Fatherhood is mostly defined by moments. And those moments always (okay, 80 percent of the time, easy) seem to involve cars, fixing stuff, food and drink, and sports. Over the next few pages, you’ll find a guide to and a celebration of the crucial moments of fatherhood—useful advice, general guidelines, handy tools, and a whole hell of a lot of understanding.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY JEFF MINTON ILLUSTRATIONS BY SROOP SUNAR

We are flawed and fallen, us fathers. Most A memory: No one is born knowing what an Allen wrench is. Of The of us start the process of growing new peo- all the things hardwired into us by millions of years of evolution, Unnatural ple with at least a few strong inclinations for being able to distinguish an Allen wrench from all the other stu- Dad: how we mean to do it, or deficits in our own pid wrenches in your father’s toolbox without proper instruction An introduction fathers that we mean to correct, but then, isn’t one of them. So it’s likely that when your dad sends you off to mere mortals that we are, we fail at it, daily. find this wrench because it’s needed urgently that you’ll of course Case in point: So there I was on the tot lot—that’s playground bring the wrong one. Can we all have a moment of silence for the Your host: Actor, stand-up talk—doing my best to build a sand castle with my son, who was a poor little bastard who did that? comedian, writer, little guy at the time. Lots of bedrooms and a real moat—we don’t And there he was, waiting, head under the hood, studying some- Twitterer, son, and father mess around. After we were done sand-castling, we were going to thing angrily. My dad had no idea what he was doing under the PATTON break in our new baseball gloves, but then I looked over at my boy hood of a car, but that wouldn’t stop him from blaming his failure OSWALT and noticed he was gazing longingly at the fun dad at the other on mine. There is nothing like fatherly disappointment to make a end of the long sandbox, the guy who had just built the Trump seven-year-old boy want to disappear, to just have the earth open Tower of sand castles and was presently acting out some Disney up and swallow you. Of course, it wouldn’t take long for me to trans- drama for a growing number of vulnerable children, doing all the fer that feeling into wanting the earth to swallow him. Who makes characters, in different voices, a real pied piper of the playground. a little kid feel like shit about wrenches? Guy set me up. Just then he was a wise old lobster, and the tot lot rang with angel- I solemnly vowed by God that when given the chance, I would ic laughter. Who was this asshole? do things differently. I would spare my kids the projected disap- He was the natural dad, that’s who he was, and the realization of pointment of my own failures, I would love them unconditional- who he was also marked the realization of who I wasn’t. I love my ly, I would even like them. They would be my laughing compan- kids, like, painfully. But for a lot of reasons, some obvious, others ions in this happy adventure of life. Because I’m fun, goddammit. that only hypnosis might reveal, I’m just not a natural dad. Wise old It’s a handicap, this not being a natural, a humbling and herita- lobster and his kids would probably always talk like best friends, ble trait, a condition requiring extra work and proper attention. while my poor kids and I would probably drift apart, from this day Or . . . maybe no one’s a natural, and humility itself is the point of fa- forward, into sullen silence. Shit. therhood. Either way, I will never be wise old lobster. But every now I would have to find a way around this. But how? I come from a and then, when I think about it, I stop what I’m doing, pull my son long line of not-natural dads. aside, and say, “Here, this is an Allen wrench.” —MARK WARREN

INSIDE: CARS SPORTS EATING & FIXING Wrecking a car, changing Assessing your kid’s skill DRINKING STUFF a flat, going to the auto level, coaching, developing What to cook with kids, Celebrating the 4 show, driving and driving allegiances, snowboarding, where to eat with them, Leatherman, tying knots, SECTIONS and driving betting, and losing roasting a chicken, salami principles of handiness

97 NO-FAIL CONVERSATION STARTERS The car is the best place to talk to your children about difficult subjects, because they A FEW WORDS ON can’t escape. But sometimes it’s hard RESTRAINT to break the silence. For when your kid wrecks a vintage roadster, say Girl Trouble DO I haven’t heard BY SAM SMITH you mention Melissa much When I was thirteen, my father started helping me restore a lately. 1957 MGA, this tiny British roadster. Not fast, but pretty. He Cut this out and tape it under the dash. DON’T You still hang out with that had a hell of a temper then and we got in a lot of fights, but chubby girl? FIVE GREAT ROAD TRIPS IF YOU HAVE KIDS I always loved how he fixed things. Slowly. Carefully. Magically, without error. I’ve spent most of my life trying to work like that. Divorce Seligman, Arizona, Navy submarine. > Walk the “mile-high” sus- 1 Halfway through the project, just before my sixteenth birth- DO You probably to Oatman, Arizona > Eat a sundae in Two Rivers, pension bridge at Grandfather noticed that your day, Dad secretly did a bunch of work to get the car drivable. That Route: Historic Route 66 allegedly the birthplace of the Mountain in Linville, a pristine mom and I haven’t moment wasn’t on the schedule for weeks—the car still a shell, no been getting Terrain: Two-lane American sundae. nature preserve. doors or fenders. On my birthday, Mom walked me out to the drive- along well lately. asphalt > Take the kids to see an way, covering my eyes. As she pulled her hands away and the en- DON’T You