lived for over forty years.

So now I’m sixty-three, and thinking about him.  His goal in those last years was to make it to 100.  In those years, I was handling all of his finances. Dad would ask, “do I have enough money to keep living?”  The answer always was, “Of course, you can live as long as you want”.  “Can I make it past 100?” he’d press on, and I’d assure him there was plenty for that.  Dad always would pay for whatever we were doing, but then he’d pat his pocket and say he didn’t have his money.  I’d answer,  “I’ve got your money”.   I think he found that reassuring.

Work Hard

There are lots of things that Dad taught me.  Most of them were through example.  Dad was one of the hardest-working men I’ve known.  Some of my earliest memories are from when he was “on the road” Monday through Friday.  There were evening phone calls from Indianapolis or Ottumwa, and he’d pull back in on Friday ready to see his family.

Saturday’s there was always stuff to do, work around the house or the yard.  But Dad was no “handyman”, though he wished he were.  I didn’t realize that until I was older.  When I got my first car, a 1969 Plymouth Fury III (I still have the keys) the engine was shot.  Dad was no mechanic either, but our neighbors Tom Morgan and Carlos Phillips, both were good ones.  So Tom, Carlos and I would work on that Plymouth, and Dad would join in until it got late enough.  Then he’d fall asleep.

Napping

Dad made sure that all good “Dahlman’s” could fall asleep any place, any time.  So when things got late in the garage, Dad might be found snoozing somewhere, leaning against a tire.  It’s actually a great skill to have.  I’ve slept through Broadway plays, track meets with guns going off, and pretty much every airplane takeoff I’ve been on.  Dad learned that skill as a kid with a bad stomach.  When he felt sick, he went to sleep, and woke up feeling better.  Later on you could count on Dad, asleep in a chair by the TV pretty much any evening.

But what really mattered was that Dad wasn’t particularly interested in the guts of a big old Plymouth engine.  Looking back, he was there for me, to be a part of what I was doing.

Hit the Waves

Dad was no “outdoorsman” either.  But when we went to the beach, he loved the ocean, and the waves.  He taught me the skill of bodysurfing when I was nine at Cape Cod – and we both enjoyed that for years.  It wasn’t until he was near seventy that the waves finally got him.  We were in the Bahamas, bodysurfing some big rollers coming in from Florida.  One flipped him head over toe, stuck his face in the sand and knocked his swimsuit to his knees.  He got up, pulled himself together, and jumped in again, but ever after he was cautious of the big ones.  Now that I’m closer to that age, I get it too.  I’m not as reckless as I used to be, because now, getting twisted means waking up hurting . 

But when it came for a “walk” down the beach, usually several miles with the ultimate speed walker, Mom, Dad would pass.  Mom and the rest of us would head for “the end” of the beach, and then come back.  We’d find him snoozing in the chair, usually with the tide lapping at his feet. 

When I was getting my “going to college” award from my Scout Troop 819 (it was a glass bottomed beer mug, still on my mantle) Dad went on his first Scout camping trip with me so he could be there for the campfire ceremony.  I’m guessing the last tent he slept in was a shelter/half in some field in Georgia during basic training in 1941.   I know he didn’t sleep much (no snoring to be heard), and though I didn’t realize at the time, again, it was to be a part of what I was doing. 

Dahlman Tennis 

But there was tennis.  Man, did Dad play tennis.  Even after he had a couple of strokes, and his left foot dragged a bit when he walked; put a racket in his hands and he could run across the court.  He played until he was 93, and he played to win.  His tennis group in Florida was called the “Walking Wounded”.  Dad only had two open-heart surgeries, but there was an open heart with knee replacements, a couple of artificial hips, and all sorts of other ailments in the crew.

So when I was down to visit and kibitzed into the game, I tried to take it easy on our opponents:  my mistake.  Dad and I were parterned in doubles, and the opposition came to the net on a weak shot.  I ran up to take it.  

Don Dahlman’s tennis rules were pretty simple:  if the other guy hit a bad shot, and you could drive it down his throat, you did.  It was pretty scary when I was ten or so, though I later learned to not “feed” him a killable ball.  So when open-heart surgery, two artificial knees and a bad elbow came to the net, I didn’t kill the ball. I lobbed it back over his head.  

