Dad

I WAS BLESSED to grow up with parents who possessed different strengths and skills. Mom was and still is the "glue" of the family, but Dad was the enforcer and "silent pillar of strength." Mom encouraged academics and culture, while Dad always promoted athletics. Both gave my brother and me all they had. My Dad loved playing baseball. He coached the sport at the high school level. He introduced me to the game when I was in the second grade. He taught me all the basics: how to hit, run the bases, and pitch.

For those who believe it's possible to read your way into being a better dad, there are plenty of books out there that might help this Father's Day. As a rule, these tend to fall into two distinct categories: the this-is-serious-business dad books and the lighter-side-of-being-a-dad books. A prime example of the former is The Father's Book: Being a Good Dad in the 21st Century, by David Cohen. Although it purports to cover everything from a child's needs to discipline techniques to playing with your kid, it begins with this rather ominous observation: "Fathers love their sons and want to protect them, but fathers are also jealous; they see their sons who are strong, beautiful and have their lives before them.

SO, YOU'VE water-cooler story of the day.A dad walks into the day-care center where his 6-year-old is enrolled in the kindergarten program and sees his boy wearing a dress. He was pretty sure that, although it was early, when the kid left home he was in pants.Turns out, it's dress-up activity time, which may or may not be good preparation for your SATs. But kids do love to play dress-up. In this class, the kids can dress up as firefighters. They can dress in a businessman's coat and tie. They can dress in, well, a dress.

Dare to ponder the imponderable: It's time to get Dad a gift for Father's Day. You know the drill. The big guy is tough to buy for because A) He'll never tell you what to get him; and B) He usually wants something practical (i.e. boring) and nobody likes to shop for that. What's a son or daughter or significant other to do? There's one viable alternative -- give him a traditional gift with a twist. Don't just buy him fishing tackle, get something with a little panache. Plain ties won't do when novel designs are available.

My dad spoke Kid — even Adult Kid. He knew that in challenging times, an "I'll be OK" from my brother or me really meant, "Stick with me. " Even when unsure of exactly what to do, he would just show up. I do not mean he would move in or plant on our couch — I mean that he would help us come up with a game plan, and then call every three hours even if just to say, "I love you. " In Kid, these calls translated into: "You are not alone. " He practiced the gospel of the "FUNdamentals," as he wrote the term he preached from our first lacrosse toss in the backyard and through his team dad years.

Kyle Largent sits on a bleacher seat behind home plate at Broadneck High and listens quietly as the pass-catching feats of his NFL Hall of Fame father Steve Largent are rattled off.The 16-year-old junior catcher for the Bruins proudly acknowledges the football accomplishments of his dad, who is now a U.S. Republican representative from Oklahoma.But Kyle Largent prefers not to dwell on the 819 receptions for 13,089 yards that stood as NFL career records for Steve Largent before they were broken by James Lofton and Jerry Rice after Largent retired in 1989.

My father never had any formal training as a chef, but he was from Switzerland, where fine cuisine and fresh ingredients are common. His mother was a superb cook, his father a skilled gatherer of wild mushrooms, herbs, nuts and berries. They were the only teachers he needed. After we moved to America in the early 1960s, my father sought out the best butcher and green grocer he could find and became their most loyal and discerning customer. An otherwise embarrassingly frugal man who was convinced a good pair of shoes should cost under $20, he thought nothing of buying the finest cuts of beef and the freshest ingredients.

It is the morning of your first college interview. You are 16 years old and nervous. Dad walks into the room for a little chat.Without so much as a "Good luck, son," he proceeds to find fault with how you tied your tie, how long you took in the shower, how quickly you ate. By the time you arrive at the interview, you are a wreck.So how do you react to that kind of performance? You could:A. Forget about the whole thing.B. Wait until Dad retires to Florida and then never call.C. Use it as the basis for a book.

Last week, on what would have been his father's 79th birthday, Chad Unitas visited his grave at Dulaney Valley Memorial Gardens. There, on the edge of a pond filled with ducks and ringed by weeping willows, he knelt by the marble marker and spoke with the one many call football's greatest quarterback. "I go there a couple of times a month, to ask my dad's advice about this and that," Unitas said. "He's been gone 10 years, but I can still hear his voice. " Johnny Unitas died of a heart attack Sept.

I see where one of the hot gifts for Father's Day is a GPS navigation device because, well, you know how Dad is when it comes to directions. The big guy is kind of clueless, right? He gets behind the wheel and he just sort of drives and drives with this vacant look, listening to the wind rush through his ears. And he's always getting lost. Because in addition to being clueless, he's stubborn and won't ask anyone for help. Nope, he'll just keep driving and driving no matter how lost he gets until he drives smack into the ocean.