know Points of interest: Delgadillo’s actual movie at an actual drive- Astoria, Oregon, to 5 gine lit up, I almost shit myself. The noise must’ve been audible for blocks. Dad came outside a that pretty lady Snow Cap, an ice-cream shop/ in, the Skyway in Fish Creek Lincoln City, Oregon who works at I drove it up and down the street, giddy, giving rides to friends. few seconds later. He stood there for a second, quietly, trying to Build-A-Bear? fun house (est. 1950). Route: U. S. 101, the Oregon No windshield! No doors! Seat bolted onto a bare floor! It was a re-create what happened. I couldn’t decide if he was going to kill > A restored vintage gas station Coast Highway huge deal, months of labor realized, a whee that seemed endless. me or just say that it was all over. Drugs in Kingman Blowing Rock, North Terrain: Rugged coastline with 4 Turn key, pull choke, pull starter cable, scare the piss out of the And then he started looking. We pushed the car back, away from DO I was just > Oatman, a living museum of Carolina, to downtown lighthouses, forests, and small reading about how neighbors’ dogs. Repeat. It never got old. the toolbox. He was quiet for a few minutes, kneeling, bending the much more pow- a dusty Old West town, where Asheville, North Carolina towns you’ll want to move to I don’t remember who was the last ride of the day—some friend steel with his hands. He scratched his chin a little and looked at me. erful today’s drugs wild burros wander unbidden Route: The Blue Ridge Parkway Points of interest: Explore a from across town with whom I’ve since lost touch. We were talk- “Nah,” he said, smiling. “It’s fine.” are than in previ- and residents stage shoot-outs. Terrain: A transmission-punish- rusted-out 1906 shipwreck at ing. I was standing outside the car in the garage. Old cars, you can “No,” I said firmly, stomach turning. ous generations. ing, high-elevation thrill ride Fort Stevens State Park near DON’T Drugs can start them without pushing in the clutch, because there’s no elec- “Yes,” he said. His hand went to my shoulder, and he locked eyes Homestead, Florida, to Points of interest: Ride a mas- Astoria. make you do stu- 2 trical cutout. I had the ignition on. I pulled the starter knob. with me, speaking slowly. “It’s. Fine.” pid things, like Key West, Florida sive steam-engine locomotive at > Eat crab Benedict at the Pig ‘N And I had left the car in gear. Only it was. No drama, no yelling, nothing. And then he showed getting a girl preg- Route: U. S. 1 Tweetsie Railroad, in Blowing Pancake in Cannon Beach. There was a leap of black paint and a terrible bang and the whole me what it would take. Over the next week or so, he bent the steel nant. Fourteen Terrain: 42 overseas bridges hop Rock, an otherwise gimmicky > Look for migrating whales at years later, you’re garage shook, and suddenly the car was trying to dig a hole in the back, sanded and touched up the paint, tweaked things back into behind the wheel along the Keys, bisecting the Wild West theme park. the Cape Meares Lighthouse. wall. The engine was still running. Protesting. place. His hands made it work. When the MG was finished a year lat- of a minivan talk- Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico Dad had one of those stand-up Sears Craftsman toolboxes—three er, you could tell only if you already knew. He left it slightly less than ing to your kid Points of interest: Order the parts, the bottom section on rollers, around six feet tall. The MG perfect, I think, as a gentle reminder: Remember your mistakes. about drugs in- legendary key-lime milk shakes stead of being a Things to Do just buried itself in there, right below the screwdrivers. The nose In the years since, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen him that calm. skydiving instruc- at the Robert Is Here fruit stand was bent, the front valance taco’d up, the toolbox pinned against That moment taught me almost everything I needed to know about tor in Las Vegas. (est. 1959) in Homestead. The Auto Show the wall. I walked over, used my twitching hands to shut off the my father. I don’t have the car anymore; I sold it in college after get- > Pull off at Bahia Honda State They hold an annual car show in the Ontario Convention Cen- engine, sat down, and tried not to puke on my shoes. I was sure ting his okay, to fund another project. I miss it, but not enough to Death of a Park to eat a picnic lunch. A ter, in the crappy desert suburb where I grew up in southern Califor- Grandparent that whatever we had over that car, whatever we’d been trying to want it back. Mostly, I just miss him help- good thirty minutes later, the nia. The Inland Empire International Auto Show, I think it was called. DO I have some My father took me a few times when I was a kid. We’d just walk around achieve together, it was just . . . done. ing me work. sad news. Grand- kids can take a swim. the huge space, looking at cars. Because the floors were carpeted, USEFUL ADVICE ma passed away. > Cross Seven Mile Bridge (ex- every time I’d touch a car-door handle to When teaching a child DON’T I know a actly what it sounds like), one of see the inside, I’d get a little shock. how to change a tire, couple of kids who The thing is we weren’t really into cars. I tell him this first: the longest segmental bridges in When I was sixteen, my parents bought a celery-green classic 1967 Mustang. My sis- have some money used to think I was, but I never subscribed Always loosen the the world, connecting the mid- ter, Laura, was only a year older than me and in her final weeks of driver’s ed. I could see lug nuts before coming their way! to a car magazine, had no real interest in my permit on the horizon. The idea of driving the Mustang was thrilling. jacking up the car. dle and lower Keys. the