I owe all my 'dads' this Father's Day

For those of you who may have forgotten, Father's Day is Sunday. If you hurry and get a card in the mail, you have a good chance that it can still reach your dad before Sunday.

While, like America, the preponderance of nations celebrate this holiday on the third Sunday of June, some countries celebrate fatherhood on other days.

Germany, for instance, celebrates their "Herrentag" or Gentleman's Day on Ascension Day (recognized by Christians as the day Jesus ascended into Heaven), which was May 1 this year and will be May 21st next year.

Herrentag, though not celebrated on the same day or in exactly the same way as we celebrate Father's Day in the United States, does have some useful traditions. Herrentag has a focus on heavy drinking, which is appropriate, especially for fathers of newborns and teenagers.

As important as a drunken stupor may occasionally be to help fathers of newborns and teenagers maintain their sanity, in America our celebration of Father's Day has a nobler side to it then a mere focus on heavy drinking.

Father's Day nobility helps make up for its lack of popularity. Father's Day pales to Mother's Day in popularity, commercial success and true emotion.

So, we offer our dads unemotional (but noble) gifts like ties or shaving lotion, or some other unemotional gift like an electronic gadget.

And we often send Father's Day cards that say noble, unemotional things like, "You're someone to look up to no matter how tall I've grown."

Regardless, Father's Day is one of my favorite holidays. Being acknowledged, at least once a year, as a man who had a positive influence on my children's success in life is a wonderful thing. Now that my three kids are older, they have actually come to believe this.

While I appreciate my children's celebration of Father's Day, it is even more important to me to recognize the male figures that influenced my own life. Most of us have been "fathered" by many men during our lives. I'm no exception.

I have been fortunate to have been a "son" to many men who took some responsibility - whether they knew it at the time or not - for my physical, mental, spiritual and moral welfare. They are all venerable men to whom I owe much. I remember and salute just a few of them as fathers of mine in celebration of Father's Day 2008.

My own father, Robert Fetzer, of course is No. 1. His example of living an honest, simple, hard-working life in which we children were admonished frequently not to "take life too seriously" lives with me still.

He is a World War II veteran who, as an Army Air Corps weather forecaster, attempted to track typhoons in the Far East in preparation for the allies' assault on Japan.

Following the war, he graduated from Ohio State University with a degree in mechanical engineering and then years in night school resulted in a law degree.

Dad's kind yet firm and steady hand guided me along the right paths in my walk through young life, teaching me to recognize and pursue life's priorities.

The lessons of my grandfather, Joseph Fetzer, who lived to be more than 90 years old, were optimism, frugality and generosity - all of which I am thankful to have observed and blessed to have inherited. Memories of his hard work as a feed and hardware store owner, his easy smile and his love of family continue to inspire me today.

While his name has vanished from my childhood memory, the interest he took in me - a little boy - remains with me forever. He was a missionary pilot serving as a Christian camp counselor during a summer at Camp Red Eagle in northern Ohio.

Recognizing my interest in aviation, he took me for my first flight in an airplane and inspired me with his selfless dedication to God and stories of flying into small jungle strips near Quito, Ecuador to spread the "Good Word."

I credit him with leading me to my first career in the Marine Corps as an aviator and for spiritual and moral lessons that I have never forgotten.

Col. J.J. Carroll was an assistant profession of naval science in the Navy Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) during my last three years at Ohio State University. He was the most disciplined Marine I ever knew. Through his own examples of living a life of honor and discipline, he taught me these same important qualities. I was privileged to apprentice under his leadership.

There are many more men - pastors, Marines, relatives, bosses, neighbors, editors, friends, both past and present - who have influenced, led, cared and "fathered" me.

They each in their own way accepted and embraced responsibility for my welfare. Each has positively influenced my life - without, thankfully, a focus on heavy drinking.

For me, Father's Day does not place second to any other holiday because I take this day (somewhat emotionally) to remember and thank all the rocks - the strong men in my life - for their love, leadership and inspiration.

I look up to them each regardless of how tall I've grown and how old I've become.

Barry Fetzer is a retired Marine whose column appears in the Havelock News every other week.