The way we should all remember Father’s Day.

I know there will be a ton of Father’s Day photos on Facebook today. Many of my Facebook friends will either celebrate their fathers (living or dead), or they’ll be in pictures with their kids. And that’s all fine and honorable.

Longtime readers of my blog will know that for me, Father’s Day is a very difficult time. It’s asking me to honor two men – a biological father who abandoned his family when I was five years old – and a stepfather whose drunken rages devolved into physical and emotional abuse upon me – and I can’t honor those men. I just cant. There’s nothing honorable in how they treated me.

So how am I going to celebrate Father’s Day today?

I already started by working on a new art project. I’m currently on this kick where I take an old dinged-up drive-in speaker and repaint it into something that looks fabulous. So this morning, before I wrote my blog, I was sitting on my front porch, working with acrylic bases and powdered mica pigments and painting tiny lines on the aluminum-structured ribs of an old drive-in speaker. The speaker’s painted now, it’s sitting on the front porch while the paint dries.

Later tonight, I plan to take one of my film cameras (“Kodak Red”) and some respooled film and photograph in downtown Albany, with the end goal to create a brand new image, possibly as a last-minute swap-in for one of my photo competitions.

And later today, I might treat myself with a trip over to one of the casinos, maybe participate in their Father’s Day specials at the buffets.

This is how I plan on spending my Father’s Day. And maybe along the way, my son Kris will call me and wish me a happy Father’s Day. Which I know he will. Because no matter what hell and torture I went through as a kid … I did my best to make sure it didn’t pass down to how I raised him.

As I’ve said before … I’m not perfect. I’ve wobbled as often as a two-legged stool. But if I can make sure that whatever happened to me doesn’t pass down the bloodline to future generations, then I’m okay with that.

So yeah, today is a “Chuck is going fishing” day.

Hope you all understand.

Talk to you tomorrow.