internal workings of an engine. But ev- Early one Saturday, Laura and I were awakened Army style: One side of the mattress is Sex ery year, we’d go to the car show. As immi- DO Did they start lifted up, causing the sleeper to roll onto the floor. My father had decided that 7:00 a.m. Manitowoc, grants, I think we were adopting this inter- on this particular Saturday was the ideal time to teach his teenage daughters how to change a tire. He marched us teaching you 3 est in cars because that was the culture of Wisconsin, to outside—barefoot, wild-haired, pajamaed—with orders that no one get behind the wheel until they could change sex ed at school America, of southern California. You were How to Teach a tire without help. And thus commenced the lesson. My sister, normally a cranky and belligerent teen, was en- yet? Easy A, son. Washington, Wisconsin supposed to enjoy looking at shiny auto- grossed. The demonstration barely registered with me—I was too busy envisioning how foxy I was going to look Heh. Anyway, I’m Route: State highway 42 mobiles. Back home, as a Filipino growing a Kid How to here to talk if you behind the wheel of that car. But I think I knew even then why he was doing it. Our father was strict and spent most Terrain: Curvy, but not up in a strict Protestant family, my father hadn’t been close to his fa- Change a Tire of his energy those years running off boys. Damned if he was going to send us out into the world only to be de- need me. ther, so he and I both were borrowing the whole notion of father-son pendent on some guy to help in an emergency. The lesson stuck with Laura. Unfortunately, I still rely on the men DON’T You screw carsick-curvy bonding time. I didn’t much care about the cars, but I loved every from AAA. But now that I have kids, I realize that doesn’t much matter. He wasn’t just teaching us how to change anyone yet? Points of interest: Tour the minute of going to the shows with my dad. He was just doing what a tire that morning. He was teaching us how to care. —LISA HINTELMANN USS Cobia, a World War II he thought he should do. And he was right. —MARK MIKIN

98 ESQUIRE • JUNE/JULY 2014 Scan any page to watch videos, listen to audio, share, shop, and more. Get the free Esquire2 app. 99 ting goals that exist be- Your Kid yond winning and losing HOW A KID Sucks helps kids stay focused. And other problems Your kid plays dirty. BECOMES A FAN Patton on the field 9 AND UNDER: Zero tol- There’s only so much you can teach a child when it comes Oswalt, erance. “If that’s how to team loyalty. One thing you can teach: loyalty itself. Dad Your kid sucks, but he you are going to play, still loves it. you won’t play. I will not 9 AND UNDER: Focus take you to practice.” BY CHRIS JONES on how much fun he’s 10 AND OVER: Talk to THE ACTOR/COMEDIAN SHARES having! Instead of ask- the coach about calm- One day, my six-year-old son, Sam, will be a man and someone will ask ADVICE FOR THE IMPORTANT MOMENTS ing how he played or ing or focusing tech- him an obvious question: Why do you love Liverpool, a soccer team that whether he won, ask niques (deep breathing, plays in a city three thousand miles away? And he will wonder at his col- CARS cheese, with a fanat- him if he had a good taking a break, etc.) that What's the best ic’s devotion. time and what the best help your kid control his lection of red jerseys and why he cries whenever he hears “You’ll Never Walk way to teach a kid But maybe this is part of practice or the emotions. Check in with Alone,” and he will say: I have no idea. It’s just how things always have been. how to drive? my fault. My wife— game was. If he learns to the coach once a week. I will know different. His love for Liverpool has surfaced only in the last Find a big-ass emp- earthy, spontane- equate sports with fun, several months, and it has been something to see, this blossoming. By rights, ty parking lot and let ous, connected, and he’ll be active his whole ’em grind the gears sunny—has taken to any son of mine should be a West Ham fan, and failing that a Swansea fan, life. (He might suck, but and lurch the chas- cooking with an ex- he’ll be active.) and God, somehow failing that, maybe a Burnley fan. But as a father, with a sis from left to right. plorer’s openness. I— 10 AND OVER: Offer to father’s abiding, guiding vanity, I have to say that the strangest thing about Teach ’em early how spacey, OCD, aloof, help without overtly crit- Sam’s burgeoning allegiance is how little I had to do with it. This fairly es- annoying and nau- and gloomy—keep icizing. If he wants to put sential facet of a man, this significant dictator of his identity and future hap - seating hot-rodding trying to cook, but in the time and get bet- feels when you’re the everything comes ter, he’ll take you up on piness, I failed to give to my boy. I just watched it happen. one inside the car out as a facsimile. an offer to help him prac- The coach doesn’t Of course, Sam loves soccer, the game, because of my love for it. We watch (rather than imagin- I’m starting to real- tice and improve. want to play your kid. soccer together every Saturday morning, and those few beautiful hours each ing themselves mar- ize my deep-seated 9 AND UNDER: Most weekend have become one of our principal veling at the moves). suburban aversion Your kid’s great, youth leagues have an A few spin sessions, to the roots and in- but his team sucks. unspoken equal-time solder joints. He also plays with a ferocity letting ’em shake the gredients that, when 9 AND UNDER: Focus rule, so as long as your that makes me remember the vast sums of lead off their feet, and alchemized, cre- on sportsmanship. “Part kid’s getting some play- red cards in my past, and I feel almost guilty they’ll treat the road ate cuisine. And so of being