Tim Russert and Father's Day

We're not the first to note the untimely passing of NBC's Tim Russert on Friday. The airwaves and the internet have been full of tributes from colleagues and former interview antagonists to Washington's top political journalist (and the bestselling author of Big Russ and Me and Wisdom of Our Fathers). My favorite personal tribute: his longtime friend Joe Klein's on Time's Swampland ("He was loving this election, as much as any we'd covered. I just can't believe he won't be around to find out how it ends."). My favorite line: Ezra Klein: "Presumably, he's up somewhere beyond the cloudline, hectoring God about His inconsistencies. 'But Lord, in Exodus 6:12, you clearly said...'" Most fitting tribute: Time's collection of his Top 10 Gotcha Moments.

As many have noted, it was especially poignant that he died two days before Father's Day, since few public figures have paid more heartfelt tribute to their fathers than Russert for his Big Russ, who worked two jobs, collecting garbage by day and driving a newspaper truck by night, for most of his working life, and who worked equally hard to pass on to his children a sturdy set of values. And by all accounts Tim did his best to live up to that example in his relationship with his own son Luke. Russert's two books, which have been on the top of our bestseller list since soon after the news broke, are both about fathers, and with the day in mind, I thought it would be appropriate to post a short passage from Big Russ and Me here:

Although we loved our fathers, there was a distance between us and a recognition that they inhabited a very different universe than we did. It was not just that they were usually working, although that was part of it. It was that our fathers and mothers were adults, and we were kids, during a time when grown-ups and children lived in separate worlds and were exposed to very different things. (A small example: in the 1950s we never saw a bad word in print or heard an off-color remark on the radio or on television.) Nobody I knew ever called grown-ups, even close family friends, by their first names, and the grown-ups never suggested that we should. To this day, when I go back to Buffalo and I run into one of our old neighbors, I still address them as "Mr. Griffin" or "Mrs. Geary."

Shaking hands with adults was very important, at least for boys, and it was something I practiced with Dad until it became second nature. Dad insisted on a firm handshake, and he worked with me until I developed one. "When you meet somebody," he would say, "you want to make them feel that you're proud and happy to know them. So don't put a wet fish in their hand. Give that hand a good shake, snap your wrist, and look them in the eye. People are people, and if they like you, they'll give you the benefit of the doubt. Treat them the way you'd like to be treated."

... These things were so ingrained in me that I passed them along to my son, Luke, almost without thinking. When he was four or five, I heard myself echoing Dad's words as we practiced what to do when he met an adult for the first time -- or the twentieth. I'd say, "Come here, buddy, and let's shake hands," and I undoubtedly used the phrase "wet fish" as part of the lesson....

When Luke was a junior in high school and we went to visit a few colleges, one of the deans took me aside and said, "That is one impressive young man you have there." I was happy to hear this, of course, and I silently hoped he would elaborate, which he did. "Your boy shook my hand," the dean continued. "He looked me in the eye and engaged me in conversation." That's all it took! And from the way the dean said it, I could tell this wasn't something he saw every day. I was proud of Luke, but even more, I was grateful to Dad.

Today is Father's Day, but it's also Sunday, the day that Russert made his own in his 17 years of hosting Meet the Press (my favorite detail from his career: NBC News made Russert their Washington bureau chief and named him host of Meet the Press before he had any on-air television experience). This morning's program will be an hourlong tribute to Russert, hosted by Tom Brokaw. Tune in with your dad. --Tom

Comments

[Beth Fehlbaum on June 17, 2008 at 08:18 AM]

I watched the tribute to Tim Russert on Meet the Press this past Sunday. The thing that got me the most was the clip they played at the end, in which Tim congratulated his son on graduating college and told him how proud he was to be his dad. What a cool father Tim Russert obviously was. It was made even more poignant by his son Luke's appearance on Monday's Today show. Luke Russert was incredibly well-spoken. I'm sure Tim, watching from Heaven, smiled and said, "That's my boy." Surely he was even more proud to be Luke's dad on the worst of days.

Beth Fehlbaum, author
Courage in Patience, a story of hope for those who have endured abuse
http://courageinpatience.blogspot.com