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WPCNR THE SUNDAY BAILEY. By John F. Bailey. June 17, 2007: My father gave me three pieces of advice in life: Always drive an air-conditioned car. Always centrally air-condition your home. Stay out of court.
My Dad{ Charles F. Bailey, Center, formerlly of Pleasantville, N.Y. as he appeared in a banking advertisment in the 1960s for his bank. Republic National Bank.
And — Oh — don’t sit in traffic, always take the service road on the Long Island Expressway.
(He would have loved a Garmin.)
In restrospect, his advice has served me well.
I am always comfortable. I sit out traffic delays in comfort. I have not made lawyers rich.
He was not an especially emotional man. He was a banker and always wore suits to work.
I have fond memories of going to meet him when he got off the train in Pleasantville – when
The train tracks were at grade with Manville Road. I was most impressed as a young chile by how he always smelled of coal cinders when he got off the train – like commuter’s cologne.
Sadly on today’s electric trains you do not get that. And you always heard those steam engines coming. You could see them: Clouds of very busy and industrious black smoke streaming at the horizon down the line.
He’d get off the train. My mother would move over and he’d drive the old Hudson Hornet home.
He always spoke quietly. Never raised his voice. Drank scotch and soda and he smoked. He set up a Lionel train set in our basement – perhaps our unspoken connection.
When I was sent in by train for the first time to meet him at the office during Christmas time. He’d have his secretary greet me at Grand Central Terminal which still is a very big and scary place. He would take me to lunch at Jack’s Monte Rosa restaurant on 49th Street – which I thought was a very great place. When I first went to it with him, I was a little disappointed that it was not more glamourous but I was really impressed that Jack the owner greeted him by name. I thougt that was great that my Dad was greeted with respect. When I first started working I ate regularly at a restaurant below the television station where I worked, and the owner eventually, named Marty, started calling me, ‘Hi John, how are you?” People would look at me. I liked that.
When my father came to visit me inWashington where I worked. I took him around town. I told him when he got off the plane. “Hi, Dad, welcome to my town.” I wanted to impress him. We’re always trying to impress our fathers.
Another Father time was when my Dad came out for Dad’s day at college. I mean this was a big thing to me. He watched me do play-by-play of a football game from atop the press box in 25 degree weather. It was cold. But he watched. Acted impressed.
Another time when I last a job when I was working at the television station that I had been being considered for. And I told him how unfair it was, he put things in perspective: “Puggy, he said, “The film manager wasn’t going to put you in as his Assistant if you were going to be bucking him all the time.”
It put things in perspective.
Then later in my career when I was fired out of a job completely blindsided. He again intervened, saying to me he thought what the agency head had done was a terrible thing. I needed that at the time. He also, in a very supportive move, told me if I could make $1,000 a night writing a free lance direct mail package, I should keep trying to do that.
Dads are there to say the right things to you at the right time. Sometimes it is not always the right thing, but they try. Often, if you’re lucky, as I was, they say the right thing. And not the wrong thing.
When I bought my first house in White Plains. He never criticised the house. But when I sold it, he complimented me, “I think it’s great how you came out of it (the crummy first house).”
They’re personal trainers. And train you to run a race. If you stumble, no one hurts more than they do. When you succeed, no one is prouder. They know what you should do, but they can’t tell you, because you won’t do it if you’re a kid. But the more subtler of them tell you any way in hopes it will sink in to the rebellious teen mind. My dad was subtle.
Another fond memory: My father took me camping once at a friend’s cabin in Pennsylvania. Funny thing was there was such a great comic collection we wound up sleeping in sleeping bags on the porch of the cabin. That was funny.
Another time when I was being threatened in college over a position at the radio station, I asked him if I should just abdicate and assign a play-by-play position to the person who was being forced on me. He advised me to “stick to your guns,” so I reported the threat to the Dean. The position was compromised, but I was never threatened again.
He never shared my love for baseball and sports. In fact he never played catch with me all that well. I mean I could have made the big leagues (pipe dream) if he played catch with me more. But that’s a small criticism.
I wish I had more of his financial acumen. But I do not.
As you grow into your 30s and 40s, little things they say to you you begin to understand. My father never struck me, but always disciplined me with quiet words. I have not always been that way as a parent myself, being somewhat volatile. I wish I had his even temperament.
He always asked me to take care of my mother. And the only time he really got mad at me was when I had made my mother upset with me.
I little like John Wayne in the way he disciplined, I remember he would say admonitions quietly. Such as when I got an F in an English course at college. He told me, that was the last F I would get at Ohio Wesleyan, because the next one he would stop paying my tuition. That had an effect. And that was when tuition was only $3,000 a year.
So, on Father’s Day, I think of him as I do most days of my life. I become more like him every day.
