Mikel Jollett's Blog
June 22, 2020
Father’s Day Thoughts
Good morning everyone,
When I was fifteen years old, I was in a parking lot with my father when a man came up to us and asked for some change. He had on dirty clothes and was leaning on a crutch with a foot in some kind of splint. Without missing a beat, my dad reached in his pocket and gave him five bucks. The man smiled, thanked him and walked away.
I said, “Dad, why’d you give him so much money?”
He said, “I just made his day and it only cost me five bucks. How often can you make someone’s day for five bucks?”
Another story: One day when I was in high school, a man knocked on our door. My dad answered. The man was selling some kind of subscription service and when my father said we weren’t interested, the man became agitated. He was a big guy, and there was a kind of threat in his voice — an instant anger that promised violence. My dad slammed the door in his face and all we could hear was, “Sonofabitch!” echoing down the street as he walked away.
My dad looked at me and said, “He just got out. That’s a program for ex-cons. He probably doesn’t know how to act yet.” I could see the thought working on him. This man had done time in prison, like my father, and was struggling with adjusting to life on the outside.
“I’ll be right back,” he said, and walked out the door.
A few minutes later he came back. His face had softened. He’d caught up with the man and told him he’d been in prison too and had no hard feelings, but the rules are different on the outside. He told the man, “You don’t have to threaten everyone you meet. It’s okay. It’s going to take you some time but you’ll get there.” The man apologized and thanked him. My father gave him our phone number and they planned to have lunch.
That’s the kind of man he was. Always looking for the good.
My book is about many things, but at the heart of it is a very basic question, which is the one that was posed to me when he died and my world fell apart. Why did this man mean so much to me?
On the outside we were very different. I was the straight A student, the one who won essay contests and scholarships. He was the ex-con with an eighth grade education. We both carried a wound. I’d lived in an orphanage for years when I was a child. He never had much of a relationship with his father and was raised by my grandmother, who worked as a hotel maid to support four boys on her own.
When he got clean, he decided that no matter what else happened in his life, he was going to be a good father. We would spend long days at Hollywood Park, the racetrack in Inglewood that was torn down three weeks after he died. We’d bet the ponies and talk about odds, and he’d reason with me about my life, my goals, my friends and the family. There was never a pressure, never a sense that anything was expected of me except that I be honest, that I work hard, that I make my family a priority. This was a decision he made about who he was going to be in the world, and it changed my life. And though he never had a luncheon in his honor, never won an award, never even had a proper wedding, he was a wonderful, loving father and he probably saved my life.
One thing writing a memoir has taught me is that memory itself is a place. I imagine it as a racetrack. Maybe in your memory, it’s somebody’s house, a day at the beach, or a moment where the sped up feeling of now — the stress, the anxiety of this moment in history where we are isolated and worried for the future — is gone and all that’s left is the peaceful thought of happy children playing in the sand. And our parents, our grandparents, those who loved us and protected us, are alive. And we can talk to them. We can go there like lost children looking for home in a strange part of town.
For this reason, Father’s Day is a bittersweet time for me. Bitter because he’s gone. Sweet because I feel so lucky to have been given so many gifts — a lifetime of examples of how to be a father myself. I can still hear his voice in my head. Even now.
In this way, a chain was broken and a new path was set for my family. All because this humble man with an eighth grade education decided he wanted something more for his boys, and the way to give it to them was to love them with all his might.
Happy Father’s Day to all the fathers, sons, mothers and daughters out there, working, hoping and lifting the people they love with all their might.
Mikel
When I was fifteen years old, I was in a parking lot with my father when a man came up to us and asked for some change. He had on dirty clothes and was leaning on a crutch with a foot in some kind of splint. Without missing a beat, my dad reached in his pocket and gave him five bucks. The man smiled, thanked him and walked away.
I said, “Dad, why’d you give him so much money?”
He said, “I just made his day and it only cost me five bucks. How often can you make someone’s day for five bucks?”
Another story: One day when I was in high school, a man knocked on our door. My dad answered. The man was selling some kind of subscription service and when my father said we weren’t interested, the man became agitated. He was a big guy, and there was a kind of threat in his voice — an instant anger that promised violence. My dad slammed the door in his face and all we could hear was, “Sonofabitch!” echoing down the street as he walked away.
My dad looked at me and said, “He just got out. That’s a program for ex-cons. He probably doesn’t know how to act yet.” I could see the thought working on him. This man had done time in prison, like my father, and was struggling with adjusting to life on the outside.
“I’ll be right back,” he said, and walked out the door.
A few minutes later he came back. His face had softened. He’d caught up with the man and told him he’d been in prison too and had no hard feelings, but the rules are different on the outside. He told the man, “You don’t have to threaten everyone you meet. It’s okay. It’s going to take you some time but you’ll get there.” The man apologized and thanked him. My father gave him our phone number and they planned to have lunch.
That’s the kind of man he was. Always looking for the good.
My book is about many things, but at the heart of it is a very basic question, which is the one that was posed to me when he died and my world fell apart. Why did this man mean so much to me?
On the outside we were very different. I was the straight A student, the one who won essay contests and scholarships. He was the ex-con with an eighth grade education. We both carried a wound. I’d lived in an orphanage for years when I was a child. He never had much of a relationship with his father and was raised by my grandmother, who worked as a hotel maid to support four boys on her own.
When he got clean, he decided that no matter what else happened in his life, he was going to be a good father. We would spend long days at Hollywood Park, the racetrack in Inglewood that was torn down three weeks after he died. We’d bet the ponies and talk about odds, and he’d reason with me about my life, my goals, my friends and the family. There was never a pressure, never a sense that anything was expected of me except that I be honest, that I work hard, that I make my family a priority. This was a decision he made about who he was going to be in the world, and it changed my life. And though he never had a luncheon in his honor, never won an award, never even had a proper wedding, he was a wonderful, loving father and he probably saved my life.
One thing writing a memoir has taught me is that memory itself is a place. I imagine it as a racetrack. Maybe in your memory, it’s somebody’s house, a day at the beach, or a moment where the sped up feeling of now — the stress, the anxiety of this moment in history where we are isolated and worried for the future — is gone and all that’s left is the peaceful thought of happy children playing in the sand. And our parents, our grandparents, those who loved us and protected us, are alive. And we can talk to them. We can go there like lost children looking for home in a strange part of town.
For this reason, Father’s Day is a bittersweet time for me. Bitter because he’s gone. Sweet because I feel so lucky to have been given so many gifts — a lifetime of examples of how to be a father myself. I can still hear his voice in my head. Even now.
In this way, a chain was broken and a new path was set for my family. All because this humble man with an eighth grade education decided he wanted something more for his boys, and the way to give it to them was to love them with all his might.
Happy Father’s Day to all the fathers, sons, mothers and daughters out there, working, hoping and lifting the people they love with all their might.
Mikel
