Father's way.

Byline: The Register-Guard

WHAT THEY DON'T tell you on the showroom floor is how truly strange it is to become a father. We already know the Hallmark card version. Few of us consider the David Lynch aspects of conceiving and rearing actual human beings.

Between those extremes lies the muddled, emotional reality of fatherhood: the drippy diapers and stitched knees, the exasperating quarrels, the maintaining of ridiculous rules, the solemn disappointments and exhilarating triumphs.

Early this month, I sat next to my wife and heard our son play a piano recital, as we have each spring for 10-odd years now. Once, he barely reached the pedals. Now, he played a lyrical Bach prelude.

My wife grabbed my arm and sobbed. "He's so old," she whispered.

Here are some other Father's Day stories by other dads at The Register-Guard.

- Bob Keefer, Features Reporter

IT'S 1:45 A.M. and Katharine Rose Romig is wide awake.

Barely 2 weeks old (born May 27), she wakes up every couple of hours. Most of the time, her mother's milk is enough to soothe her. Sometimes, her diaper needs changing. Sometimes, she has gas.

Sometimes, we just don't know.

Now is such a time. Her plaintive cries tell me something is wrong, but what? I have resurrected The Sway - that gentle shifting of weight from one foot to the other as you attempt to comfort your newborn - that I perfected in the early days of our first child, Nick.

But The Sway isn't helping right now. I rock her, I sing to her, I bounce around the darkened living room. Nothing works. I feel frustration bubbling up inside me.

It's at these times I think, "Why do people have a second child (or third or fourth), knowing how hard it is?" Yet I know the answer. My son has taught me. My wife has taught me.

All I have to do is remember the time I came home from work and saw Nick smile at me for the first time. Or the time his mommy gave him two pieces of chocolate - like gold to him - and he immediately shared one with me.

Or the time, a few days before I was to go out of town for a week, we sat on the back porch and he wished upon the first star he saw in the night sky.

"What did you wish?" I asked my then 2-year-old.

"That you will stay with me," he replied. I didn't go on the trip.

Or I remember all the times my drowsy wife, Cami, rose at the crack of dawn with our baby and let me sleep in because she knew I faced a long day at work.

Or I remember that she has changed thousands of diapers - about 5,000, by my reckoning - and she's cheerfully looking forward to changing a few thousand more. Or I remember that she gave up a career to be a stay-at-home mom. She threw herself into her new role with an energy and commitment that would earn her a six-figure salary in the corporate world.

Yes, my little Kate will frustrate me with her cries in the middle of the night. She will try my patience many times over. But she will bring great joy, the likes of which I haven't felt since I was a small child.

I'll also be reminded why I married Cami, and our relationship will grow even stronger.

On this Father's Day, I am humbled.

- Rob Romig, Graphics Editor

COME ALL ye lost and bewildered young fathers, and let me share with you some of the deep and profound lessons I have learned in 22 long, long years of fatherhood:

Lesson No. 1: When my oldest child, Summer, was a little girl and the family budget was as insanely tight as it still is, she decided to become a Brownie. That meant buying an official Brownie uniform, which we had to put off buying until the next paycheck.

Ol' Dad, however, came through by cashing in a coffee can of spare change. He secretly bought what he thought was a bedazzling official Brownie dress, belt, cap and other Brownie accessories.

Summer looked oddly puzzled, even a bit disappointed, when she opened the gift. When I picked her up after the next meeting, I found out why. All the other girls were wearing official Brownie shorts and shirts, and Summer was the designated Brownie nerd.

Lesson: Fathers don't know what they're doing, especially when they think they're doing something wonderful.

Lesson No. 2. When my kids were tiny, I used to rock them before putting them to bed at night and sing songs with them. We developed theme nights - Elvis Night, R&B Night, Cowboy Night and my personal favorite, Broadway Night.

One evening, my daughter Robin was draped over my shoulder and I noticed she felt warmer than usual. It was Broadway night and I had just finished a rousing number from "Paint Your Wagon," when she lifted her head and gazed intently at me with a look that said, "Daddy, do something."

Then she proceeded to barf all over me.

Lesson: Children are gifted music critics. (Sublesson: Often the best and only thing a father can do in times of distress is just be there to get barfed on.)

Lesson No. 3: When my youngest, Noah, now 15, was nearing the end of his crib time (he was 14 - no, just kidding), I used to go into his room at nap time and we'd have father-toddler chats about baseball, God, bugs, big sisters and the like.