on a team is be- ing time and having a for that, as though I’ve cursed him somehow, like the rhythmic rib- something I’ve un- ing a good player and decent time, go with it. bon it’s supposed consciously passed helping people around 10 AND OVER: Talk to a boy doomed to become a man who puts too to be. along to my daugh- you.” Ask him who he the coach after prac- much stock in competitions and their out- ter: a retreat to safe, helped today or whether tice and ask, “What does comes. Yet for the curse of Liverpool, at least, SPORTS boxed, powdered, he was a great leader. my kid need to do to I am blameless. What to do if your beige nuked foods. It 10 AND OVER: Create a get more playing time? kid is bad at sports? doesn’t matter what I game within the game— How could he improve?” My best friend Phil, an uncle to my boys, Find out what he say to her about food. how many passes can This makes things less is a Liverpool fan, and that can’t be a coinci- or she is amazing at What matters is what you complete, how adversarial and more dence. Even if I’d like to think that I have sole and celebrate it. And she sees me taking many tackles, etc. Set- collaborative. ownership over my son and his heart, Phil has if they’re terrible at joy in. Time to burn sports but still love something in the With thanks to sport psychology experts Richard claimed his own stake. By some weird sched- playing ’em? Let ’em kitchen and get over D. Ginsburg, Larry Lauer, and Patrick Cohn. uling fluke, Liverpool also has been on our TV a lot this season, Sam’s first real play. And be delight- the fear of smoke. season as an obsessive, and Liverpool happens to be enjoying one of its best ed. Sports are play. campaigns in years. A very talented man named Luis Suárez is scoring ridic- And they’re superfun. FIXING STUFF They’re supposed to Who’s handier, WHAT I’VE LEARNED ulous goals on its behalf, so now a fiery Uruguayan has carved his own little be fun. Trophies are you or your wife? place in my son’s carefully apportioned chest, a devotion that surfaces most just a random bo- We’re both equal- awfully when Sam kisses his wrist after scoring, filling me with both paren- nus. Unless you’re an ly clueless and com- tal pride and a certain nausea at the same time. empty sociopath. petent. Since we’re both writers, we’ve I’ve wondered, perhaps hopefully, whether the effects of this confluence EATING AND been comfortable let- will pass, and next season Sam will latch on to the Hammers or Chelsea or DRINKING ting other people fix > Stop yelling. You’re making the kid ate himself. Likewise your team. Try hard do. Be the first in line to do the drills and United—and thus have to find somewhere else to live—his Liverpool love an- What do you cook things if it’ll free up hate you and the sport. but be okay with the outcomes. use the exact form and demeanor you other of his temporary possessions, like baby teeth. Then last week, Uncle for your kids? time to bang away My daughter has at the keyboard. Of Employ a commanding tone: firmer, Remember that as a parent or coach, wish to teach. Set the tone. Phil, the conniving bastard, presented Sam with a tiny Liverpool shirt, vin- > > firmly ground her course, a 2:00 a.m. stronger, and louder than normal; deliv- you are playing a role. Your true emotions > Do not be that coach who lives and dies tage, Hitachi, that Phil himself wore as a six-year-old. Seeing Sam’s reaction heels into the “mac- fuse or weekend ered from the gut in a military manner, should not be evident to the players. on the sideline with each touch of the ball. to that present, his jumping up and down and his immediate donning of that aroni and cheese for spurting faucet de- but not overly stern—a fair leader who is a > When you first get out on the court or > Do not give the kid corrective notes all unmistakable red, I felt the warm embrace of resignation: This fight is over. every meal” camp. mands presence and There’s wheedling improvisation. We’re little demanding while calmly in control. field with your kid or team, make at least the way home and for the next two days. In some weird way, I almost like that we support different sides of the same and bargaining and getting better by ne- > Every parent thinks their child is 50 five supportive comments—Nice shot! > After your child goes to bed, do not game—that it says something hopeful about us as father and son. I taught Sam games and entice- cessity. When the percent better than they really are. Good form! Sweet stroke! Wow, you’ve fight with your wife about team politics that it’s okay to love something and someone outside of yourself, to root for ments on my part for grid goes down? We > Nobody ever gets enough playing time. been practicing!—before you give any in- and playing time. strangers far out of your reach, and to be lifted or leveled by circumstances her to widen her pal- can probably com- ate, but except for bine, Voltronlike, to a Do not feel surprised Don’t coach your kid past age ten. > when your neigh- structions or corrections. Praise makes > By far beyond your control. The universe then presented Liverpool to my boy. an occasional broc- D-plus-level contrac- bors start treating you like hired help. players more receptive to criticism. then, if you’ve done well, he’ll have the Liverpool would not have been my first choice. But that Sam’s six-year-old coli floret or sliver tor. Enough to keep > Achieve separation: Your kid is not > Modeling: every minute. Every day. skills you hoped to teach. He’s ready for heart proved big enough for him to find room for Liverpool in it should mean of turkey, it’s mac ’n’ the heat on, I guess. you. You cannot do it for him. Let him cre- They’re watching everything you say and a professional. —MIKE SAGER more than enough to me.

