We don’t need no stinkin’ Web site

By Doug Page | Tuesday, September 4, 2007, 04:07 PM

I’ve watched with some amusement the newspaper’s launching of several new products. My favorite is 937moms.com.

It’s a Web site for moms to vent, exchange information and provide perspective on raising a family.

Much to my surprise, it is not, I have found through lurking on the site, a place where mom unloads on dad. I guess that gets done often enough face-to-face.

The newspaper has a Web site for pet owners, college students, brides, followers of youth soccer and Kings Island fans.

There is, however, no site for dads.

This is not an oversight, but a recognition of reality. It is not as if the newspaper is anti-father. It is not as if dads are not important.

We just don’t need a Web site.

We have bars.

Most wives and mothers think of bars as dens of inequity where men go to throw away their paychecks on sports, whiskey and wild, wild women.

Were it only so.

Nope, when dad heads for the tavern it’s for the cold beer and the accepting warm hearts of the denizens.

And maybe the ball game. Now that TV has gone high-def, dads are often forced to travel to the nearest tavern.

With what dad invests in diapers, formula, clothing, trikes, books, bikes, iPods, braces, school fees, driving lessons, car insurance, college tuition and counseling, like he’s got the money to upgrade the TV and cable service to hi-def?

And with more and more sports leaving the public airwaves for cable and pay-for-view, many dads are forced to leave home and their rabbit ear antenna for the bar.

Many summer evenings, one can enter the dark confines of the tavern and see the dads lined up at the rail, adult beverages in front of them, their eyes lifted to the 52-inch flat panel screen as the Reds bullpen blows another one.

The conversation is muted, punctuated by thoughtful grunts as Junior bounces off the wall after snaring yet another rocket off the opposition’s bat.

The grunts and the muted “yeahs” say it all. Junior is our kind of millionaire ball player. He makes it look easy, but he’s not afraid to get dirty.

The season for the Reds may be yet another in a string of lost causes, but in the tavern comfort is taken from a single play.

Perhaps this has not been the best of summers for the dad down by the taps. The guy in the corner in the paint-stained T-shirt doesn’t look as if he’s riding a hot streak. The farmer — wearing the ball cap to cover his expanding bald spot — looks weary beyond his years.

And the suit next to him — his tie at half mast and his eyes unfocused — looks as if one more adult beverage would still not be enough.

But when Junior bounces off the centerfield wall with the ball in his glove, the grunts and yeahs are accompanied by small smiles.

Something good happened in the midst of a bad game.

Dads can understand that and even share it. The game’s best player nearing the end of his career, reminds the dads with a single play that joy never disappears.

Nope, we don’t need no stinkin’ Web site. We’ve got the bars and our cliches to help us through.

You win some, you lose some, some are rained out. But you suit up for every ball game.

That’s a good description of fatherhood.

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