Ernest S. Breneman
May 29, 1929 — December 21,
2005
My dad died this morning. He nurtured his family in so many
ways, encouraged me to follow my dream of writing and came
up with the idea, 21 years ago, that I might become a journalist.
Below are two items I wrote for him on Father’s Day, in 1991
and 1999. — John Breneman
Father’s advice to son is ‘write
stuff’
By John Breneman
I’m in the newspaper business today thanks to the nurturing
influence of a very wise gentleman. Nelson Mandela. Wait no,
I’m just kidding. Somewhere along the line I became a pathological
jokester. Let me start again.
I’m
in the newspaper business today thanks to the nurturing influence
of a very wise gentleman. My dad.
Back in ’83 I obtained a degree in that most marketable of
subjects — philosophy. But other than a cross-country adventure
with a childhood friend, I didn’t exactly have my future mapped
out.
I knew I didn’t want to be a Maytag man, a pentium chip magnate,
or a sea urchin monger. And I was ill-suited for any position
requiring a fancy jacket and decorative noose (aka tie).
Though I had enjoyed many a rollicking game of cops and robbers
as a youth, I was not gunning for a career busting bad guys
or pulling bank jobs.
I was not cut out to be a butcher or a brain surgeon. Professional
soybean farming was not a field I was inclined to pursue.
And I just didn’t think I had what it took to become a systems
analyst, forensic scientist or Triple Action Gold Bond Powder
salesman.
I was a human resource without a cause. In what I now recognize
as a desperate cry for help, I actually took a seminar from
some people who wanted to make money by having me sell mutual
funds to my closest friends. Then I got caught up briefly
in some scam involving solar panels.
I was anxious to begin making my humble contribution to the
Gross National Product, but I didn’t picture myself toiling
for Eastman Kodak, Chuck E Cheese or Bristol-Myers Squibb.
The $20,000 question –"What are you going to do with
your life?" — loomed large.
I didn’t know. But somehow, my dad did.
And so it came to pass that my dad, who knew that I liked
to write, offered unto his first-born a few simple words of
fatherly occupational therapy.
He said, "Get a job, you lousy bum!" Whoops, kidding
again. What he really said was, "Why don’t you go up
and talk to the lady who runs the York Weekly?"
Hmmm. I did and, soon after, my first byline appeared in
my hometown paper — a preview of the 1984 York Wildcats track
season. It’s a collector’s item now, selling for as much as
18 cents on the eBay online auction house.
Fast-forward 20 years from my pop’s ink-stained epiphany,
and now I’m in charge of a pretend newspaper called the Humor
Gazette. This means that when momentous occasions like Father’s
Day roll around, it is my sworn duty to concoct some meaningful
commentary.
And so the topic of the day is fathers. My particular dad
(I’ll call him Ernie because that’s his name) just turned
70 and I think he’s glad I didn’t follow his footsteps into
the coal mines of western Pennsylvania.
There I go joking around again. I wonder where I get that.
(Chief suspects: a 70-year-old male caucasian whose street
name is "Ernie" and his longtime accomplice, "Jill.")
My dad was a self-described "Depression Baby,"
a term he often invoked when making us clean all the food
off our plates. At one time he was a dashing young Air Force
pilot and today I would like to salute him. I just hope he
doesn’t mind me teasing him about the smoking.
For years he worked as a big-time adman in a Pittsburgh skyscraper
that I remember being awed by when he brought me there for
a visit. He fondly recalls that the job required exhilarating
bursts of creativity, but he tired of the corporate rat race
around ’72 and shucked it all to move his family up to a little
place called York, Maine.
It was one of the most important decisions of his life, and
he nailed it. To this day, I and my brother and sister thank
him on bended knee. He brought us to the ocean. He brought
us home.
My dad is the man and I love him more than I could ever say.
Fortunately, he was never big on those "when I was your
age" speeches. You know the ones: The old-timer tells
how in order to get to school each day he had to crawl 14
miles on his belly through the jungles of Vietnam, swim through
a boiling tar pit teeming with leeches and piranhas, and then
pole vault over a barbed-wire electric fence to beat the first-period
bell at 4:45 a.m.
But he did teach me a thing or two. Stuff like:
* Keep your eye on the ball to prevent unpleasant facial
injuries.
* Wait at least 30 minutes after eating lemon meringue pie
before scuba diving for pirate treasure in the York River.
* Avoid uneccesary contact with muggers, murderers and manslaughterers.
* Don’t smoke cigarettes; and stand at attention when the
surgeon general is talking to you.
* Birds and bees have absolutely nothing to do with sex.
* Nuclear weapons are not toys.
Also this: Family values are cool. You can do anything you
set your mind to. And, for goodness sake, utilize personal
hygiene products every so often.
Humor Gazette editor John Breneman also answers to the
name Ernie Jr.
6-20-99
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