100 ESQUIRE • JUNE/JULY 2014 Watch, listen, share, and more—scan any page with the free Esquire2 app. 101 SPORTS CONTINUED I still remember telling him to “bet the house” coach says—quiet, with on Notre Dame against USC, and him going to compassion. Regarding This “It’s fine,” I say too the track with my mother with the Irish up by loud. “We cry a lot at “Snowboarding” five touchdowns—and what it felt like watch- home.” ing USC come back in the second half, knowing I walk back to the I’m a skier. From the joys of gravity. I got that he too was watching at the Cloud Casino bleachers while the day I first strapped on bored. He got bored. teams shake hands. a pair of Rossignols in Snowboard lessons at Roosevelt Raceway. He would punch doors I’m looking at my son, France at age twelve, for a kid are a trial. when he lost, and my mother never had them who’s nine or ten. His snow has been my All they want to do is fixed, so the holes he put in them would stand tears have stopped, but natural habitat. I strap a board on and as memorials to what she regarded as stupidi- I can see he’s hurting. was Ingemar Sten- go, face-planting their My heart is not breaking ty and he as bad luck. But his temper was nev- mark and Franz Klam- way to a manageable for him or for myself. I’m mer. But only on skis. plateau. You can’t do er directed against me, and I never was afraid thinking about a long- Snowboarding just that with skiing—be- of it. I was afraid of him, but his gambling was ago playoff game I end- doesn’t work for me. cause you will die. ed by popping up with The pain, the bruising, On day two, a per- something we were both in on, and it offered a way out of my fear, no matter how much mon- the tying and winning the awkwardness of fect blue-sky day at runs on base, a pure trying to walk with a the tiny private slope ey he—or we—lost. choke that pisses me off plank strapped to one at West Point, there to this day. foot, bone-threaten- was no more mess- I was probably twelve when he bought me We trudge back to ing calamities on ev- ing about with les- a football. When I first tried throwing it, I the car. ery lift—all seem too sons. Charlie mas- “That was rough,” I high a price for the tered the one chair cried because I couldn’t throw it ten yards. But tell him. “It’s a tough admitted virtues of lift and heroically toe- then I became obsessed and a strange thing hap- game, baseball.” slipped down every looking nonchalant pened . . . or rather a normal thing happened, He’s crying again. while hurtling down piste, managing heel HOW TO which was strange in my house: My father Better I should’ve shut a hill. I tried it once side turns (whatever the fk up, or at least years ago. It didn’t they may be) whenev- started throwing it with me. We’d go out in the not have said anything like me. Then I forgot er things got a bit fast. street between games, my father in some out- about the game. Now I about it forever. His only frustration landish outfit—a belted sweater, ski pants, fur- feel like a schmuck, and . . . Until last year, came when I tried to SPORTS ARE NOT lined boots—and he, a lefty, would throw these BY SCOTT RAAB I’m already upset about when my ten-year- encourage him to turn the way the game end- old son, Charlie, got toeside. He gave me a ONLY TO BE PLAYED beautiful floaters, all spin, all touch, all anticipa- My folks split up the kid, especially if ed, because it could’ve a Burton for Christ- look that said, “Daddy, The obvious bonds between father and tion, with a strange three-quarter motion that when I was ten. My he’s playing ball. In our been anyone else on the mas. To him, it could you don’t know what owed as much to his experience in World War mother took us—her town, like a lot of towns, team, not my kid, doing have been cooler on- you’re talking about.” child weren’t there, but a deeper one emerged II throwing hand grenades as it did to watch- three sons—back with they don’t learn the the walk of shame back ly if it had been made And he was right. her to her parents’ game on playgrounds to the car. entirely of Legos. The That day, I mostly BY TOM JUNOD ing NFL quarterbacks week in and week out. He house in Cleveland; or sandlots from older “Let’s get some ice only descent of note skied backward at wasn’t teaching me how to throw; he was teach- my father started an- boys; they join a base- cream,” I say. “I don’t in our Brooklyn back- three miles an hour, My father was not an athlete. In fact, there was but one field of athlet- ing himself. What I learned from him was some- other family in Los An- ball team at five or six, want to go home feeling watching him deter- ic endeavor in which I knew him to be formidable: fighting. He was fa- thing different, and to this day throwing a foot- geles. I saw him once with coaches over- this way.” minedly get the hang a year. The man of the coaching and their par- “Yeah,” he says. “Me of something that I mous for chasing down drivers who cut him off, for yanking wiseass deli ball is the only thing I can do in sports, and the house in Cleveland was ents yelling bullshit neither.” never will. He would operators over their counters. However impressive these skills may have been, only thing I’ve ever cared about doing. my grandfather, more when they’re not on We get milk shakes. wipe out. He would they were not easily passed from father to son, especially a son who was terri - And it’s what I’ve taught my daughter. Anoth- or less a stranger to me, their cell phones. All I say about the game get up again. fied of them—and, for a long time, of him. er lefty, born on my dad’s eighty-fourth birth- and—so much worse— Turns out I’m not a is about the pop-up I hit Gradually, the spec- a stranger to himself. good sports dad—I’m and how I think about tacular crashes be- Indeed, it was because of my fear of him that I was desperate to connect day, she has been able to throw a ball on a line He was not like a father big and loud and full it and feel bad thirty came rarer and the with him. But how does a son connect with a father without the intermedi- since she was two and a half, with a compact to me. Neither was my of crap. But I’m there, years later. He nods. I confidence grew. ary of sports? When the father responds to the son’s horrific struggles in Lit- motion more reminiscent of his than mine. In- old man. dammit. And when my tell him he’ll get more At the end of that tle League by paying the kid next door to throw the ball with him? Fortunately deed, in many