Some Bittersweet Memories of Life With Father : A General’s Style

Father. Fathers loved and fathers feared, close fathers and distant fathers, famous fathers and “ordinary” fathers. No matter what the relationship, he’s special. In the remembrances that follow, Times writers tell something of what that relationship has meant.

My father was a career military man, an officer of the old school, “regular Army.” On matters of protocol, he was stiff as starch--as a young officer he had been military aide to President Coolidge. One of the few times I saw his sense of humor desert him was when my mother, attempting to break up a dog fight, took dead aim with a pail of water and scored a direct hit on my father as he walked in, resplendent in his blue dress uniform with epaulets, sash and sword.

In matters of the heart, it was different. A bachelor until his late 30s, he fell hard when he spotted a slender brunette debutante at a Washington party, turning to tell his best friend, “That’s the woman I’m going to marry.” Marry they did, becoming the parents of three daughters (not one candidate for the then all-male military academy!).

When all of us were grown and he had put away the uniform with the brigadier general’s star and traded the pillar-to-post life for the delights of puttering in his garage workshop and his garden, he quickly became a favorite of the neighborhood’s preschool set. They would drop by daily for one of his stories, or perhaps a tricycle repair or a handout from the cookie jar.

This was a secret society not shared by my mother, who was by nature far less gregarious. One day my father was ill and my mother, answering a knock at the door, looked down to see a child of about 4 who returned her smile with a puzzled frown and then asked tentatively, “Can the general come out and play?”