A Single Dad's Story

by Dave Rodway

A Single Dad’s Story:

  Dave Rodway

  Copyright 2012

  Recently I was driving and listening to the radio. Usually I listen to music, but I caught a local radio show and the topic was single parenting. I thought it would be interesting to listen to, since I was a single dad for more than ten years. What struck me about the radio show and the hosts was the fact that the single dad guest on the show was wealthy and well-to-do, and according to him, so was his wife. As I drove I found my phone and set it to dial. I thought I would be able to call in and share some of my perspective with the listeners, but I was too late. The show ended shortly after I had picked it up.

  Because it stayed with me, I thought I’d write this and share my advice and anecdotes with you. This isn’t a “how-to,” or self-help book. It’s just a way to offer my perspective. I have always been surprised at how few single fathers with sole custody there were. I’ve only met two in nearly twenty years.

  I guess a dad raising a boy would be one thing, because it doesn’t sound too unusual. But I had no idea how to raise children, let alone a little girl! I was the youngest of four boys. First came Bill, then Bob, then Scott. Scott died at just six months old. My brothers were born years before me—Bill is eight years older than I am. When I came along, I guess you could say I was the “unexpected surprise.” Much later, my dad told me much.

  As a young, idealistic man, I decided I would never marry or have children. Perhaps it was because of the struggles I saw with in own family, growing up. As a grown man, I realize that my parents did the best they could with what they had. I know now that their lives couldn’t have been easy. My parents grew up during the Depression, part of “The Greatest Generation.” They had me late in their lives. My father was about 38 years old when he had me. My mother was ten years younger than my dad. Ironically—or coincidentally—I was 38 when my daughter was born. They met and fell in love in Hawaii during World War II. Dad was from upstate New York and mom was from Pennsylvania. Dad was enlisted and mom was a nurse. Their love was ‘forbidden’ in the military, but that didn’t stop them.

  I’ve seen pictures of them from their youth. They look just like the people do in old movies. Dad was a tall, dark, thin man in a suit, and mom had the beautifully styled hair of the times. They smoked cigarettes, and drank, and enjoyed life. But things would change. The war ended, and life shifted to one of work, family, and domesticity back on the Mainland.

  * * *

  The family moved a lot when I was young. I think I was shuffled around half a dozen times before I was eight. I have some memories of being about six years old at the Viola apartments. in Spring Valley, New York. The apartment is where I learned about my mother working nights and my dad working days. He would leave early in the morning, and I would only see him for dinner and a little bit before my bedtime. I always knew that children needed to be with and see their dads way more than that. Mother would sleep during the day, essentially leaving me alone to watch the small TV we finally purchased (we never had a lot of money for “extras,” like TVs, so when we finally got one, it was a big deal). I would watch Jack LaLanne and “I Love Lucy,” and whatever else came on while my mother slept in the next room. One time, while my mother was asleep, and I was bored, I found a lighter in one of the drawers and lit the cork message board on fire. I remember seeing the flames grow and grow before I ran to my mother’s bedroom and woke her. She came running out and threw the board in the sink, turning on the water. It could have been fatal, but I never thought of that. All I wanted was some attention. Just like all kids.

  We moved from the apartment to the house on Wit’s End when I was eight. I was sent to my cousin Robbin’s house while the move took place—I guess to be out of the way. I really wanted to be a part of that move. I wasn’t given the chance to say goodbye to the old house, or take a last look, or anything. When I was picked up at cousin’s house, I was taken to the new house and told this is where I would live now. I was sad. I was used to the small apartment and now the size of the house was scary to me. There was a huge, one-acre lot of land with trees and shrubs and grass. Most kids would welcome this. I saw it as a negative thing. When I met the other kids in the neighborhood, Robert Barich, Dan O’Connell, the Buss brothers Bob and Jim, they all seemed like “country folk” to me. They were “outdoorsy.” I didn’t like it. One time, while home alone, the furnace came on. And from the basement there rumbled and roared a terrific noise. I ran outside from the house as far as I could and waited. Not knowing what to do, I went back to the house. The noise had stopped. No one had ever told me what to expect. No one prepared me for the changes I would have to adapt to. My parents were always too busy, and now, somehow, getting busier, because of the added upgrade to the house and growing children.

