Father Figure

 Looking like your parents can be an awful burden. It can also be a brilliant tribute. 

It depends a lot on the timing. I spent decades drawing caricatures of my father on birthday cards and father's day gifts. It was a pretty easy gig, remember the bald head and include a little bit of a spare tire around the waist and you've pretty much got it. I would not say that it was a flattering portrait, except that it was his son that was doing him the mild injustice of turning him into a somewhat more benign Homer Simpson. 

In my teens, the idea that I might end up being follicly challenged was a creeping fear of mine. School photos suggested that my hairline began to recede somewhere around second grade, and by the time I was in high school bangs were pretty much a memory. As for the spare tire, it was and continues to be a challenged to master my midsection. While I slide through middle age, I find that my gut remains a constant reminder of the man my father used to be. He ran. He played racquetball. I run. I ride my bike to and from school every day. 

I get it, dad. The joke is on me, after all these years. 

Which is okay by me, since I have spent the intervening years becoming accustomed to the shape in which I find myself. I have made some changes to the original recipe, by shaving off the sidewalls and going with a full-on chromedome. I remember my father's admonitions about combovers, and shaving my head pretty solidly eliminates that possibility. I count my steps and fret at least once a week when I step on the scale. I get support for my intermittent fasting and workout regimen and my wife is always there to remind me of healthy alternatives to that afternoon snack. 

All of which did not keep someone from looking at the picture we have of my dad in his Interrupting Cow costume from thirty years ago and saying, "Hey. You look just like him." 

And I think this is a compliment. Because I know what my father was inside and out.