I didn't know my father like I know my mother.

My father died in December of 1968 at the age of 44. I was 18 then so there hadn't been time for a relationship to mature.

It is, of course, complex. I was born into a matriarchy and spent lots and lots of time with my mother, aunts, grandmother, and cousins. The Golding family was different; my father's nature was like his own mother's; it was not easy for them to communicate with others. Also, this was the 1950s and 60s, and men usually didn't spend a lot of time with their children.

So how did I get to know my father? I learned about him through watching my mother. She adored my father and literally "looked up to him;" he was 6 feet, 2 inches and my mother was a foot shorter. She respected him deeply, followed his suggestions, cooked the foods he liked, and when the Pittsburgh Press was delivered to our house at 4:00 PM and Judie and I grabbed the comics and TV pages, she made us reassemble the paper so that when he came home my father would have a nice, organized Pittsburgh Press to read.

If you needed somebody on your side, if you wanted a friend to help sort out a problem, if you just wanted to lean on somebody, my father was the perfect choice. Never confused, quiet (which made him a good listener), with a rare breadth of mind and fearless in the face of what "other people" thought; this was my Dad.

My father was a scientist who worked with chemicals and coatings for industrial buildings. Once in a while he would tell me about the scientific method. He said that almost all problems could be solved in a logical manner, where you gather facts, list them, then come to a conclusion. I resisted this way of thinking when I was a teenager because my head was full of boyfriends and D.H. Lawrence, but I learned the wisdom of this at a later date.

Thanks, Dad.