> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.smdp.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# Remembering dad on his special day
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/remembering-dad-on-his-special-day/
- Published: 2007-06-12T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-25T00:15:00.000Z
- Author: David Pisarra
- Tags: Opinion, Santa Monica, #archive-import

DADS ARE COOL. WELL, THEY CAN BE. They can also be losers who don’t nurture their kids. They can be hard working, or lazy, funny or stiff. They can be the kind of dad who patiently teaches fishing or the type that regularly ends up in jail on domestic violence charges.

Fathers come in all different stripes and your father’s makeup is pretty much a random event over which you have no control. Personally, my father was not a great dad when I was little. He and my mom had a very tumultuous relationship and, eventually, they divorced when I was just 12.

I don’t have a great many memories of my father, he passed away of a heart attack when I was 19\. No great surprise there really, he smoked four packs of cigarettes a day, drank coffee like it was air, and lived on donuts and fried foods. He was 65.

We were just getting over my being a teenager, I was becoming a human in his eyes again when he died. Luckily for me, we had resolved many of the conflicts that teens and parents have, prior to his death. I had spoken to him the previous week and we had a great talk.

He was not the kind of dad who did things with his kids. Mostly this was because he was the 11th child to live of the 13 that his mother had given birth to. He was closer to his sisters than his mom, I think.

Pop was a charming guy when he wanted to be, he was a salesman, and charm is pretty much a requirement. He was a lot like the Willy Loman character in “Death of a Salesman.” He never really achieved great success, it always eluded him.

I guess you could say my dad was a dreamer in many ways. I don’t know if he had dreams for his kids, we never really talked about it. We never really talked about a lot of things.

You don’t get to pick your parents. That’s probably a good thing for most of the parents in the world. But whether you have good or bad parents, it doesn’t relieve you of the responsibility of being a good child.

People tend to recreate their childhood in their adult lives. The lessons we learn as kids are the guideposts that we will rely on as adults. Sometimes those are good lessons and sometimes those are bad ones.

My parents were both very intelligent. They chose to fight with each other in many ways, one of which was verbally. My mother could filet someone with a smile on her lips, a gleam in her eye and a few well chosen words. She could do this in a nanosecond. Like my father before me, debating was a skill that I had to learn, so that I could defend myself against her.

It is a skill that serves me well as a lawyer to this day. A quick turn of a phrase, and a well pointed barb and my opponent can be knocked off balance enough for me to win in court, or in a deposition. But, that same skill in a personal relationship, could keep me single for a very long time.

My personal relationships taught me to fight in a very different manner.

In order for me to grow, I had to take the lessons I learned from my father, and expand on them. I had to be open to seeing things through new eyes.

All of this comes in time. Maybe it is because I am getting older and wiser, that I can see why my father didn’t teach me many things. It was not out of malice, but out of ignorance; his father didn’t teach him, so he couldn’t teach me.

It is only now, that I can see that my father lacked the skills that we have classes for today. Being a father today is so very different from 40 years ago. There are support groups, and it’s hip for dads to be “stay at home” types. The nature of the relationship has changed from Ward Cleaver’s role as aloof disciplinarian, to diaper changing, in touch with their emotional lives, nurturing, loving dads.

Times change. Thankfully. This Sunday is Father’s Day. Whether you had a psycho dad from hell, or Mr. Cool, you should be a good kid and thank your dad for whatever lessons he taught you.

DAVID PISARRA is a business development lawyer in the Santa Monica firm of Pisarra & Grist. He welcomes your questions and comments. He or (310) 664-9969.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 12, 2007.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/061207.pdf?ref=smdp.com)