ways she is more like him than I myself came late to boy struck out to end chances. Nods. long afternoon, my fatherhood, after much the game—and the sea- That’s our whole son had been trans- for my relationship with him, my father, though not an athlete, was a sports- me, so I’ve worked to make sure that the joy thought. My son, bless son—with his team back-and-forth, but the formed into one of man in the old-fashioned sense of the word: that is, a gambler. On weeknights of throwing a ball is the legacy she receives him, came right on down by one and run- shakes are great and by those cool kids that I he was at the track; on weekend afternoons, when he wasn’t fielding calls from from my old man through me, not the luna - time. Not that I had any ners on second and the time we finish, he’s yard is the five steps never was. True, he is his three bookies, he was watching football games on his three TV sets and then cy of enjoying games only when there’s “a lit- philosophy of father- third, and stayed, good. He’s not hurting, off the back deck. He a snowboarder and I hood or wisdom, but aghast and angry at not to the naked eye. tried that on Christ- am a skier. But we’re fielding calls from his three bookies. And in the mornings—well, in the morn- tle action” to make them “interesting.” I’ll give I had defined a single himself, standing, bat Me, I’m happier may- mas Day. I had visions both mountain peo- ings, he was listening to me. her the target of my hands and challenge her to bottom line: Be there in hand, at home plate be than I’ve ever been in of him attempting to ple now. You see, it was through his ultimately catastrophic habit that I found my op- drop a football into them without making me for him. while the tears came, my life, or just happy-dif- board down the main Fatigue didn’t fi- portunity for connection. Though no more athletic than my father was, I—like move. And it will be with a sense of inevitabil- Oh, it sounds nice. I came over to put my ferent. I’m here with my staircase indoors. nally show until the Soulful. Even so, you arm around his shoul- son. No need to speak a Clearly, an expedition boots came off in the a lot of other bookish boys—set out to acquire an encyclopedic knowledge of ity that I’ll hear her challenge me back: “You have to pick your spots. ders and walk him back single word—there nev- upstate was neces- backseat of the car. the sports I was barely able to play, particularly football. Unlike a lot of oth- don’t think I can do it? I’ll bet you I can. C’mon, Crowding the kid with to the bench. er was. I’m here with sary, a man-and-boy He was asleep before er bookish boys, however, I acquired my knowledge for him and became what Dad: five bucks.” love is still crowding “Don’t cry,” the him. His father. this-is-how-it’s-done we left the parking lot. kind of trip. Except I You spend your youth he called his “tout” or his “handicapper.” On Monday mornings, he would flip didn’t know how it is looking up to imag- me his copy of the Daily News and ask, “Who do you like?” Hit a ball off Ski, with Catch a Dribble a Catch a baseball often Hit a baseball Make a Drive a Jet done. inary heroes only to And so I’d study the little boxed betting line, set in agate type with the home THE ABILITY a tee with a turns: 4 baseball: 5 soccer ball: enough to keep a game pitched by another layup: 8 Ski: 12, with I signed him up for find, when they come team in caps, and then announce my picks for the week with an air of absolute TIMELINE Whiffle bat:2 5 to 6 of catch going: 6 to 7 person: 8 supervision a two-hour begin- along, that your real The age at which ner’s course and set heroes are your own authority. On weekend mornings, the phone started ringing at 9, and my father your child is capable AGE Doggie- Ice-skate Ride a Field ground Basically dribble Know which Throw a Catch a fly Understand would go nuts adding “parlays” and “teasers” to what he had already bet or sim- of learning to: paddle: 3 forward: 4 two-wheel balls: 6 a basketball: 7 base to run to football ball: 9 the infield fly off on my own to re- kids. Best day ever. bike: 5 in baseball: 7 well: 8 rule: 34 commune with the —NICK SULLIVAN ply doubling down. He would have lost without me, but he didn’t win with me.

102 ESQUIRE • JUNE/JULY 2014 103 In the Kitchen, with Kids HOW TO EAT BY MICHAEL LEVITON Executive chef, Area Four, Cambridge, Massachusetts, father of two

> Young kids can mea- sure flour for pancake IT’S IMPORTANT, YOU KNOW—HOW YOU EAT IT batter, make cookie dough. Our four-year- BY JOSH OZERSKY old son loves to crack eggs. My father taught me how to eat salami—how to cut it and dank burrow in Atlantic City and take the bus up to New York > It’s better to cook ear- how to hang it and, more importantly, how to regard it as a and Katz’s. This sacred place, I was given to understand, was un- lier in the day. They’re toast after five o’clock, kind of lifeline from the abyss. He wasn’t aware he was do- changing, a polestar of Jewish meats, and the same then as when so undertaking a big ing this, or maybe he was, but either way the lesson has stayed with my father used to go at my age. Even more amazingly, it was the project in the evening is me. Beef salami, brought home from Katz’s Deli, occupied a strange same as it had been when his father had gone there. The salami asking for trouble. and central place in our household, particularly in those excruci- was the same, too, and a family ritual, one of the few we had, came > We’ve been teach- ing my eleven-year-old ating years following my mother’s suicide. A born brooder, David with it: When you got home, after you had ripped off the white daughter some knife Ozersky had now been finally and utterly defeated by life, and so butcher paper and slashed off the first piece, you were to hang work for a while now, our two-man household was a grim and painful place, except when it from a nail on the kitchen wall, covering the cut end in brown but I’m not going to say, we had salami. Then the mood lifted. A Katz’s salami can grow to as paper held on by a rubber band. Suppos- “Go dice four onions and call me when you’re much as two feet in length, but after we brought ours home it nev- edly this was to keep it from dripping, but done.” I don’t turn my er stayed that way for long. I think it was to prolong the pleasure of USEFUL ADVICE back on her when she Even when our family had been more or less intact, this fine- cutting the slices. After you’ve hung has a knife in her