Hardly a day goes by where I don’t think of my dad. One of the great gifts of my lifetime was being able to spend time with him his final years, to, in a pittance, repay him for watching over me. Pops was that pure definition of a hero — “doomed to failure, he tries anyway.”

I wonder how Arthur Schopenhauer would have viewed Father’s Day. The 19th century German philosopher with the madman grimace and wild, flyaway Muppet hair wrote at length about the sorry state of men, how wading through the thick obligations of wives and children, a man becomes stooped and rarely gets to become who he was supposed to be.

Schopenhauer’s views were along the lines of Henry David Thoreau’s famous quote: “Most men live lives of quiet desperation.”

Amen. Boy howdy. We are not alone. Most women never fully become themselves, either.

I suspect only in his last 15 years or so my father flirted with Life’s elusive, moving target — happiness. My mom suffered severe mental illness all her life and dear, suffering soul, she made all around her pay. It was as if a 50-ton tombstone had been lifted from his chest when she made her transition.

I plotted tirelessly to kidnap Dad for roadtrips to beach or mountains. Stubborn so-&-so, Pops felt there couldn’t be any place on Earth more beautiful than Santa Clarita’s crown jewels of Hart Park or Placerita Canyon. Why would anyone want to drive five hours just to see the same tree?

As if I were Zorro or Captain Blood, I’d........

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