John Riley (left), makes faces with his children, Johnathan (right) and Katie Riley many years ago. (Johnathan Riley photo)
It was easy to believe everything my father told my sister and I when we were kids: tales of fish living in puddles after it rained on Elm Street in Damariscotta, friends of his only living off cherry Pop-Tarts, and how he rode his old Honda motorcycle across the country a few times.
Some of those stories were true, but our eagerness to believe our father as an authority on just about anything is a universal experience for everyone with a good dad. We want to believe in our heroes, and dad is usually our first.
My father could have told my sister and me that sometimes it does rain meatballs and we would’ve stood outside with plates full of spaghetti, but he would’ve stood there with us, plate in hand.
However, the reality is that meatballs don’t fall from the sky, and not everyone is so lucky to have the father I am fortunate enough to have. People without that grow up to be wonderful humans, too, and often want to be the person their father was not.
This is a long-winded way to say that this Father’s Day weekend is a good time to thank your father or father figure for bringing magic into a world where it’s so desperately needed.
While I know that many of the stories my father told me as a kid were made up, we still laughed and carried on into the night: it was more fun to believe I lived in a world where fish did live in rain puddles on Elm Street.
However, I knew that many more stories he told were true, like when he told my mother, sister, or me that he loved us. Out of all the tales he told, that was our favorite.
From all of us at The Lincoln County News, thank you and happy Father’s Day to all of the fathers out there who have been there for us; our lives wouldn’t be the same without you.
Bobbah the dog escapes a hockey team of angry snowmen with his new reindeer friend in a hockey puck car. John Riley, the cartoonist behind the drawing, is the father of Johnathan Riley, a reporter at The Lincoln County News. (Johnathan Riley photo)