hand. the salami from a nail grained sausage exerted a kind of talismanic power. My father and You had to pull off the paper before you in the kitchen and > Bring them with you hacked off a bite, put a to the market so they I so loved it. His ways with it were brutish. He couldn’t be both- made the cut and then put it back on af- paper bag around the can learn how to pick ered to cut away the tight wax or plastic sleeve that contained it, terward. The salami got smaller all the end. Keeps it moist. out quality produce. and so he would just hack off pieces and either impatiently rip the time, and soon the paper was bigger than It’s good for them to wrapper away or, better still, just bite it off. Firm and dense but still it was. At that point you threw the paper see that part of the pro- cess, too. squeezable, packed with fat and salt and garlic and paprika, the away and ate the heel that remained, like an apple. My grandfa- > Whenever I’m cook- slices provided much-needed bursts of pleasure. Successive slices, ther is gone, and my father is gone, but I still have a nail stuck to ing at home, I try to min- taken hourly, helped get us through the day. the door mantel, like a mezuzah, to hold salami and remember imize the mess as much It wasn’t just its antidepressive properties that gave the sa - them by. If and when I have my own son, I hope he gets a Katz’s as possible—roasting is great for that. Line a lami its power; it represented a rare line of continuity between salami and a nail to hang it on. He will eat it for pure pleasure, sheet pan with tinfoil to Ozersky generations. Occasionally we would emerge from our the way it was meant, not the way I was taught. make cleanup easy. sort of want to make a a head of garlic. Add a coated with the chick- how the chicken breast > If you have a good mess.” I’ll hold the bird handful of marble po- en fat and juice. If you tastes different from the chicken, it’s easy and rotate it a little as tatoes and a bunch of want, add a bunch of leg and thigh. to make dinner with one of my kids lets the young white turnips jumbo asparagus lat- There’s potential for First piano recital: you usually go to Premarriage pep anniversary: ice-cream parlor talk: steakhouse whole family, the your kids. kosher salt fall in an the size of golf balls, er on and/or a handful a lesson here: As a cul- Graduation (The steakhouse is expensive place with Dry the chicken and even snow. Then cut an- quartered. Add whole of blanched fava beans ture, we’ve become di- Tenth birthday: from college: incredibly versatile.) the famous chef coat with butter or ol- other lemon into halves radishes and shiitake right at the end. vorced not just from Benihana some place with the ive oil. Put herbs and or quarters and let them mushrooms, halved. When the chicken has where our food comes THE word club in the name Going off Release from prison: aromatics inside the squeeze it all over the Let your kids do as rested, let the kids have from but how we get it SITUATIONAL Having “the talk”: to war: wherever he cheeseburgers cavity—whole garlic chicken. much as they can. at it to see how it breaks on the table. When our RESTAURANT a diner Telling child he or she wants or she is adopted: Just haven’t GUIDE cloves, cut-up lemon, Place the chicken Throw everything in- down. My daughter’s of kids see raw ingredients Graduation German Returning seen them in a while: a few sprigs of rose- breast-up in a roasting to a 375-degree oven. an age where she can and watch how we trans- Where to take from high school: from war: two seats at the bar mary. Then get the kids pan that’s just a bit big- For a three-pound bird, begin to appreciate how form those into food, your children when the Italian place First job out your backyard involved in seasoning. ger than the bird. Throw roast about an hour. Pe- the muscles function, that’s a good thing. an occasion that’s better than of college: You’re about to die: This is one of those mo- in a mess of seasonal riodically stir the veg- the difference between —INTERVIEWED BY needs to be marked the Italian place steakhouse Your twentieth steakhouse ments where I say, “You vegetables. Break up etables so they get dark and light meat, and JESSIE KISSINGER

104 ESQUIRE • JUNE/JULY 2014 105 plant is slowly pulled away from its host. Ten feet free. Fifteen. I’m standing twen- ty feet away from the elm, holding the base of the vine. Half the vine trunk is free, half is firmly embedded into the upper trunk of the elm. I can’t get any more leverage. I let it go and the vine trunk slaps hard against the elm. My instinct at this point? Call a guy. You The Endorsement call the guy, he’ll come over with a crew, The TURNS OUT they’ll pull off the rest of the vine. What’ll Leatherman that cost? Like three hundred bucks? Some- Multitool KNOTS ARE AMAZING times you have to call a guy. How to rip a 300-pound vine off an elm tree using My father: “We could tie one end of rope Open any package. a length of rope and an SUV to the vine, one end of rope to the car. Then Snip a loose thread on pull off the vine using your pants. Tighten a loose screw on a drawer BY ROSS Mc CAMMON the car.” pull. Cut a stray wire on Me: “Pardon?” THE BOWLINE KNOT the fence. Retrieve the Father’s Day. Three generations of “Like a parasite?” This is unfamiliar oil cap that fell into the men putzing around outside. Me, my “Parasite.” territory for the two engine. Retrieve a Lego that fell into the crev- father, my one-year-old son. “Get a saw?” of us: horsepower, ice between the seats. My father: “What’s with all the leaves on “Saw.” yard work, knottery. Take apart two Legos the trunk of that elm?” I hand the boy to his mother, go to the My father and moth- that you can’t get apart Me: “No idea.” shed, get the saw. er divorced when I even with your teeth. Jimmy open a stuck My father: “Let’s take a look.” I saw the base of the vine, cutting the par- was nine months old. Growing up, I saw HOW TO TEACH YOUR KIDS HOW TO storm window. Poke a I pull the leaves away from the tree. asite off from its main source of life. Good. him a few weeks each year. The time we hole in the art project My father: “It’s a vine choking the tree. My father: “Yank it.” spent together never involved him teach- to hang it up. Scrape It’s goes thirty feet high. It’s six inches in Two feet of vine trunk is ripped free. ing me any skills. He can flare copper tubing gum off the dashboard. Slice open a bag of top- diameter at the base.” Way, way more