“He didn't tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it.”

- Clarence Kelland

Today is not just another Sunday to sleep in, my friends, but it is in fact a national holiday, so without further ado I say happy Father's Day.

This is the special day that is set aside each year for the household's last line of defense against those small, yet potentially evil, beings known as children. I say “last” because when all else fails in the struggle to make little hellions behave, the battle cry is, has, and always will be “Just wait till your father gets home!”

As children, those words would stop us dead in our tracks, and whatever terror we were creating would immediately cease because we knew there would be hell to pay the moment he stepped through the door.

Though not from experience as much as from plain observation, I notice that being a father is a strenuous job. Raising children is one of the hardest endeavors there is, at least it was when we were kids. You see, my childhood was a time before Barney, video games and safety regulated toys, so how my father was able to keep us in line without losing his mind is beyond me.

And how we pushed the limits of his patience. From fist fights and loud music to broken bones, my father rarely got a moment's peace. Though in hindsight having us share a bedroom probably wasn't the smartest decision. The one time he did get a chance to enjoy himself was by taking a small airplane ride over the house. That was until my brother Shawn, who was probably 6 at the time, thought it would be a good idea to paint a sign that said “Daddie come down.”

Now you'd think that was a cute and adorable act of a little boy until you learn that he did it by using the roof of the family van as his canvas.

Did my father get mad? No. After everything else he'd been subjected to he just sort of took it in stride as something to be expected from any of us. You see, on any given day at my house,us boys could always be counted on for causing just enough trouble to drive our father crazy but not enough for him to actually want to press charges.

Through it all, my father did instill in us a sense of responsibility. I'm sure that getting up to drive the garbage truck at 4 a.m. wasn't easy on the old man, especially after he'd been woken up about 10 times by us boys running around the house, but my dad did it every day and maybe it was to put food on the table or perhaps it was just to show us that when you have a job to do it's your duty to see to it that it gets done, no matter how tired you may be.

So with a full heart I say to mine, and to yours: Happy Father's Day, gentlemen, you've earned it.

Bradley Molloy's column appears here, each Sunday, in The Citizen. He can be reached at lovonian@hotmail.com