Daddio

My father worked hard and was a very good provider for us hoodlums.  He wasn’t home a lot and sometimes had two jobs in addition to his full-time one.  When he was around he made repairs on the house, mowed the grass, and fixed things.  I believed he could fix anything.  I thought this because I used to leave all my precious trinkets on the top of his tall maple bureau during the day and then in the morning, before he left for his long work day and while I was still sleeping, they would magically appear on my own bureau with working clasps and reattached bits and bobs.

Only once could he not fix something and that was when I brought him a doll with a severed arm.  Most of  my “dolly’s” had rubber appendages that could just be squeezed back into place.  But this doll was different – she had some sort of pulley attachment inside the torso that had to hook up with the inside of the arm somehow.  And Dad couldn’t fix her…

He came to me very gently that night as I was riding my tricycle in the driveway.  Actually that tricycle is what caused the amputation in the first place.  I had carelessly backed over my special dolly and the arm broke and the small metal part fell out with a hollow clank.  And since I didn’t know it was a crucial component, other sneakered-feet somehow kicked it onto our wide front lawn never to be seen again.  Dad wouldn’t have been able to use that part anyway because, although he could fix most anything, he was not a welder and even I knew that.

Still, I hoped against hope and really believed my father could fix my dolly’s broken arm with his special kind of wizardry.  And so, he did indeed come to me gently that soft summer night and knelt beside my bike and with the kindest voice he ever used, told me my doll could not be repaired.  I don’t remember if I cried – I might have, but if I did it was not because my doll was forever broken.  It was because my father had never spoken to me with such tender deference before.

I’m sure you realize that the dad in the picture above is not my father.  He is actor Don Porter.  Recently I’ve been using Gidget reruns as a lullaby.  I love watching an episode before I go to sleep.  This is the Gidget series with Sally Fields that ran for one year in 1965-66.  Of course, I love the fashions, the homey reassuring set designs, and the innocent madcap adventures that seem so far removed from the Kardashian world we inhabit today.  Sally Fields is darling as Francie “Gidget” Lawrence but it’s her dad, Russ Lawrence that’s stealing my heart during my late-night viewing sojourns.

Don Porter must have been a lot like Mr. Lawrence because his role as Gidget’s dad seems to come naturally to him.  He’s gentlemanly and all reports on the internet claim he truly was the Real Deal.  He’s wise and gives great advice with a remarkably cultivated delivery that is so, oh I don’t know, Dad-like.  He does act out sometimes like when he went on a date for the first time and became embarrassed when Gidget held him accountable for missing his “curfew”.  He goes off the rails from time to time but he comes right back as the genial and loving dad that he is.

He truly is a grown up too and one of the only ones on the show.  He’s the oak tree from which all the other characters emanate.  There’s Gidget of course, and Lerue her best friend and the “Ethel” to her “Lucy”.  They cavort on screen like two young puppies, getting into all kinds of dilemmas and escapish hi-jinks.  And then there is Anne and John, Gidget’s fretful older sister and her hapless husband who is studying to be a child psychologist.  The irony of that is not lost on loveable, strong and kindly Russ who at times seems to be the only adult in the room.  But Mr. Lawrence also has a cool-cat vibe about him.  He sometimes calls Gidget “Baby” when he lectures her, he saunters when he walks across the hall to answer the door, he drives a convertible and lives in sunny cool-cat California.  I enjoy watching his vibe mesh with 1960’s America.  It’s nostalgic and hip at the same time.

I’ve enjoyed many “Dads” in film and television, most notably the nearly perfect Atticus Finch of To Kill A Mockingbird.  But now there’s just something about that dear Don Porter.  It’s funny how I never noticed him when I watched the show as a 5th grader.  And I think it’s that voice – he carries that sweet tender timbre that my own father used the day he told me he couldn’t fix my dolly.  I only wish my father had been granted the time for more moments like that.