Dad fills the role and serves as a model

By ANDREW SKERRITT
Published June 17, 2007

During a community trash cleanup day in south Brooksville this spring, as Mark Drake walked along Twigg Street picking up trash, his daughter Patrice pulled up in his 1997 Silverado.

Father and daughter chatted briefly as folks tossed old tires and other junk into the back of the vehicle.

Although Patrice was only 16, she handled the pickup like an old pro. I got the sense that she was daddy's girl, but her father doesn't need to worry about her when he's not around.

Drake wasn't the only man to bring his daughter to the cleanup that day. But I was struck by the way this father and daughter were comfortable.

"We have the same spirit as far as giving and helping, " said Drake, who since his divorce four years ago no longer lives with his daughter but talks to her every day. "She trusts me not to mislead her."

Theirs is a relationship to envy.

Unfortunately, we can't buy fatherhood at Home Depot. Many of us never had an example to follow, and it takes us a while to figure out how to raise our children. By the time we get it, it's usually too late - our kids are grown.

But the key is for us to try, to want to be better fathers than our fathers and grandfathers.

Drake, 47, a grounds crew supervisor for Hernando County schools, struck me as a man for whom fatherhood was never a casual assignment.

Maybe it's because he didn't grow up with a dad. It was his mother, Mary, who taught him the value of work and being a man. To show appreciation, he and his sister always bought their mother Father's Day and Mother's Day gifts. While he was in the Army, he made sure she got a house she could be proud of.

He first met his father when he was 15 and didn't exactly throw his arms around his old man. But his mama always passed along her quiet wisdom. No matter what he did, she told Mark, he's still your dad.

Drake took that to heart and over the last decade, he has repaired the father-son breach. They're pretty close now. He was planning to attend church with his dad in Ocala this Father's Day before coming back to Brooksville for lunch with Patrice and her two older brothers.

That's the other thing - repairing our relationship with our own fathers can make us better men, better fathers.

It sometimes prompts us to return the favor to the young men coming up after us. In recent years, Drake had organized a Father's Day breakfast in Brooksville. But his heart for helping the younger generation goes back even further.

Since 1997, he has organized a summer jobs program for at-risk youths in Hernando. Each year, more than 20 high schoolers have real jobs working for the School District, Sheriff's Office, Brooksville Parks and Recreation Department and Hernando County.

The teens, many of whom live with Mom but not Dad, learn the value of work. For 10 summers, Drake has rarely missed the opportunity to talk to the youths about responsibility and doing the right thing. That's consistency - another hallmark of true fatherhood.

Andrew Skerritt can be reached at 813 909-4602 or toll-free at 1-800-333-7505, ext. 4602. His e-mail address is askerritt@sptimes.com.

[Last modified June 16, 2007, 19:57:41]