A funny thing happened on the way to the firehouse.
This week I was all set to introduce myself to the folks at the fire department and do a piece on them. So I picked up my camera and pad and made my way there by crossing through the Weigand Funeral Home’s parking lot.
Their lot has just been resurfaced and it is a perfectly smooth black top. As I walked through the lot I happened upon one of those iconic family moments, a dad helping his 10-year old child learn how to ride her new two wheel bike she just got for Christmas.
There he was all bundled up and carefully watching her do her thing. She seemed to be doing pretty well with it all and had her helmet and knee pads for protection.
The scene was both simple and wholesome. It reminded me of something I had been watching at my golf club all summer long.
We have a pond right next to the clubhouse and we occasionally have Canadian geese who settle there for the summer. I noticed that a pair gave birth to four little goslings in the spring.
All summer long the goslings grew and grew and the four of them would wander about the pond exploring all its hidden parts. And both parents spent the entire summer patiently gliding behind them and watching or any trouble.
If you should approach the goslings the father would rear up and hiss at you loud enough to make you realize he meant business. Don’t mess with my kids! Thus is the nature of fatherhood.
So right in midstream I decided to forego the fire department story for a while and do a piece on fatherhood.
Sure fathers have to be breadwinners and bring home the bacon but if I’m right they have to be so much more than that. After all, my entire career as a psychoanalyst is based upon the failings of the mother, the father or someone else close to the child.
So I approached the man introduced myself and started the interview.
The father in question is Ken Rosellon and the girl that you see is his 10-year-old daughter Sophia. Sophia is a fifth grader at St. Aidain’s.
The Rosellon’s have lived in Williston Park for four years. Previously they lived in Mineola for 14 years.
As Sophia continued to pedal around the parking lot I did my interview.
Ken went to Cathedral Prep Seminary and then on to Mount St. Mary’s College where he studied acting and criminology. He told me that as he grew up he rarely saw his dad who would always be working in the refrigeration business at the airport.
After his freshman year he asked his dad if he could work with him over the summer and his dad arranged for it to happen. The experience of finally getting to know his father changed his life.
He gave up thoughts of acting and working with the FBI and decided he wanted to go into business with his dad.
Such is the value and the importance of being with the father.
I related to Ken my experience of golf with my dad.
He played golf and I took the game up seriously by age 12. Through golf I wound up spending enormous amounts of time with him. And for sure it did me good.
Ken went on to tell me he married a beautiful Brazilian woman and also has an eight-year-old son named Andrew.
I call Ken a lucky man. Lucky for me I ran into Ken and got this story. Lucky for Sophia that she has a dad who loves her enough to stand out in the cold and watch over her as she learns something new.
This iconic scene of loving sacrifice by a parent is one that takes place countless times every day and probably is the foundation of any culture.
Richard Tedesco, the senior reporter for the Williston Times recently asked me if I feared I may run out of stories to write about.
My answer is that it seems to me that Williston Park is teeming with stories. And my job is to try to keep my eyes and my heart open enough to see them as I walk by.
All these little acts of love and kindness. Like the sayings on the blackboard in front of the Village Flower Shoppe.
Or the garden and waterfall in front of the Townhouse Diner.
Or this dad standing in the cold watching his daughter learn how to ride her new two wheeler.
