Mary with her Dad
If I could give all dads one piece of advice: teach your kids to fly. You don’t need to sign them up for pilot lessons, but give them wings.
My father taught me the basics: How to ride a bike, swim, and drive a car. But he didn't stop there. He added AP-level dad lessons, including how to drive a boat, how to play poker (and win), how to throw punches and how to fly.
My father got his pilot's license when I was twelve. One day while we were sky high above the Chicagoland area in a four-seater Cessna, he said through the inflight headphones, "Hold the wheel, Mary. Hold the wheel."
I yelled semi-hysterically, "Of the plane?! We're gonna die!" The commotion was similar to the near-plane crash scene in Almost Famous. (Though being so young, I didn't have any deep, dark secrets to confess.)
He ignored my drama and prompted me again to grab the wheel. I nervously reached out, white-knuckled it and cautiously held on.
"That's it, Mary,” he said smiling. “You're flying the plane!"
Scared to death, I freaked out! We were tens of thousands of feet above the ground.
“Noooooo, noooo. Ahhhhhh! You fly the plane! You fly the plane," I yelled.
I'm sure there was a moment that day up in the clouds when my father pondered how fate gave him, a six-foot-four, guy’s guy type, a worried, petrified, skinny girl as his only child.
But he remained cool as a cucumber. "You're doing it. You're doing it. It's okay," he said.
I finally settled down and grew more confident because he clearly had more confidence in me than I had in myself.
Every weekend when I was growing up, we had adventures like this. It was father-daughter time. (AKA: Some much-needed free time for my mother.) My father would show me a new experience or we’d have an occasional near-death encounter.
There was the day he brought me stunt flying. Jumping into a two-seater, open cockpit, World War Two-like plane at a young age was an adventure. There were about 10 different safety belts you had to strap over your body. At first, it was an amazing experience. But what I didn’t know was that this plane was going to fly upside down!
I'm not sure how many "Gs" I felt, but I certainly learned about motion sickness. I was literally green when we landed. I have a new respect for fighter pilots (and for the actors in Top Gun.)
When my father and I flew together, and things got bumpy, the wind would try to take us in a certain direction or we'd need to take a sharp turn -- he'd respond to the concern he would see in my face. "Just go with the plane, Mary. Roll with it,” he said.
Things were much smoother as soon as I let go and rolled with it. Little did I know this was sage advice for all things in life, especially when things get rough or you're pushed in an uncomfortable direction.
And when situations get to a point where you can't just roll with it, he taught me how to fight back. Now things have changed drastically since the 80s on how to deal with conflict, but back then, I vividly remember the day I came home in tears because of a playground bully.
After listening to my sob story about the mean boy who pushed other kids and me off the swing set, my father brought me to the backyard, away from my mother's ears, and showed me how to throw a punch. He warned me, "Don't tuck your thumb into your fist; you'll break it!"
The next day, armed and ready with this knowledge but a little nervous, I returned to the swing set. So did the bully. When he continued his antics, I curled my hand into a fist, made sure I didn't tuck my thumb and punched him right in the stomach. I was as shocked as Ralphie in A Christmas Story when he let Scut Farkus have it.
But it worked. The bully crumpled over, ran off, and did not return to the swing set again. I've never hit anyone since, but it taught me not to be afraid of a bully.
Being the only child of a studly macho guy, I didn't realize it then, but I had big shoes to fill. I was going to learn dude things. I was going to fill the role of daughter and son.
My father was raised on boats and was in the Coast Guard. So when he got us a boat, it included 5 am fishing trips. Getting up that early was painful, but the bone-chilling cold we endured sitting out there waiting for the fish to bite was the worst.
I could see my breath every time I'd whine that my toes were freezing. Full of fishing enthusiasm, my dad would launch into a demonstration of so-called "toe-ups."
He would stand on two feet, push his toes into the floor of the boat, and lower his heels up and down. "Do toe-ups, Mary. We did them in the Coast Guard. These will warm you right up.”
Nope. Dad, I have to tell you, those toe-ups never helped. But I learned how to toughen up -- something that's helped me countless times in life.
As much as my father showed me to be strong and take on new challenges, he also taught me so much about being kind and polite to others. This giant-sized guy's guy has a heart of gold.
During those awful pre-teen years when my girlfriends and I verged on being mean girls, my dad would pick us up from the movies. Once he saw a boy from our neighborhood waiting alone, in the dark, for a ride that didn't seem like it was coming. My father stopped the car and asked us, "Does he need a ride?"
We all said, "No, Mr. Schwager, no. We don't want to give him a ride! He's geeky!"
Guess what happened? The geeky boy rode home with us while we snooty girls sat in silence. He taught me never to exclude anyone. It hurts people's feelings. He was so right. Now I'm the one who is constantly making sure everyone is included and feels welcome.
Speaking of car rides, my father was the best driving instructor. God bless my mother, but she was well, a bit stressed. When she would hop in the car with me the armrest became an “oh sh*t handle” she'd grab for dear life. She also had an imaginary brake she'd stomp on the passenger side floor and yell, "STOP, MARY, STOP!! AHHH!"
I just want to note that I always planned on stopping.
But my father, perhaps, went and had a drink before getting into the co-pilot seat of the car because he remained calm and collected at all cruising speeds.
He was one of the first to have a mobile phone back then. He must have looked very cool at the time: An 80s big-haired daughter with a triple pierced ear chauffeuring him around while he made business calls on that giant block, hard-wired device.
One day I did make a pretty lousy driving, ah, let's call it a miscalculation while he was on the phone. Okay, perhaps we were about to get hit by an oncoming car.
I was utterly panicked about what to do. But he reached over from the passenger side, grabbed the wheel with one hand, and steered us away from a disaster like a stunt man.
He grumbled, "Dammit, Mary!" And picked up his conversation with a business associate without missing a beat.
"Sorry, Mary is driving,” he said. “So let's talk about that deal..."
Nothing really flummoxes him. (Oh, except for golf. A demon appears to possess his body on the golf course. He is much like John McEnroe on the green. Yeah, he's smiling in this picture, but about 20 curse words preceded this shot.)
Once I overheard my father talking about me to someone, and after all the years of "challenges" he gave me, I finally understood his motive.
"I'd throw Mary into all these situations," he said. "She was petrified. But I always told her she could do it, and eventually, she would. It gave her a lot of self-confidence."
He was right. All of my successes are because of my two incredible parents. Whenever I've encountered tough times or found myself in a situation that scared, even terrified me, I have often initially relived my childhood panic of, "Nooooooo way! You take the wheel!"
But the confidence my father and mother instilled in me has helped me calm down, take a deep breath and start flying again. I may not have always been on my planned flight path. Things have definitely gotten bumpy, but I eventually found my wings.
So dads: Be sure to challenge your kids, teach them when to throw punches, to drive straight, how to take the wheel and how to fly.
And Dad, one more thing, thank you for also teaching me that learning how to type well was one of the most important things I could ever learn. I even ended up a writer!
Thank you for everything.