to go. More yanking. The and replace a three-way light switch with- soil. Slice open a pack- out cutting off power to the house, but there age of bacon. Cut the was never an opportunity for me to learn ribbon on a gift. Cut the those things from him. A general approach HE’S THE LEVELHEADED CONTRACTOR ON THIS OLD HOUSE. H E itchy tag out of a shirt. THE 15 IMMUTABLE LAWS OF BEING HANDY RUNS A BUILDING FIRM. HE’S A FATHER OF TWO. WE ASKED HIM HOW, Cut the fishing line. File Which you should pass along to your children to life? Sure. But how to use basic knots to WHEN, AND WHY TO HAVE YOUR KIDS HELP YOU FIX STUFF. the rough edge of a two- connect a three-hundred-pound plant to a by-four. File the dulled Honda CR-V with nylon rope? No. 1 6 blade of a pickax. Mea- So, it would be a rolling hitch knot for BY TOM SILVA sure between nails when The best time to check If you’re painting on a hanging a picture. Loos- your car’s tire pressure is sunny day, start in a shady the end of the vine and a bowline knot for On starting them young: It’s a safety is- are not going to be able to run around. And you’re en a rusted water valve. before you start driving spot and stay behind the the tow hook of the truck. The rolling hitch it for the day. Warm tires sun so the paint doesn’t sue, really. You have to set an example. But going to see how hot and stuffy it is.” And he’ll Scrape rust off a toy left have higher pressure. dry too quickly. is a simple, elegant thing. Say you want to when I was a kid, I worked alongside my say, “Um . . . I think I want to go back down now.” out in the rain. Unscrew pull a log through a forest. The rolling hitch two garden hoses. Pry 2 7 10 On instant gratification: dad at a very young age. We lived in an old house You can’t expect kids up a nail. Open a beer. Mark cut lines on lumber The ideal measurements Cutting up lemons and is your knot. Say you want to make a se- and he renovated at nights and on weekends. I ab- to understand that things take time. They might Once you start wear- with v’s (crow’s-feet), not for trimming a door: running them through cure loop at the end of the rope. Look to ing a multitool on your lines. Easier to mark, one-sixteenth of an inch your garbage disposal can solutely loved it. I was probably in the way more want a tree house, but they’re too little to build easier to cut. clearance at the top and cut unwanted odors. the bowline. than I wasn’t, but he still made it fun. Sometimes it. So start with a little tree. Build a little platform belt—and the Leather- sides. Upper hinge: sev- I make him do each knot twice so I can man is the only multitool 3 11 he would set me on a little project that was sim- two or three feet off the ground—something you en inches from the top. learn. Then he checks the rope. worth wearing on your When changing oil in a car Lower hinge: ten inches Hot wires: black and red. ilar to what he was doing. And he’d go work on can build in an afternoon. They can play and jump belt—you will wear it for or mower, run up the en- from the bottom. One Neutral wires: white. It’s difficult to overstate the satisfaction his while I worked on mine. off that for a while. And tell them when they get the rest of your life. gine for a minute so the quarter- to one-half-inch Ground wires: bare that washes over you when you yank a gi- oil thins and flows easily gap at the bottom. copper or green. On frustration: It can get frustrating—the proj- older, you’re going to build a big tree house into the oil pan. ant, heavy vine off an elm tree with a rope. ect is frustrating, the kids are in the way . . . some- together. But they need to see something 8 12 It’s difficult to overstate the whack you hear Try fixing a dent in wood Early morning is the best times you just have to back away from it and find built quick and jump on it. MY FIRST TOOLBOX made from a hammer time to water your lawn. when it falls to earth. Tom Silva’s recommendations another, smaller project that will go smoother. A little perspective: If they want to get for a gift on a child’s tenth birthday blow by putting a few I’m giddy sitting in the driver’s seat. And drops of hot water on the 13 Make it something fun—go build a simple bird- involved, let them get involved. You’re go- dent and letting the wood not just because we felled the plant. SMALL HAMMER SCREWDRIVERS The one time safety gog- house. Anything. It’s fun, and they don’t forget ing to get the project done—you know that. (1 PHILLIPS, 1 FLAT-HEAD) swell. When dry, smooth it gles are absolutely, abso- What we’re obligated to impart to chil- it. You know what? You don’t either. But then go But your son is either going to be off play- HAND DRILL: A hand-cranked tool, with sandpaper. lutely necessary is when dren is that every problem has a solution— like an eggbeater, that drills holes. 4 you’re cutting wood. back to the difficult job. ing with his friends or he’s going to be with PUSH DRILL: The drill bit is a straight shank When driving a nail, keep 9 even if it’s absurd and risky. My father nev- On kids’ expectations: They might not want you. Life is short. Let them waste your bit, but it has a groove on each side, so it your eye on the head— When using a handsaw, 14 er taught me any solutions growing up. But cuts forward in reverse. No pinched where the hammer hold the saw with your Metal sawhorses. Always. to help as much as they think they do. Say you’re time, because it’s not a waste of time. It’s fingers. It’s a little tool that will get them I never stopped craving that instruction. thinking about mechanics. strikes—not the tip. forefinger extended to- (See: because if they’re insulating the attic and your five-year-old is beg- a bond and it’s going to stay. Then, when TAPE MEASURE: Measuring is ward the blade. This mag- made out of wood . . . ) None of us do. We’re forever boys that way: an easy job for kids to help with. 5 ically keeps the saw in line ging to help. Say, “Okay, you want to come up into they grow up, they get a house, you can go And for some reason, they love Standard countertop with your forearm and 15 always ready to learn. So as men, we must the attic? I’m going to bring you up. You’re going to back and help them. The process begins tape measures. height: three feet. ensures a straighter cut. Measure twice. Cut once. always be willing to teach—even when it have to be real careful. I’m going to hold you. You all over again. might seem too late. ≥

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