Father’s Day, 2008. Not a bad time for reflection.

My father, now in his 80s, was extraordinarily ordinary as I grew up. Neither the perfect dad who assured his son a life of one wonderful adventure after another, nor so dysfunctional as to inspire and be at the center of a bestselling memoir.

He was, and still is, simply, a good father. And for that I am grateful.

We did the usual things a family did in the 60s and 70s. Twice a year we went to Disneyland, sandwiched around an annual vacation to Santa Barbara. My brother and I would look forward to a week in the quiet bungalow on the edge of the Miramar Hotel property, considering ourselves very lucky to stay in our own little part rather than in the rooms that surrounded the pool or faced the beach. Little did we know, nor did our parents ever let on, that this bungalow room was half the price of the other accommodations, and if not for the bungalow we would never be able to stay at the resort.

While I remember the pool and the beach and the railroad tracks (upon which each morning I placed a penny, hoping to return the next day to find it flattened, my hope undeterred by each unsuccessful search), what I recall with the most detail are the quiet walks my father and I shared to start each day in Santa Barbara. Warming a carafe of water with a heating coil, he would make himself instant coffee while I enjoyed hot chocolate. With plastic cups in hand, we slipped out of the room while my mom and brother slept, often accompanied by our dog Misty. We walked past the pool, the tennis courts, the railroad tracks (pausing briefly to look for a flattened penny I would never find, taking another penny from my dad and placing it on the tracks), and to the beach. I slipped off my shoes and enjoyed the cool sand, throwing a tennis ball into the surf for Misty. We would turn around at the same house – not one door to the left or right, but the same beach home each time, a familiarity I found oddly comforting. By the time we returned to the room, my mom would have taken a shower, leaving it free for me to wash away traces of sand.

I don’t remember exactly what he talked about, time eroding so many details of growing up. But I still feel today the specialness of it, just as the other moments that now make up my childhood. So many feature my dad.

I remember donning my Bob Aspromonte baseball glove and playing catch in our cul-de-sac. I remember going out for long passes, my dad calling the signals. At “Hike!” I sprinted down the street, looking over my shoulder for the leather football with its stray thread that whipped through the air as the ball spiraled toward me. More often than not it would hit me in stride, another touchdown recorded on Osage Place. A return to the huddle. Same play, on “Hike.”

Sometimes he would drive us to the to junior high where we would play one-on-one, the only rule being that while on defense, he had to remain inside the key, a handicap that more than made up for the difference in our heights (and many victories for Team Son).

Of we would settle in front of the TV and enjoy head-to-head battles on that amazing new system, the video game. We guided our monochromatic pixels around the screen with a fervor rarely before seen in the living room. Before that our competitive natures were defined by paper football, which we would flick along the linoleum floor, making sure to clear furniture before the epic battle was to begin.

But our most raucous behavior was saved for Nerf-based games. Surely the makers of the modest foam balls never envisioned their products as the basis of household pride, where lengthy games of basketball (hoop nailed to the garage wall), baseball (a paint stirrer was the bat) or tennis (with ping pong paddles and a net made of newspapers folded over a taut string tied to a nail on one side and car door handle on the other) routinely occurred on weekends.

These are the moments I remember most clearly. This is the father I remember, one who was there, one who was happy to spend time with his son in between work and chores and the other things in life that clutter the time.

Like most sons, I really only appreciated my father when I had a boy of my own. That’s when it crystallized, when I realized everything I had quietly and slowly learned from him over the years. And how much of my parenthood I owed to him – particularly as I think about the (rare) stories he told of his own childhood.

His father was cold and distant, rarely involving himself in his son’s life unless it was to punish (and he had passed long before I was born). This is the one story that stands out – my father borrowed his dad’s car, and was told to keep it under 35 mph. When my dad returned, his father carefully inspected the vehicle, soon angry that the car had gone over 35 mph.

“Those bug splats,” the man said, “could only have been made by a car going faster than 35 mph.”

These are the lessons of fatherhood learned by my dad. So when my older brother was born, all my dad knew about raising a son was strict discipline not to be marred by coddling, where respect was more treasured than love.

But these are not the lessons my father passed on to us. He had the strength to turn it around, powered by an innate desire to make up for his own childhood, to pass onto his sons the lessons that only strong love could provide.

And my father certainly isn’t alone. Millions of fathers each day to the same thing for their children. A friend of mine often shares the treasured memories of her own father, who sadly passed away several years ago. Though gone he clearly lives through her, kept alive by the stories he’s inspired, tales that will no doubt live through her own children.

That’s because the love of fathers – the good fathers, the ones many of us are lucky to have – echo through the generations. I am lucky that my dad is still alive, and I see him yearly when my son and I travel to see his grandparents. But since he has yet to figure out immortality, I know this will one day be a world without him.

And yet it won’t be, because his love is still with me. And it’s also with my son, who will pass it on to his own children.