TV's Punching Bags          
  
   What did these TV shows have in common?
   

Leave It to Beaver   Bonanza   The Waltons  

Little House on the Prairie   Father Knows Best

   
   Television fathers loved their families and were respected. Archie, in All In the Family began a trend.   

   Our Dad worked to support us. We could have set clocks by his to- and from- office routine, which continued until mandatory retirement at 65, long after we were on our own. 

   He maintained house and property, while equally dependable Mom did what mom's did. He attended our games and concerts. He took us to Sunday School and church, served on "the board," and gave me chores. He took us on vacations. 

   If Dad failed at anything, it was transferring his knowledge of algebra into my thick head. Ha, Ha! 

   I think other dads in our town were similar...forged by the Great Depression and resolute during World War II. I never met Mrs. Donut's parents, but they were of the same cloth. 

   Name me a recent TV program in which father is the lead character, let alone someone to emulate. I don't watch the shows, so you tell me.  

   Probably 30 years ago at a company function, I sat for lunch at a table of female employees. Big mistake. They were not conscious of my presence. Rather, between bites they totally disparaged their husbands or other men in their lives. Who's chauvinistic now? 

   A columnist says, "This diminution of fatherhood is a flanking attack on the family itself." He guesses, "the youthful rioters and looters grew up without strong, good dads to teach them right from wrong."  

   Honestly, if we had to choose between an all-male government or all female, we might take perceptive women. But there were good queens and bad queens.

   Fathers...where are you?

       Jimmy