Selfie on the morning of the 25th anniversary of my 50th birthday.

Father’s Day 2022.

My first since discovering that my father left me a brother I didn’t know about until late last year, meeting him (at least virtually), and now being in regular contact, exchanging photos, texts, more thoughtful emails, with an occasional phone call or Zoom in there as well.

It kind of jumbles our understandings of Father’s Day. He now has to sort out feelings about a biological father he never knew, and now only knows through the stories my surviving sister (who I didn’t know about until I was about 50) and I are able to share, and reprocess his memories of the father he grew up with in the context of his new knowledge. I just have to reassess my/our dad, knowing at this point that I have both a brother and sister he had fathered by different women, but I did not know about until much later in life.

Anyway, I pulled up a few photos for the occasion. Just click on any photo to see a larger version.

First photo, generations. This is my dad with his parents, on the steps of their small house at 3718 Vista Street in Long Beach, California. Checking it in Google, I see that it is now uses the address “E. Vista Street.” I don’t recall the street direction being used way back when I would send cards to my grandmother.

In any case, my dad is on the left as you look at the photo, standing in front of his father. In the middle, his younger brother, Tom. And then Bill, the older brother, on the right.

My grandfather, William Grace Lind, was a shipwright who came to the US from Scotland, landing first up in Berkeley, where my dad was born, then moving down to Long Beach. He built the house, which perhaps explains some of its oddities. But it still stands, and now is worth upwards of a million dollars. I can’t imagine how he would take that news, if he were alive today.

Next photo was taken sometime around Christmas in 1951. My dad took my sister, Bonnie, and me to look at the holiday display. I think this was at the original Sears store in Honolulu, along Beretania just past Kalakaua Avenue. I imagine it was a happy outing.

Looking for these photos, I realize that I don’t have many photos with my dad during that period. No pictures of baby Ian being bounced on a father’s knee. Playing in the sand at the beach. I’ll just leave it at that.

Next up, my high school graduation, June 1965. The graduation was the the University of Hawaii’s Andrews Amphitheater, on the Manoa campus. Later that afternoon, I drove out to Laie to celebrate with several classmates, one of whom had access to his family’s country house. Plenty of beer was consumed that night. I suspect my girlfriend was with me, but honestly I can’t recall.

And then here we are at the Honolulu nursing home where my dad spent nearly two years before his death in October 2010. The photo was taken in 2009. It was Thanksgiving, if I recall correctly.

Dementia was kind to my dad. Despite the surroundings, he thought he was staying at a hotel I had arranged for him. He would periodically introduce me to the “hotel’s” manager, who was actually the medical director who would make the rounds on the floor from time to time. Sitting in his chair in the large common room where meals were served, my dad would point across to a window on the other side.

“If you look out that window, you should be able to see the store,” he said, referring to the original Honolulu office of Dohrmann Hotel Supply Company, which had been in the McCandless Building at 925 Bethel Street when he arrived in Hawaii in May 1939. The company moved in 1955, although I have a dim memory of an intermediate stop along the way. The building was also the home to the Commercial Club, a business organization which was upstairs. Google tells me that it was the location of the first Rotary Club meeting in Hawaii in 1915.

Whew. Enough.

Happy Fathers Day to all the dads out there, whether here in person or only in our memories.