Into the Spotlight

Dad is becoming a real television personality. It’s strange and fun to see him on TV, a father shrunk to one foot high in black and white, a doll of a dad, little arms pointing out barometric pressure systems. Or to look from Dad in the room to the Dad on TV, a mysterious glee.

The public and the private man aren’t much different. He never swings celebrity around. When asked, “Are you Don O’Brien?” he’ll say, “I’m guilty.” That’s it.

We love visiting the station, seeing the station break cards, the secret blue chalk viewers couldn’t see that marked the weather maps, watching the thrilling big black cameras swing round, walking on the newsroom set, shaking the hand of Clancy the Cop, Twinkies in our goody bag.

Every year the station videotapes our living Christmas card: “Merry Christmas from the O’Briens to the viewers,” huge hot lights drying up our Christmas smiles. And every year, on New Year’s Eve, Dad holds a TV party for his viewers, folks without parties to go to. He orders in champagne and canapes, buys balloons and hats to dress the set. In white tie and tails he leans toward the camera with a champagne flute and a paper plate of goodies, saying, “Have some, won’t you, while we watch the next act of The Bells of St. Mary’s.” On New Year’s Day we wake up to balloons and foily hats left on our bedposts.

Dad’s moving up, and Mom likes it. He makes personal appearances at the Minnesota State Fair. He’s asked to join the regional chapter of Variety Club, a show business charitable organization which built a children’s heart hospital at the University of Minnesota. Shortly thereafter, he’s asked to join their board. My father’s voice is who my father is. An authority, of course.

And yet to amuse us he stood on his head. No photos show this impishness, the twinkle and the whisper that fatherhood brought out in him: whacking out “It’s neat to beat your feet upon the Mississippi mud” on his suit pant thigh.

Our local TV Guide does a feature on him. Because Kako can’t leave the convent, our family portrait on the cover has us all gazing at her high school graduation picture in Dad’s hands. Our first view of Earth was described by these hands: the lemon orbiting the orange in the square brown fingers. What security. We knew from how he held them they would never fall.

Seeing Dad on TV and in TV Guide makes all TV seem truer, and movies, too, because Dad tells the truth. And Father Does Know Best. So Donna Reed seems true as Mom (but nicer). When we look at Kako, we see Song of Bernadette and The Nun’s Story. None of us knows she feels imprisoned and betrayed, is seeing a therapist, and is taking anti-depressants.