by Mitzi Saltsman

Created on: June 03, 2009   Last Updated: June 08, 2009

Being a child of the 60's and early 70's you might not think Fathers had much influence on the social lives of their children. After all it was the decade of Love and Anything Goes. The kind of influence my Dad had was much more subtle than Father Knows Best. I was sort of raised by the Dr. Spock theory, in the sense that my Dad wanted me to make my own decisions. He purposely tried to not influence me in many area of my development. After his death, each of my siblings made the comment that they felt like they had raised themselves, because of that lack of influence..

There was a time though when I brought home my first real boyfriend. It was 1976 and the end of my freshman year in college. Bill had come to Pittsburgh from northern Michigan just to spend the weekend. He had already declared his intent to marry me and it was to be the first time my family had met him.

He was an impressive 6'5 basketball player. My Dad was was 6'2 so maybe I just thought he was impressed. Bill was very confident, maybe a little too sure of himself. He kissed me on our front porch which irritated the life out of an Uncle of mine who lived next door. I'm not exactly sure what it was, but that evening Bill and I sat down to play cards with my parents. We were sitting around the dining room table and Bill was keeping score. He turned to my Dad and for the sake of the scorecard, innocently enough asked, What should I call you?

Without hesitation, my Dad answered, Sir!

The room got quiet ... a little tense ... I think my Dad laughed a bit to ease the situation. I'm not speechless very often but my jaw was slack and I didn't know what to do. We played cards, it was not a nice weekend. That fall after we got back to school our relationship was over by October. My Dad just didn't like Bill. He never lectured me or gave a reason. He didn't forbid my seeing him or try to persuade me in anyway, but I was definitely influenced and maybe even saw some things in Bill that I hadn't seen before.

A few months later I started to date a new guy named Scott. Scott was more intellectual. Not really an athlete and not very tall. I think the word back then was Geek, it was before Nerd. I was leaving to teach at a mission school in India that summer and Scott finally got around to asking me out on our first date; the very last day of school. I was flying home to Pittsburgh the next day and then on to India in a couple weeks. My trip was delayed a bit and it even looked like I

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