It always means something profound whenever young Kenny wore one of those puzzled looks upon his face. So I knew that the question he was about to ask would be a complex one when the 12-year-old stepped to the desk where I was working.

“Dad,” he said.

“Yes, baby?” I answered.

“When you were a kid and you worked on the farm,” the he asked, his palms upturned, thereby indicating that he was trying to rationalize something, “did you have fun?”

“FUN!” I blurted. “Nooo, it wasn’t fun. We didn’t have fun. It was hard work.”

My son’s arms quickly matched the animation of my voice; but his own voice, just slightly stressed and deepened, emphatically asked, “Then why do you want me and Chris to work on the farm?”

Kenny was trying to figure out why a loving father would want his sons to do something as arduous as picking fruits and vegetables under a blazing sun. “It is,” I said, “because it helps to build character. You learn what hard work is, and you value the things that you buy with the money that you earn.”

As kids, my brother and I worked at Lombardi’s Farm in Lewiston on Ridge Road, but we did out of necessity. It was how we paid for our school clothes after my dad lost his job and our mom died. Even after dad found another job, on the summery weekends that we were not farming, we went fishing and we sold the fish we caught and I have come to appreciate it all later in life.

Whenever I drive down Ridge Road and pass the place where Lombardi’s Farm once stood, I get a good feeling in my heart and a bit of moisture in my eye. As I glimpse across the landscape, as it falls gently off towards the lake, and the tree-top greenery forms the perfect chroma-key scenery upon which my past memories play, I can still see, and hear, Buster Lombardi chewing our ears for some dumb thing that we did, as his brother Jim stood in the background and quietly grimaced and watched.

I hated that dad ‘made’ us work that farm, but my dad worked virtually everyday of his life, even when he did not have a job. As a kid it was embarrassing to think that the former Alabama farmer was scouring the neighborhoods picking up scrap metals, copper wire, aluminum cans and returnable bottles to sell. Later he proudly took a job as a garbage man and brought home even more of those wretched saleable reclaimables. Years later, I find myself much like my dad, in that I have always worked, even when I did not have a job, but despite that I am more educated than was my father, and my recyclables are words, until the day that my father died, he was infinitely smarter than I can ever hope to be.

In many ways, we men are, at the very least, our father’s sons. But, we are also the product of the other men in our lives by whom we are inspired. My uncles were some pretty great fellows, too. My dad’s brother, Claudy, would take me fishing when my dad was too busy.

According to my Aunt Etheleen, my Uncle Willie Lightfoot, my mother’s brother, was not worth much as a husband, but was great as a father. In the days when he would have to lift me up on the barstools, he took me with him as he drank and engaged in enlightened arguments with his friends. We kids had made fun with him. 

Joe Mallory was my great-uncle, and was an auxiliary policeman in the early 60s and on. It seemed that he had a hundred children, but whenever I came around, he always found time for me. Through him, I fostered a great deal of respect for policemen, and regret that I turned down an appointment to the New York State Police academy. Like my dad, Joe was a garbage man that loved children, worked hard, saved his money and bought the toys that he liked. These men had their cars, boats, trucks, and camping trailers that they bought with the scrap metal and wire, aluminum cans and returnable bottles that they found while scouring the neighborhoods, and the money that they made or saved from fishing and farming.

Like my dad, Uncle Joe, Lightfoot and Buster are now gone. But, every once in a while, I’ll drop by Claudy’s or pick up the telephone and give Jim Lombardi a call and see how they are doing. They have been great male role models in my life. Had the Lombardi’s kept their farm, my kids would have been there at least for one or two of the summers of their lives and I would have been a better father, and they would have grown to become even better men. 

Often, there are those whom we have never met that inspire us fathers. There is a fellow with whom I work, who often talks about his dad. If time permitted, I could sit for hours and listen to Dave Schultz talk about his father’s qualities, and the lessons that he has taught Dave. Dave doesn’t realize it, but through him, and on to me, his father has also helped my kids.

As a result of the aforementioned people, though I am not the father I wanted to be, I am a better father than I might have been. As a divorced father, I have always been there, not only for my children, but for my godchildren, my nieces and my nephews, and for other people’s children, too.

My son Christopher once said to me, “Dad. A lot of my friends don’t even know who their fathers are, and I just want to thank you for the time that you have spent in me and my brother’s life.” Woody Allen once suggested that 80 percent of success is in just showing up. I encourage fathers to do more of that, despite whose father you are. My father and uncles did, Dave’s dad did, and I’ll try to do even better at it when I help to raise my grandbabies.

Happy Fathers Day.

Ken Hamilton is a Niagara Falls resident. Contact him at kenhamilton930@aol.com.