Father's Day is For The Boys

ANDREW DELLINGER

June 17, 2018

I’m sitting here on Father’s Day in a kiddie pool at my in-laws house, smoking a Parliament, drinking a PBR, and writing my first ever blog post for NODEHAUS. For 21 years now, I’ve spent Father’s Day laying low. My father passed away when I was 6 of a cerebral hemorrhage. For at least the last decade, I’ve spent Father’s Day as the guy who took the shift so others could spend the day enjoying time with their fathers.

Now, I’m married and about 5 years younger than my father when he died, spending my day with my father in law, Dale. So why is this at all relevant to an internet culture magazine? Well, it’s because I’ve recently learned that even at Dale’s age, you can discover a passion for memes. While most Boomers are just boomerposting and sharing fake news or memes about 'remember when your mother would put the kettle on the stove,' Dale instead recognizes my deep-seated interest in the ways that memes affect the world we live in. As such, he’s begun sharing his dankest memes with me.

​What’s more, he’s surprisingly good at it.

My father always had a penchant for pranks. His sense of humor was a force to be reckoned with. While still being one of the smartest people in his high school in rural Mississippi, he was also starting a satirical high school fraternity called the PLO, which no doubt upset his high school’s principal, all during the height of the international conflict with the Palestinian Liberation Organization. Maybe in that way, like genes, memes are inherited. Here I am today working out t-shirt designs daily for a movement to bring the prosperity associated with unbridled capitalism to the DPRK with a streetwear project by Nodehaus, called Gentrify Pyongyang.

Dale loves the idea behind Gentrify Pyongyang, and better, the idea of peace on the Korean Peninsula. This week alone, he’s sent me about 3 Trump-Kim memes. And for each one he’s sent me, I’ve returned the favor, sending back Trump-Kim Singapore Summit memes that, little by little, open his eyes to a newfound language to discuss culture and the politics of our day. He recognizes how unfunny the limousine liberals of late night comedy have become and sees more humor in the memes of the internet in our time. My father-in-law, at 58, is open to learning new languages, especially the language of the internet.

This Father’s Day is Dale’s first Father’s Day without his father, who passed away earlier this year from cancer. Every year, they’d spend Father’s Day together listening to Mollie B, a famous polka musician, as a means of sharing in their Polish heritage together. While Dale may have lost his father, I’m happy to say that after marrying his daughter just 2 months ago, he’s now gained a son, and one who will always share with him the absolute dankest memes of our day.

They say that “Saturdays Are For The Boys,” and while that may be true, for the first time in the 21 years since my father passed away, I have someone I can call a father of my own. Today, Father’s Day is for the Boys—most notably, Dale Bob.

Happy Father’s Day, Dale!