Thirty- something speaks

Some dads are born with an innate ability to perform under pressure. I, unfortunately, am not one of those dads.

When danger strikes, I don't metaphorically step into a phone booth, don a cape and some tights, and emerge seconds later to save the day. Nope, when things go wrong, I'm more like the plastic duck in a shooting gallery. I wander back and forth powerless to each seemingly heroic idea mercilessly striking me in the head with a loud ding sending me in a different direction each time. While other dads are running to the fire, I'm doing circles.

By the time I've figured out a plan, the party is already over, and some other dad is getting pats on the back for his selfless deed. I don't think this lack of ability in a pressure situation makes me a bad dad, but it's not good for the image. I'm an every day dad, but my kids won't remember the 99 times I played baseball with them or took them to the pool or read to them or rocked them to sleep at 3 am in the morning. Nope, they'll just remember the one time their ol' man was doing circles while Little Jimmy's dad was fighting off a bear with a can of lighter fluid and a grill brush.

I had two opportunities to shed my shooting gallery image this past July 4 weekend, but it was not to be. The first one came at a family lake party Friday afternoon. My wife and I were chatting it up on a deck overlooking the lake and a boat dock about 150 feet away. Several children were playing on a pontoon boat tied to the dock. One child slipped and fell into the water attempting to jump from the boat to the dock.

Suddenly, my wife took off running, and after some brief confusion, I realized the kid in the water was my son. He had scraped the heck out of his back, knocked his forehead, and was standing in the chest- deep water screaming bloody murder. I did actually spring to my feet and followed my wife, but by the time I reached my son, he was comfortably in his mother's arms. Another dad had leaped in the water sacrificing his dry shorts and a cell phone to pull my son from the water. My ego was almost as bruised as my son's back and forehead. My son recovered quickly and went tubing minutes later. My ego is yet to recover.

The next night didn't help either. My family was at a friend's house with a couple of other families. We were watching our host dad shoot off fireworks when suddenly a stray firework landed in a bush down the street. The bush caught fire like it had been soaking in gasoline. One dad immediately ran to get a hose, another an extinguisher.

I, of course, did my circles and found myself wandering around in a dark backyard. By the time I found my way out of that backyard, another dad was amazingly stamping the fire out with his feet and a real estate sign he had found lying in the yard. Then the other dads came running with the hoses and fire extinguishers to finish the job. Luckily the inadvertent, but impressive, bonfire kept the attention off my circling.

I do think every day dads are heroes, but it would be nice if the next time a traumatic event arises, I could get out of the shooting gallery and into the action.