Every Picture Tells a Story: Life is a Marathon / Happy Fathers Day — Dallas (1979)

EVERY PICTURE TELLS A STORY:
LIFE IS A MARATHON — HAPPY FATHERS DAY
WHITE ROCK LAKE — DALLAS (1979)

I was remarkably lucky in life. I had/have two great parents. I know many kids didn’t enjoy this advantage in their lives. Well, I did. Yes, I was very lucky.

My father and mother met as students at South Oak Cliff High School, in Dallas. That’s the same high school and urban blue-collar streets that produced ex-NBA star Dennis Rodman (years later). Crazy as it sounds, my parents shared something with Rodman — they’re all self-made Oak Cliff kids with a fiercely independent streak who rose from working-class roots and ultimately became successful.

My father was raised by two deaf parents (my grandparents, including Grandpa from Italy, were deaf). I think that being a little different fundamentally changes the way you’re brought up. Back in the 1940s and 1950s, society wasn’t nearly as inclusive of people with disabilities as it is today. Kids could be cruel. Nonetheless, the Dalla-Massoletti family was normal in every other way.

My father joined the U.S. Navy after high school. He trained to become an air traffic controller. While in the military, my parents got married. Then, my father left the service and became a career air traffic controller for the FAA. His first assignment was Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. Just imagine, being a new controller out of the academy and your very first job is stationed at the world’s busiest airport — in a city known for brutal weather and constant flight delays. So, we lived in a suburb of Chicago and while I was only a baby, my father rose to the challenge.

One thing that did not succeed was my parent’s marriage. They divorced when I was very young, 2 or 3, I think. I have no memory of them together. We moved to Albuquerque, then in the early 1970s returned back to Dallas.

My father was there for me every other weekend. He never missed a date. Not once. He taught me how to snow ski and to play golf. He took me on incredible vacations. Four different train rides through Mexico. He took me to sporting events. Cotton Bowl games. Texas Rangers games. Every SMU football game. We saw hundreds of college and pro ball games. We even had Dallas Cowboys season tickets for ten years. And, I saw every major movie because of my father (and mother) and it didn’t matter if it was R-rated or what the subject matter was in the 1970s, perhaps one of the reasons I remain obsessed with that era of films. When you have such a dedicated parent, it’s something you just take for granted. I assumed all fathers were this way, which certainly isn’t the case. So, despite never really growing up with my father in my household, he still met — and often exceeded — every responsibility as a parent.

My father also never missed a ball game I ever played, or a play, or a musical, or a graduation. If I did something in school, he was there. Later, I learned that my father mostly worked the graveyard shift as an air traffic controller. So, this must have cut into his sleep time and he may have been exhausted. But he was always there. I think most kids remember those moments. That love sticks with you.

My father gave me a love for travel, an intense curiosity for politics, a constant desire to read, a lifelong habit of following current events, and a strong moral compass. It may shock some readers to know he was very conservative, politically speaking. My father was so far to the Right, he read everything from the John Birch Society. Later, he was a Goldwater Republican. He loved Richard Nixon (and still does!). For my 16th birthday, my father gave me the entire collected works of philosopher Ayn Rand (about 20 books). For my 18th birthday he gave me a subscription to William F. Buckley’s National Review. On my 21st birthday, I got a subscription to The Washington Times. I’m talking about a daily subscription to a real newspaper, 1,800 miles away. I was probably the only kid in Texas who had The Washington Times every day delivered into my mailbox.

The conservative indoctrination worked for a while and I even worked for the Republicans on many campaigns and even in the United States Senate for close to a year. But the waterfalls of one’s own personal experiences do erode the strongest foundations of any rock, no matter how solid.

My father and I have argued for years, for decades, about everything. But those arguments were never personal. I don’t recall ever getting angry with him, and vice versa. Those arguments ended up being constructive (for me) because they pressure-test your ideas.

My father was one of the PATCO union members of air traffic controllers who went out on strike in 1982 and was “fired” by President Ronald Reagan. That was cruelly ironic, and a real *pressure test* for my father. Nonetheless, even though it cost him his career (and lots of retirement money), he stayed true to his principles. The dispute didn’t shake his fundamental philosophy. Whatever your politics, there’s something admirable about that. Oh, and I have to mention my pal “Miami John” John Cernuto, who was another PATCO official out of Miami who was fired at the same time in that strike Later when I got heavily involved in poker and gambling, “Miami John” (one of the very best Omaha High-Low players in the world) always asked about my father. They were both big shots in the union, and lost their careers for principle, but also had very different political philosophies.
I could tell many stories on this Father’s Day. But, I’ll share just one that reveals who kind of man he is. Around the age of 40, my father started running daily. Then, he started competing in races. Then, he began running marathons. I don’t mean 5K or 10K races. I’m talking about the full 26-mile marathons. He competed in many marathons (and finished them all).

When I was still in school, one weekend my father took me snow skiing in Sierra Blanca, which is a winter resort in New Mexico. Sierra Blanca was known as a tough mountain. Steep. Lots of black diamonds. I was 18, and after a full day of skiing on the mountain, I could barely walk. Unless you’re used to the physical toll, you get cramps. The muscles simply can’t take the stress. We’d been skiing all day and we were back at the hotel. It was 10 degrees outside. Around 7 pm, my father started putting on his sweats to…..go out and run! I couldn’t believe it. We’d been skiing, I could barely walk, and my father was going to run several miles in the mountains in 10-degree weather?
Well, that’s what he did. Training for the next marathon. And the next day, he did it again. And then, a few weeks later, he competed in another 26-mile marathon race.

This photo (above) was taken during the annual White Rock Lake Marathon, in Dallas on December 1st, 1979. He’s #735. But, to me, he’s #1.

Today, my father is in his 80s. He’s retired and lives in the Hill Country of Central Texas. His days of running marathons are over now. But, he’s still in the race.
__________

Note: I don’t write much about family members, aside from my wife — Marieta. This is mostly out of respect for their privacy. It may be awkward for some family members to explain their connection to a Marxist, atheist, Las Vegas sports gambler who drops lots of F-bombs on Facebook. “Is that really your son?” Today, I’m making a notable exception about sharing family memories. After all, it’s Father’s Day.