  Growing up, I felt isolated. My brother Bob is six years older than I am, and since I can remember, neither he nor brother Bill, who is eight years older, would play with me or spend time with me. They used to take me outside to play and then run away from me. That’s what children do sometimes I guess. We were never close, we brothers. Bob was a bit learning disabled and Bill was the first born, a go-getter. By the time I was ten he was off to college. As Bob and I lived together and we got older I started to see Bob’s challenges becoming more apparent. I had to defend his honor to those in the neighborhood and my friends in general. I don’t ever remember doing well in school and chose to associate with like-minded people. I began drinking and drugging at an early age. My brother Bob gave me my first cigarette on our walk to Hempstead Elementary School. I was eight.

  My mother had been nursing a steady drinking habit all my life, and I’d always just accepted it. But by the time I was eight, and starting to figure out the family dynamics, and that school wasn’t my thing, my mother’s drinking had reached epic proportions. She was still working as a nurse and had transformed into what’s considered a “functional alcoholic.” She wouldn’t miss work due to drinking—she kept the two separate—but when she was off duty, she kept the house awake night after night with her drinking, yelling, breaking things and storming through the house looking for my father. According to her rants and her ravings, my father had hurt her in some way. She accused him of cheating. I never got the impression from my dad’s behavior that he was cheating, so I don’t know if he was unfaithful to my mother, but my mother thought he was. My dad stopped drinking and smoking when we kids came along, and all he wanted to do was keep the peace in the house. He was a true enabler. When I was ten years old, after a long night with mother screaming and imposing war on the household, fear took over, and I suggested to my dad that “we get divorced.” He looked at me squarely in the eyes and said something I will never forget: “Just because she’s sick, doesn’t mean we don’t love her.” That was my dad. He was honorable, respectful, and a disciplinarian when it was time.

  In the unstable household environment, where everybody had his or her own direction and battles, I was left to find my own amusements. I got interested in music, and I started drumming very early. My parents always supported me, and didn’t stop me from playing on things. They got me a cheap toy drumset to bang on when I was about six, but they soon saw that I’d need an upgrade to a real kit, since there was no sign I was stopping. Santa brought me my first real drum set when I was eight. No more cardboard and tin drums. No more pots and pans. This was a Slingerland, 5-piece, marine pearl complete with hardware and cymbals. I couldn’t believe it, and I was ecstatic. Drumming was going to be mine and only mine, my ticket out of the family and fear I believed was my life.

  ***

  I fell in love with that Slingerland kit, and I drummed incessantly. I knew drumming would always be the mainstay in my life, but I also knew
that I had to get out of Wit’s End. From our house on Wit’s End you could walk up Brick Church Road and on top of the hill there was a golf course and nightclub complete with swimming pools, cabanas and all the promise of a swinging time. I found I could climb on top of the cabanas and look out toward the horizon south and see the Manhattan skyline. Every time I saw that skyline, I knew the city was for me. The city was where I wanted to be, and drumming was what I would do when I got there. Moving to Manhattan became my goal. I would move to Manhattan and be a famous drummer. So I started planning.

  I knew my plan would not include college, wife, kids, or suburbia. Those pieces of the American Dream were what I saw all around me, and none of it seemed to make anyone happy. The people living that “Dream” seemed dreamless to me. The Dreamless were all around me and I hated what I saw. I wanted just the opposite—the city life, and I wanted it ALONE. My father’s mother, my grandmother worked in New York City for years as a nurse, and I was told great stories of New York City in the early days. My father had lived there for years as well. I can remember going on the subway, at about six or seven years old and going to the Automat for a sandwich with my parents and at least one brother. I heard many great stories about the city throughout my youth, and any musician will tell you that if you’re worth anything, you’ll work in New York City. I couldn’t wait to get there.

