Wyoming News

Father's Day

Who Said Fathers Have to be Perfect?

By Betsey Weltner, Guest Writer, 6-18-09

Charles Longstreet Weltner, a U.S. Congressman, with President John F. Kennedy at the White House.

Christopher Buckley didn’t start it. But his latest book, Losing Mum and Pup, codifies our generation’s complaint that we had less-than-perfect parents. Baby Boomers excelled at compiling lists of grievances. Our parents’ shortcomings have always been at the top of the charts. Blame it on Dr. Spock, but why is our generation—we who led the charge for civil rights, gay rights, women’s rights, and respect for the Third World—so singularly close-minded and judgmental when it comes to our own parents?

This Father’s Day, I will not be the only Boomer who will feel the searing loss of my dad. It has been 17 years since he died from cancer of the esophagus. In 1992, this was the cancer that had no survivors: you get it, you die. After enduring the horrors of surgery and chemotherapy, my father wrote his own prayer:

“I have walked through the shadow of death.
And I have feared no evil.
I have not feared because I have faith.
That faith is the gift of God.”

Like Christopher Buckley, son of conservative icon William F. Buckley, I grew up in awe of my father. Charles Longstreet Weltner, a Democratic Congressman and Georgia Supreme Court justice, was a world away from Buckley in terms of culture and politics and fame. Tom Brokaw described my father in Boom, his book about the Sixties, as “the local Congressman, Charles Longstreet Weltner, a scion of a prominent white family, (who) was the only Southerner to vote for the Civil Rights Act in 1964.”

Yes, he was named after Civil War General James Longstreet, blamed by some historians for losing the Battle of Gettysburg. Yes, he voted his conscience in 1964, and again when he resigned from Congress in 1966 during his second term rather than comply with a Georgia Democrat Party requirement to take a “loyalty oath” to support all other Democrat nominees on the ticket. This was the year notorious segregationist Lester Maddox was the party’s nominee for governor. Maddox was famous for two things: riding a bicycle backwards and wielding an ax handle to chase African-Americans from his “whites-only” restaurant.

Stating simply, “I cannot compromise with hate,” my father resigned and refused to run for re-election rather than support such a buffoon—who probably offended his sense of good taste as much as his conscience.

This created a minor media firestorm. Even as long ago as 1966, politicians did not put their principles before their politics. But Charles Longstreet Weltner did. Years later, he was honored by the Kennedy family with one of the first “John F. Kennedy Profiles in Courage” awards. At that time he was a member of the Georgia Supreme Court and he told the network news interviewers that he had not really thought much about his decision; he just did what seemed to be the right thing to do.

Christopher Buckley said that “lovely people sometimes do unlovely things.” Well, yeah. My father was sanctified by liberals and the media after his decision to do what he felt was right in 1966. His bold opinions as a justice on the Georgia Supreme Court earned the admiration of the judicial and legal intelligentsia. And his pursuit of a doctoral in ancient languages during his time on the bench made him a cerebral celeb among the esoteric.

But as his best friend Wyche Fowler, a former U.S. Senator and ambassador to Saudi Arabia, said to me after my father died: “He was a great man but a lousy father.”

It’s true. He never “parented” and never used “parent” as a verb. He worked all the time. We did not have soccer games in the South in the 1960s, but if we had he would never have attended. He did not come to “Parents Weekend” the summer I won a blue ribbon in the horse show at Camp Chattooga. The night I called him to say I had just shot at a ski-mask-wearing intruder who was trying to break into my house, he observed with detachment, “Well, you’re okay now aren’t you?” In other words, “cowboy up”—a lesson that was not totally lost on me.

The brilliance and objectivity that made Charles Longstreet Weltner an inspirational leader, a great jurist and an abstract thinker made him a less-than-exemplary parent. Like many people who are held in high respect, his flaws, when they became apparent, were also disappointments. After the divorce, it was my mother who kept the friends and admirers.

But he did this: He taught me that if you think something is wrong, you don’t do it. And you don’t worry about what people think or what happens to you if you stand up for your convictions. He never gave a thought to “bonding,” but he showed me that the world of the mind is a world full of wonders, and there is so much to learn. In the face of death, which is inevitable for us all, he showed me faith and acceptance.

On this Father’s Day, we should honor our fathers and what they taught us about life: that people are imperfect, and within that imperfection is grace. It’s the right thing to do.

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