After one such exchange, it appeared that Noah was drifting off to sleep. I walked softly out of the room, closing the door behind me. Then I heard a tiny whisper in the room behind me: "Boopyhead," it said. Then, after a long, daring pause: "Stoooopid."

Lesson: Whenever you close a door on your kids, get away quickly before the whispering starts.

So endeth the discourse. Go forth now and father on in a never-ending haze of confusion, discovery and love

- Paul Neville, Associate Editor

FATHERHOOD IS holding a new and precious gift, pink and red, tied with the finest cord. It's hearing my daughters' first cries, feeling their first breaths.

It's watching those first, halting steps grow into a run, and then a kick and a goal.

It's wondering if they'll ever speak, then wondering when they won't.

Fatherhood is snuggling away a nightmare, a small warm head on my chest at dawn.

It's midnight runs to Emergency, quieting their fears and mine. It's a rock in the nose that won't come out. It's ticks and spiders, splinters and tweezers, and Band-Aids for invisible wounds.

Fatherhood is all the things that I used to do, plus the ones that I'd never have done.

It's Peter Rabbit and Henry and Ribsy, but now it's Ramona, too. It's Anne of Green Gables, and Laura and Mary, long winters and a house on the prairie. It's things half-forgotten and things never known. It's Santa down chimneys and reindeer on roofs. It's passing notes to fairies and, amazing, their replies.

Fatherhood is reaching out and handing down and throwing arms around.

It's dance duets with Emily and shoulder rides for Kate. It's braiding, reading, playing, singing. It's molding clay - and lives. It's taking off the training wheels and letting go, but running right beside. It's help with math and teaching chess, and, `Why can't our pawns be friends?'

Fatherhood is trying to answer the whats and whys, and the where has Poppi gone? It's everything dies, yet our love lives on. It's, `He's there when a star splits the sky."

Fatherhood is keeping faith, one generation to the next. It's hoping I'll do half as well, and trusting that I might, to give my girls all that they'll need to embrace the precious gift of life.

- Chris Frisella, News Editor

I'M THE BIG MAN with gray hair, lurking near a changing room in the department store.

Not so much lurking as waiting with trepidation and my credit card. And no, I'm not sweating because I'm a pervert; I'm sweating because I'm a single dad who has once again been lured into the Juniors Department.

Soon, the anguished voice will come from behind the louvered door. What follows will involve no actual speaking by me, because both daughters speak faster than I can even think:

`OK Dad, I'm coming out so you can see."

(Somebody help me, please.)

`Do I look fat?"

(No, but if you're going to wear a shirt that looks like it was sprayed onto your body, can we at least use opaque paint?)

"No, don't look!"

(How can I tell you how it looks if I don't look?)

"I look like a boy, don't I?"

(I thought I wasn't looking. Besides, the days when it was possible for you to look like a boy are gone. Back then, I didn't have to scan the horizon for boys who look at girls the way I did when I was your age.)

"Does it make me look really gross?"

(This head-shaking gesture is a desperate attempt to communicate with you. It means, "No, you don't look fat, or even a little bit gross, or like a boy. You look beautiful. You and all your friends and your sister and all her friends are beautiful. You're smart and healthy and happy and it both lifts and breaks my heart that you're growing up.

"I remember when you two were little and I would go into your room at night and stand between your beds in the dark and listen to the two of you breathe, tears rolling down my cheeks. I was so unready to be a single parent. I feared for both of you, and for me.

"And now, look at you. You seem to be making it just fine, often despite me, sometimes with my help. I've been a crappy dad and a great dad and every kind of dad in between, but I've always been your dad. Maybe ...")

"Dad? Dad?! Hey Dad?! Helloooo, Dad! Do you realize you've been standing there mumbling to yourself? Aaagh! You're so embarrassing! Are you having one of your special little parental moments? Look, I'm gonna get this top, OK, but I don't have any shoes to go with it. Can we go to the Shoe Department?"

(Somebody help me, please.)

- Kevin Miller, Electronic Information Editor

FOR ME, A MAN whose sons are virtually grown and gone, being a father has meant undeserved blessing.

It's meant the chance to extend my own childhood. (Would I have played trampoline basketball, camped out in the back yard or wrestled a University of Oregon band member for a plastic souvenir football if it were just me? Naw.)

It's meant the opportunity to root for, listen to, play against and experience life with two boys who are now not only my sons, but my friends. And it's meant the joy of shooting more feet of videotape than American Licorice has ropes.

But the two parts of fatherhood I cherish most are these: my making a difference in who my sons have become, and their making a difference in who I've become.