  ***

  My teen years held a lot of meaning for me. At 16, I learned to drive in the family’s old, yellow, two-door Ford LTD, and I passed the test quickly. My mother showed me how to parallel park. My parallel parking skills are still great today (thanks Mom!). My brother Bob accidently slammed my finger in that car’s door years earlier. Thoughts of that car bring back a lot of memories. The next year, when I was 17, I started working with the next-door neighbor, Steve Luscher. He saw me sitting on the wall out in the neighborhood with the other smokers and young, would-be hooligans. He offered me a great job in his family business. Steve and his father worked together day in day out, and I carried their tools. Steve’s wife Lynn was and still is wonderful and they had two small children, Christopher and Kim. I’ve emailed him in the last year to reminisce about his dad. Working with the Luschers was great, and I saved enough money to buy a car. Once I did that, I was New York City bound!

  I was also 17 when I met Gary Chester. He was my drum teacher, my mentor, my guide and a father figure. I started drumming once a week with him. He could have told me to stand on my head and I would have done it. Today, I teach the way he taught me. By the time I met him, my social life had revved up, I was drinking/drugging, and getting into some trouble with the law. Gary heard about it, and called me on my stuff at my lessons. He kept me as straight as he could. Because of him I stayed closer to home and Rockland County than I would have or planned on. I had been planning on moving into the city right after high school. Instead I wound up getting apartments with my brother Bob and living at friend’s places to try to stay on track, and to keep the lessons going. My permanent move to New York City was delayed. The lessons were too valuable to sacrifice, and my reputation was changing for the better.

  Finally after driving in to the city daily, or spending weekends, or whatever I could do, I moved into an apartment with a girl. Her dad owned the building. I lived with her, her sister, their roommate, and another woman as well. Then life got interesting.

  Instead of pursuing a career based strictly on music and drumming, I knew I had to pay rent right away, so I got a job doing shipping and receiving. I mentioned my childhood and background as little as possible. I knew that in the city, I’d be thought of as “country folk” if I mentioned where I came from. I’d scaled down my partying before I moved to the city, but once I got there, I learned how to really drink and do drugs. The early 1980s was a terrific time in New York City, and I was right in the middle of it. I really wanted to play drums, but I couldn’t get any real drumming gigs to pay the bills because I was the new guy on the block. I was told to “get in line and when somebody dies we’ll call you.” I joined the Local 802 musicians union and waited. Nothing. I kept working the day job and playing in non-paying bands at night just for the experience. I played with some great bands during that time. Another book can be written about that.

  That was a crazy time, and most of my decisions then were fueled by ambition and partying. It wasn’t until I stopped drinking and drugging that I made better decisions about whom to play with. Early in my recovery I met a great man and band. The band was Gregg Swann and Beggar’s Choice. We were gigging and he had contacts with a major record label, and in the '90s, that was clout. I started going to AA meetings and getting my health in order as well as my finances. Things were looking up.

  Getting Sober

  I met my daughter’s mother in an AA meeting of all places. Everyone there told me not to pursue a relationship at all while I was getting sober. Of course, despite what all the AA people told me, I knew she was “different” and I “knew what I was doing.” I was barely sober a year when we moved in together. I stopped making meetings and made her my higher power. Huge mistake. We lived together for a year and we got married. I should have listened to the signs as they arose. I didn’t know that although I wasn’t drinking, I still had crazy thinking. Nevertheless, I felt love, maybe for the first time. Certainly love as an adult--a sober adult. It felt magical. We wanted to play house and get our own place. When I met her she lived on E. 3rd St. right next to The Hell’s Angel’s clubhouse. Years earlier I played drums with my band Storm dogs at that clubhouse.

