Father’s Day: Diners and Other Days with My Father

 Every third Sunday in June, the world says, “Happy Father’s Day” to millions of men fortunate enough to be Fathers. Money? That comes on the second Sunday in May…Mother’s Day! Mother’s Day is a Multi-Million Dollar spending day. Mothers deserve every flower, box of candy, jewelry, and expensive dinner they receive. Father’s Day is a little different. We receive a card, a bundle of socks, and a restaurant dinner if the wait time isn’t too long. My favorite Father’s Day gift is that tie that you have no shirt to wear it with. My Father was smarter than most. When I’d ask him what he wanted for Father’s Day, he’d say a tie that matches this shirt! You may think my father was ahead of his time. I just think he was running out of space in the bag of ugly ties that I bought him previously.

   I lost my father, Stewart Rivera, on August 28, 1990. My Father and I were very close. He was there for my Little League Baseball games, High School and College Baseball and Basketball games. He even attended most of my Summer League games. Since Willie Mays was my favorite Baseball player, my father thought I should play centerfield when trying out for a Little League Team. The Coach, Bob Greenwall, looked at my 10-year fame and saw a short stop. My Father told me to go to the outfield and he hits several balls to me. I caught them all! By the time we were done, my Little League team had a 10-year starting centerfielder. Father knew best.

   My Father had been a U.S. Navy man before becoming a Philadelphia Police Officer. He was a highly disciplined and routine driven. He raised me that way. When it came to sports, he rarely ever just rolled the ball out and say, “Go play son.” Play time with my father nearly always came with instruction. Learn to play the game the right way was his mantra for sports. He’d say to me, “Practice hard, play hard and excel.”

   On Sunday Mornings my father had two jobs. The first job was to get me to Sunday school on time. That was a tough job. My Father loved classic movies or as I called them, old movies! He’d wake me up once my mother went to sleep and we’d head to the basement with a punch bowl full of cereal, two spoons and two cups. In our basement, I became familiar with Humphrey Bogart, Sidney Poitier, Cary Grant, and Vincent Price, among other actors. Getting up on Sunday morning was not easy for me. Sometimes we would not make Sunday school on time. My Father and I would go to The Oak Lane Diner for breakfast. That would give us just enough time for Dad to do his second job; pick up my mother and sister so we could all get to church on time. When My wife, Debora and I enter Thankful Baptist Church at 11:15-11:30, it is fair to blame our lateness on late night sports and Turner Classic Movies.

   Father’s Day was nearly the same every year. My mother would try to get my father to go to a fancy restaurant. My father’s idea of a fancy restaurant was Rustler’s or The Ponderosa. In hindsight, any steak house would do. It was diner food that my father thought was the greatest food not cooked at home. Growing up, it seemed to me my father knew EVERY diner on the East Coast. One Saturday during the Summer of 1985, my father asked my friend Mark Allen and I if we were hungry. We had just played a basketball game and we were in our 20’s; of course, we were hungry! My Father said, “Get in, we’ll go to the diner.” Oh no I thought, he said THE DINER…that meant we could end up anywhere from Pennsylvania to New Jersey or Delaware. My Father drove to a place I’d never heard of called Marcus Hook, Pennsylvania. Nearly 36 years later, I still don’t know where Marcus Hook is located.

   Our last Father’s Day together occurred in June of 1990. I said, “Dad, I know a nice place in Chestnut Hill called, “The Depot.” I told him they had steaks and really big burgers…not to mention I could afford it! Fancy? I wore shoes, not sneakers. My father came to pick me up much earlier than I expected. He asked me could we go to The Depot another time because he found a place he wanted us to check out. We ended up in Brooklyn Park, Maryland. If it helps, it’s about 5 or 10 miles from Glen Burnie, Maryland. I did not question my father as to why he seemed incapable of finding a diner closer to home nor did I ask him how he even found Fred and Margie’s. I never understood why he would look over the menu as if he were examining an evidence file. Everyone at every Diner knew my father was going to order some combination of steak and potatoes. He ordered his steak and potatoes and I ordered breakfast food… a normal day at the diner for dad and me.

   My father and I finally made it to The Depot on August 12, 1990. We hung out all day together. Breakfast at a diner in New Jersey, he watched my basketball game in the afternoon and finally dinner at the Depot. The burger was so good I ordered one to go. My Father called me after he ate my burger and said, “The burger was good, but I’ll take you to a diner in Collingdale, PA; they have great burgers. A little more than two weeks later, he was gone. It really did not hit me until I actually heard the cremation machine. My seemingly indestructible Dad, “Big Stew” was really gone. I decided to take a walk to clear my head. I wanted to uproot a tree, kick a tombstone, or throw a rock. Instead, I cried, something I had not done all week. I could hear my father’s voice saying, “No tears, stand at attention and be everyone’s strength.” As I walked back to rejoin my family and friends, I realized I never got the name of that diner in Collingdale with the great burgers. Maybe it was better that way; it would not have been the same without my father being there.

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