Fatherhood gave me another shot at a childhood

By David C. Poole

Special to The Capital-Journal

My father was killed when I was a year old and his untimely departure left my mom and her two sons rent by sadness and poverty. But for my mom's three part-time jobs and unswerving love and devotion to us, our small family would have been doomed. No father, no car, no television, just love for each other and the hope that life and the future held something better.

My ideal childhood, that which every young boy or girl deserves yet so many are denied, skipped a generation. I now live that childhood through my children.

Shayna is a leggy 10-year-old desperately trying to bridge the gap between awkward and demure, childish and sophisticated. Connor, at 9, can think of little but action and the dirt bike for which he is saving in earnest. They have an energy and vitality borne of their unassailable confidence in the present and their tomorrow.

From their first weeks of life their eyes sparkled and they knew that their father would always be there for them. To toss them high in the air or swirl them like airplanes (often to their mother's chagrin). To share their wonderment at touching a piece of the moon at the Smithsonian or walking the hallowed halls of the White House and Capitol. To play "interesting facts" and "table topics" at the dinner table where any question is fair game.

With me, they learn and teach perspective and humanity, compassion, tolerance and kindness for all people and respect for all life.

Shayna is something of a daredevil. Suspended next to me 170 feet above the ground on the Worlds of Fun ripcord I asked her if she was scared. A little, she replied in a timid voice. This was replaced by a huge smile as we pendulumed through our first descent and overt laughter on each subsequent swing.

Connor, content to watch on that occasion, will not be left behind again.

Shayna and Connor's curiosity is amazing. They will examine in minute detail each facet of the animal skeletons in the veterinary medical school where I research and teach. They can identify each species by teeth, jaw and sometimes just by the number of ribs.

Shayna is also a bug fanatic and will pursue an entymological specimen with the tenacity and athleticism of the trained professional. Connor on the other hand will memorize impenetrably long words to impress his friends. Just try to offer a rejoinder to his latest: Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis (possibly the longest word in the English language) or the even less penetrable Llanfairpwllgwyngllgogerychwyrndro-bwrthllllantysiliogogogoch (the town in N. Wales and the world's longest place name).

In common with (almost) all children, dinosaurs fascinate them and we have visited Sue --- the most complete Tyranosaurus Rex skeleton ever found --- in Chicago's Field Museum.

As I was born in Africa, all things African are of extreme interest to them. The man-eating lions of Tsavo dispatched by Col. Paterson and immortalized in the movie "Ghost and the Darkness" starring Michael Douglas and Val Kilmer are also in the Field museum and hold a special fascination for Shayna and Connor.

In the years to come, I hope that they will catch my enthusiasm for travel and continue their interest in other peoples and their cultures.

Whether they are sitting on my knee carefully steering our truck down a gravel track, pulling a shining, splashing trophy from the Kansas River, bouncing in a speeding inner tube on Milford Lake or simply sitting around discussing past events or future dreams, my children give me the childhood I missed. Their carefree laughter and selfless enjoyment of youth must surely be one of the greatest of life's gifts. Yes, Father's Day is a special day, but with my children by my side, so is every other.

David C. Poole lives in Manhattan with his wife, Katherine, and, of course, Shayna and Connor. He is a professor of kinesiology, anatomy and physiology at Kansas State University. His research and speaking engagements regularly take him around the world and at every opportunity, his children accompany him.

Copyright 2002
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