One of my favorite little memories of my dad’s dad-wisdom in action was his feelings on me buying my first Discman (for the young’uns: a Discman was like a primitive iPod–a personal CD player.) Anyway, my dad shared his opposition to the purchase, explaining that this sort of technology “promotes solitary activity.” (Those were his exact words–I remember it very clearly.)

***

I still bought the Discman.

But though I may have appeared to brush your admonition aside with typical teenage flippancy, Dad, I heard you. And hopefully you never felt you lost me to my headphones. (I really only ever listened to the thing while half asleep on the god-awful 6:30 a.m. hour long bus ride.)

Even then, I understood this as an iteration of your devotion to our family. It was always apparent that you treasured your job as our dad, and truly enjoyed the time we spent together as a family. No silly little device would come between us and the adventures we had to make together.

***

I already dread the future struggles against my kids wanting their own devices of “solitary activity,” which are, perhaps, even more ubiquitous today.

But I hope that when we do run up against these tides we cannot avoid, my kids will, like me, have little issue not allowing these items to take away from our times together–because the family times beat anything a device could provide them on their own.

I plan to share some more of my dad’s wisdom here, because there’s no doubt he’s truly lived a self-styled life full of adventure! But for now, I hope you enjoy that little snippet. And thanks to the New Hampshire Writers’ Network for inspiring this memory–click on over to hear some more dad wisdom!

My Dad and I at my wedding!

What memories or lessons do you treasure from your dad?