Last month, my son, Ryan, 22, cajoled his 20-year-old brother, Jason, and six pals into spending a weekend in Yachats filming a movie script he wrote called "Beach Runner." As I watched the 50-minute end result, I thought: Goodness, the kid thinks just like I think; this is exactly the type of movie I'd make if given the chance.

It's gratifying - and scary, given our parental faults - to see our imprint on our children.

And sometimes, the influence comes the other direction. A few years ago, in a high school batting practice, Jason took a fastball between the eyes that broke his nose, turning his face into a bloody mess. Frankly, I never thought he'd step in a batter's box again.

But he came back to make all-Midwestern League honorable mention one year and second team the next. Now, as I face life's challenges, I find myself thinking: If he had the courage to overcome his fears, so can I.

My sons inspire me. In some ways, maybe I inspire them. Despite our faults, fallibilities and frustrations, we try to bring out the best in one another.

Nothing I've accomplished or will ever accomplish can equal the joy of being their dad. I'm humbled to have the privilege. And reminded of it every time I see the plastic souvenir football that I wrestled away from the UO flutist back in 1979, the year I became a father.

- Bob Welch, Columnist

MY WIFE BROKE the news that she was pregnant by asking me to meet her for a picnic lunch and presenting me with a gift: a T-shirt with a single word stenciled on the front.

"Daddy-o."

I fell in love with the word instantly, thrilled by the important but not-too-important status it conveyed.

I was 34 then, an adult but not yet a grown-up. Nine months later, holding my infant daughter, I felt I had arrived.

My expectations for fatherhood, set much too high, were exceeded long ago. The perks are so plentiful. For one, it gives me permission to be a kid again - to run the dunes, ride the roller coaster, throw the water balloon - while pretending I'm just being a good parent.

For another, it's expanded my world of adult friends exponentially. How do childless people meet without the benefit of school events and Kidsports games?

It's also expanded my horizons: If I weren't a dad, would I have visited all those campgrounds, gone to Disney World, relearned algebra, watched someone learn to read? Probably not.

But what I like best about fatherhood is how it brings out the best in me. All too aware of my shortcomings and conceits, this is where I give and give and give - and feel rewarded rather than resentful.

Fatherhood grounds me, because it helps me to actually notice the blessings of daily living and human connection. It humbles me. It's taught me lessons about unconditional love, the marvel of childhood, the preciousness of life.

Our daughter is now 13, but with a soul much older and wiser. She speaks her truths, and they are so close to The Truth that it's scary. She also laughs, cajoles, cries and ruminates - and I have a front-row seat to it all.

I'm one lucky guy. I'm Daddy-o.

- Jeff Wright, News Reporter

I HAVE NEVER cared one whit for Father's Day. Never needed to receive a gift to remind me I am a dad. I get a gift from one of my four sons all the time.

Take the other day, for instance, when my youngest son, Griffin, 19, laid one on me in the middle of a conversation.

"I'm a little bored with my music, Dad," he declared. "Would you teach me about jazz?"

Would I - what?

A father is like a farmer: He plants the seeds and does everything he can to make them grow, but you never know. Sometimes they do; sometimes they don't.

While Griffin was growing up, I played all sorts of jazz records, but mainly for my own edification. I never pushed it on him. Kids like to discover and claim their own music. He liked rock, namely the Dave Matthews Band. DMB was fine with me, too, but jazz was really my thing. I discovered and claimed it when I was his age.

Teach him about jazz, huh? I still can't believe my ears. Nor can I believe he was actually listening to my music. Somehow, those scattered seeds took hold.

Where to begin our jazz studies? Find out what he likes and move out from there, I guessed. I played tracks by some artists I admired - Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Modern Jazz Quartet, Dave Brubeck, George Shearing, Chick Corea, June Christy, Chico Hamilton Quintet, Gerry Mulligan Quartet, Lee Morgan. Solid, mainstream veterans. Sweet stuff.

The moment was too wonderful. His invitation to share music that inflamed me was something I so longed to hear, it was my undoing. I played him CD after CD. I was on a roll, lost in my own world, overkilling as usual.

All of a sudden, I realized he was listening attentively but without emotion. My heart sank; a father knows when he's gone too far with his son.

Desperately needing feedback, I blurted out, "What do you think?"

He broke into a smile. "I like all of it," he said. "I like what you like, Dad."

Let's play that, again: "I like what you like, Dad." Whoa. Go easy on me, now. I'm getting a little emotional here.

When it comes to gifts, it doesn't get any better than that.

- Fred Crafts, Arts and Entertainment Reporter