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Fathers & Sons

I took my young son to one of the many district forest preserves on a balmy sunny Saturday in late June and watched several men flying radio-controlled airplanes from a small landing strip in the middle of a meadow. We had stopped to buy some burgers and cokes from a local franchisee to enjoy on a picnic table.

We watched as the pilots steered their planes through the sky above with varying degrees of expertise. The planes came in all sizes and were driven through aerobatics more impressive as time wore on. The people operating these machines were either approaching or in middle age and children were conspicuous by their absence. My son and I wondered about that.

About the same time, we noticed a small group of people further down the meadow flying smaller airplanes. We decided to investigate. As we walked through the tall prairie grass for about a hundred yards, we watched the gentle gliding of the airplanes as they had all been launched by hand. We were watching gliders and rubber band-powered planes wafting over the meadow.

There were children here, although they were young boys and young men. It was fun watching them put the planes through their paces using trial and error to change the rudders and wings to achieve maximum loft time and distance. They were having a contest.

One of the most interesting aspects of this group was the interaction between the older men and the boys. I guess that's why I decided to illustrate that afternoon for you ... so you could enjoy some of the same feelings Blake and I felt. I'm not sure if the fellow on the bench is the father or grandfather of the boy in the painting. I didn't want to interrupt them to find out.

While flying airplanes may be construed as a guy thing, the time a boy and his dad spend together are very special. Boys need fathers. There have been so many volumes of literary and scientific works published enunciating the importance and significance of the relationships between fathers and sons. For some unknown reason, the politicians and courts of this country ignore the needs of young boys and their fathers.

Between welfare and divorce we have kept the majority of the children of this nation impoverished economically and emotionally. Is there any wonder that America has spawned a generation known as "X" and now drowns in a sea of rampant crime and constituent apathy?

I've been carrying a poem around for twenty-five years without knowing the author. It had been used to eulogize a friend of my fraternity and I hope you get the message. It's never too late to spend a few minutes per week helping a young man on his way through life. Read on: "An old man going a lone highway
Came in the evening, cold and gray
To a chasm vast, both deep and wide.
The old man crossed in the twilight dim;
The swollen stream was naught to him;
But he stopped when safe on the farther side
And built a bridge to span the tide.

"Old man," said a fellow pilgrim near,
"You are wasting your strength in labor here;
Your journey will end with the closing day,
You never will again pass this way.
You've crossed the chasm deep and wide, Why build you this bridge at eventide?"

The laborer lifted his old gray head
"Good friend, in the path I have come," he said,
"There followeth after me today
A youth whose feet must pass this way.
This chasm which has been naught to me
To that young man may a pitfall be
. He, too, must cross in the twilight dim.
Good friend, I am building this bridge for him."

Print size: 10.5" x 15"

Original Watercolor Painting is Available

FRAME STYLES*

  • Style A is a gold-toned aluminum frame with a single white mat over the print.
  • Style B a gold-leaf wooden frame with a gorgeous linen mat, inner fillet of gold-leaf wood over another white mat.

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