  We got our own apartment on Suffolk Street, rented from a guy we both new at AA. We had to walk past the drug dealers and dopers each night to get to our door. After just a year together, we married on the Empire State Building. Eventually we moved from Suffolk St. My wife was constantly complaining about the harsh reality and dangers of the city. Though I’d always wanted to be in the city, and I loved it, I bought in her philosophy to some extent. Many of her ideas became my own, because I didn’t really have many of my own, at least not yet.

  We were sober and living a good, clean life. One day, my friend Michael Waldman called me one day to play drums in a band he was managing—Splatter. I told him the terms under which I would join the band, and Michael agreed. I was given an apartment and salary compliments of Sony records. My wife and I had a nice place as a result of that deal—because of me, and a deal that I’d made. My wife started talking about starting a family. I thought having an apartment, a cat, a dog, and each other meant family. She had different ideas from mine; pets weren’t enough for her. She wanted kids. She pushed and again, I agreed. Though I had begun formulating my own ideas, I let hers become mine again.

  We planned our baby’s conception and birth date—down to the minute it seems. My daughter’s mother was very into astrology and astronomy, Tarot and all that. I found it fascinating. When we became pregnant we told everyone.

  ***

  My dad lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and when he heard we were going to have a baby, he invited my wife and me out to for a visit, a vacation. We bought a video camera with a credit card, and took it with us on the visit to see Dad. When we arrived in New Mexico, I was shocked when I learned he had remarried after knowing his wife for only 3 months. But Mom had died more than a decade earlier, and I knew Dad was not only lonely, but would be heartbroken from his loss forever. He and Mom were married 36 years before she died from her alcoholism. Dad needed companionship, and I understood why.

  Dad picked my wife and me up at the airport, and said he had to make one stop on the way home. That stop was to pick up his test results at his doctor’s office. We waited in the car smelling the New Mexico air and marveling at how clean and clear it was. I had only left New York City to tour with Gregg Swann to Europe and many of the United States with other bands. I hadn’t gone on vacation or any trips just for fun. Being in the Southwest was a treat. Dad came out from the office and was in shock. I asked why. He told us his doctor had jus
t told him they found cancer. He was diagnosed with the early stages of Non-Hodgkins lymphoma. I couldn’t believe it. My life changed from that moment on.

  Needless to say, the visit was quite different from what I had expected. A lot had changed. My father’s life was now entirely different—he was facing his own mortality. I had to do it, too. I was glad I got the video camera and took it with me, because I was able to shoot a lot of video of my dad. At one point I dropped it and something in it broke. I had to have it repaired, and it was really expensive to fix. But I still have the videos from that time. I transferred them to DVD, and I can look at them any time I want to remember my dad.

  Moment by moment, I was rethinking my priorities. My wife and I were in Albuquerque for the weekend, and went home on a Sunday night. We were already considering leaving the City to move to New Mexico to be closer to my dad now that we knew he was ill. Dad said his treatment would be just one year. So we planned on moving there for just one year, with the idea of returning to Manhattan when he was better. We would enjoy the break, and we would have our baby there, in the clean, fresh air, providing the perfect start for our baby’s life. But that’s not what happened.

  To make the move, I had to quit my bands and let go of the apartment that was part of my Splatter deal. But my confidence was high. I was at the top of my game. I thought taking off a year would do me some good. I would rest my weary wrists and joints from drumming. I actually thought that bringing my New York City style to Albuquerque would be appreciated by those “less fortunate” musicians in New Mexico. It turns out I was wrong. The bands shook their heads in disbelief as I told them not to worry, that I’d be back in a year. They couldn’t believe I was leaving my life behind to go to New Mexico, and they all thought my daughter’s mother was Yoko. I guess they were right. I was so confident that I sold my drum gear as well. I knew I would come back and get gear easily. I took some practice pads and sticks. I was glad not to have to think about it all. That wouldn’t last long.