What Is A Father?  Paul Harvey News,  6/19/93

A father is a thing that is forced to endure childbirth without an
anesthetic.  A father is a thing that growls when it feels good and
laughs very loud when it is scared half to death.

A father is sometimes accused of giving too much time to his
business when his little ones are growing up.  That's partly fear
too.

Fathers are much more easily frightened than mothers.  A father
never feels entirely worthy of the worship in a child's eyes - he's
never quite the hero his daughter thinks; never quite the man his
son believes him to be - and this worries him sometimes; so he
works too hard to try and smooth the rough places in the road for
those of his own who will follow him.

A Father is a thing that gets very angry when the first school
grades aren't as good as he thinks they should be; he scolds his
son though he knows its the teacher's fault.

A father is a thing that goes away to war sometimes and learns to
swear and shoot and spit between his teeth and would run the other
way . . .  except that this war is part of his only important job
in life - which is making the world better for his child than it's
been for him.

Fathers grow old faster then people because they, in other wars,
have to stand at the train station and wave goodbye to the uniform
that climbs aboard and while mothers can cry where it shows,
fathers have to stand there and beam outside and die inside.

Fathers have very stout hearts - so they have to be broken
sometimes or no one would know what's inside.  Fathers are what
give daughters away to other men who aren't nearly good enough so
they can have grandchildren smarter than anybody's.

Fathers fight dragons almost daily - they hurry away from the
breakfast table off to the arena which is sometimes called an
office or a work shop.  There, with calloused hands, they tackle
the dragon with three heads: weariness, work, and monotony.  And
they never quite win the fight but they never give up.  Knights in
shining armor, fathers in shiny trousers, there's little difference
as they march away to each workday.

Fathers make bets with insurance companies about who will live the
longest - and though they know the odds they keep right on betting. 
Even as the odds get higher and higher they keep right on betting
more and more.  And then one day they lose. But fathers enjoy an
earthly immortality.  And the bet is paid off to the part of him he
leaves behind.

I don't know where fathers go when they die. But I have an idea
that after a good rest wherever it is he won't be happy unless
there is work to do.  He won't just sit on a cloud and wait for the
girl he has loved and the children she bore. He'll be busy there
too - repairing the stairs, oiling the gates, improving the
streets, smoothing the way.