After the point, Dad took me aside.  He wanted to make sure I understood the Dahlman rules of tennis.  Even in the “Walking Wounded” games, there was no letting guys off the hook just because of their ailments.  THEY stepped on the court; it was THEIR problem if they couldn’t take it.  “But,” I said, “I might kill him”.  “We’ll win the point,” was Dad’s response.  

I didn’t win a set of tennis against Dad until I was eighteen.  I didn’t lose more than one or two after I was thirty (that would have made Dad near seventy).  It was no good trying to “feed” him the points, he knew if you weren’t going after it, and he didn’t want to play you if you weren’t trying to win.  So, with the exception of not hitting overheads (Dad would get dizzy when he went straight up in the last few years) we played tennis hard.

The Tryouts

Dad’s work came home.  We were all a part of whatever he was doing at the TV station, or with the programs he was involved in creating and selling.  And we were definitely the final approval committee for new hires.  I think the logic went:  if you couldn’t come to dinner and sell the bosses’ kids, you probably weren’t going to be able to convince Proctor and Gamble to buy four thirty-second commercial spots on the next TV show.  So we met the whole team, Grant and Lee, Bruce, Boyce, and Joe.  They passed the test around the dinner table, and went out into the world to sell Donahue, Sally Jesse Raphael, After School Specials, and, towards the end, Jerry Springer.

Speaking of working for Dad, he taught me one other thing. He taught me a range of profanity that I have found to be a valuable and effective tool in my life, though I never used it towards people like he did.  He seldom used it at home, but it was clearly the “language” of his work. When he was trying to get something done, or get someone motivated, the shear creativity of Dad’s language was amazing.  

I never, ever wanted to work for him.  It must have been a World War II thing, because some of his friends were as good at profanity or even better.  And one of my earliest employers, a WW II Marine himself, did the same.  Those kinds of words coming from a US Congressman really had a punch.

Some kids learn profanity on the back of the bus, and some at Boy Scout Camp.  I learned a little about sailing from Jerry Ransohoff.  But I learned so much more about language, and what could possibly be said with a four-letter explanation. And I learned lots of dirty jokes from Art Spiegel over the tennis net.  But the “best” profanity I learned was from listening to Dad talk business on the phone.  It’s served me well.

Take Risks

Looking back, I realize Dad was a risk taker.  He believed in himself and in his ability to do whatever job he put his mind to.  If a company didn’t give him what he wanted, he moved on. He went from one company to the next:  Adler to Crosley, Crosley to Ziv, Ziv to Avco. When Avco became Multimedia, he went from Dayton to corporate in Cincinnati, moving where he needed to be.  Our family went with him, except for two years when we were in Cincinnati and he was in Dayton.  The commute proved to be too much, and we finally moved to Kettering to be near the TV station, WLW-D.

But the one move Dad never made was to New York City.  That was the center of the broadcast universe, home to the networks.  I’m sure there were plenty of opportunities, and both Mom and Dad were city lovers.  But they didn’t want to raise us in the city, and they didn’t want Dad to spend hours on a train every day to the suburbs.  So he took risks and moved up, but never made the final move to NYC.  He passed that up for us.

Dad was a child of the Depression, and a veteran of World War II.  He smoked a lot when I was very little, as did most of his generation.  When he was forty-four, we were living in Bloomfield Village outside of Detroit. He came in the living room of the house one evening, and announced that he was smoking his last cigarette.  The doctor told him he wouldn’t live to see his kids grow up if he didn’t quit, so he did, right there.  I only saw him smoke once more, several years later in Dayton.  There was a stain on the dining room table; somehow cigarette ashes would get it out.  He looked immensely pleased to smoke one for that purpose.

The Final Lesson

But Dad and Mom taught us one lesson beyond all others:  how to love and how to live.  I had the honor of speaking at both of their funerals. I don’t think I can say it any better now than I did when I spoke for the family at the pulpit at Trinity and Ascension Episcopal Church in Wyoming, Ohio, in those days of grief after Mom passed away.

And most importantly of all, we learned the great gift of love.  There is no greater love story than that of Mom and Dad:  born in the bombing of London, nurtured through the trials and turmoil of the great American television boom; raising kids in the 60’s, enjoying the life of travel that the 80’s and 90’s brought.  They were inseparable, they were one, they were the epitome of what commitment to each other meant. “’Til death do us part” was only a part of their commitment. “To live life as one” is the greatest gift Mom and Dad had to teach.

Happy Birthday, Dad, I’m so glad you’re with Mom again.