Love and a Tiny Tea Set

[Editor’s note: Today’s guest editorial is by Conejo’s own Larenda Lyles Roberts, a published author and columnist who serves as an advancement writer at Pepperdine University. This column was originally published in the San Francisco Examiner on Jun 16, 1996, and dedicated to George Lyles of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. You can read more of her writings at www.larendaroberts.com.]

Some people, particularly radical feminists, feel compelled to denigrate males.

My theory is that many of them have not enjoyed good relationships with the men in their lives.

No relationship is ideal. A few are remarkable. Such a one began on Christmas Day 1953, when a young man in a Marine uniform celebrated the birth of a daughter in Fort Sill, Oklahoma. When the baby was six weeks old, the Marine was shipped to Korea. Her mother showed her his photograph every night. When he returned, 14 months later, she went to him right away.

He brought her a dainty china tea set glazed in blue.

As she grew, the daughter saw a strong, disciplined man who went to graduate school and became a chemist. After years of hard work, he was promoted to manager of his laboratory, then president, and he told her she could be anything she wanted to be.

He was the guy who got up and went to work every morning, who mowed his yard every Saturday, who prayed to God every Sunday, who got a pilot’s license, who left in the middle of the night to investigate a toxic spill, who rigged a generator for the neighborhood when Hurricane Betsy ravaged the town.

The 60s were turbulent. There were arguments over politics, religion and miniskirts—especially miniskirts. But he battled on, trying to instill in his children the moral values he followed, the religion that shaped his life.

The daughter went away to school. She fell in love and she married—against her father’s wishes. But he was there to give her away, with tears in his eyes.

When the daughter moved 2,000 miles away, he hated it—but he knew she had to go. She became busy with her own family.

Today, the daughter visits her father when she can. But when she feels down, she looks in her china cabinet. There she finds a miniature tea set glazed in blue, and she knows she was always loved. Because of him and millions like him, many daughters will never understand the male bashers. All we can do, I suppose, is feel a little sorry for them and wish they had been blessed as we were blessed. Happy Father’s Day, Daddy.