After I bellyached about whether the fact that I am not a SAHD meant I technically had the same dad-title as the noted lousy father Don Draper, commenter Ken Guerin wrote in with his own Grito de Yara:
If I tell someone that I am a Dad, I couldn’t care less if they picture Don Draper, Don Knotts, Don Corleone, Don Juan, etc.
Perhaps I am just too hopped up on caffeine, but this strikes me as an exciting ontological breakthrough. Perhaps all levels of fatherhood, or even manhood, can be categorized by the simple question: Which Don are You?
OK, Don Juan and Don Corleone are not Dons in the first-name sense, because they are honorifics. But I think they should still count. And maybe even the Don-Don from Family Guy’s Star Wars remake (that is, a whiny, freezing Don Knotts on the body of a Tauntaun) should count as well.
But there are so many more Dons (though I’m not counting University of San Francisco athletes). I, for example, felt a lot like Don Rickles this morning as I reported for an unwanted second week of jury duty: pink-faced and spewing invective. Other, more manly dads could choose inked-up Don Ed Hardy. Someone has got to be linen-suited Don Johnson. Or mumbling bigot Don Imus. Oscar nominee Don Cheadle is up for grabs. Whoever you are experiencing, whoever you are being, a Don has been through it all before.
Are there any Dons I’m missing? Which Don are you? Write in an answer, even if your name is, well, something like Ken.
I like to think of myself as the Archbishop Don “Magic” Juan of fathers. http://www.thebishop.us/