Today is May 13th and growing up that meant German chocolate cake for desert (because I hated coconut I'd eat around the edges). C. Stephen Currie was born on this day and the cake was for him. Steve, as he was called by everyone except his mother, was my dad. He died in the fall of 1998 after a life long battle with depression and alcohol and drug addiction. For him the battle started early. His mother and father were both abusive and from we understand my grandmother used to give her children Valium when they came home from school to keep them under control. My dad was the youngest of three kids but he had outlived his brother and sister when he died at the age of 52. None of them stood a chance.
My father excelled professionally in his 20s and 30s. As a teen, he worked on air for a radio station in South Carolina. He later worked as a reporter and anchor before going behind the scenes and working as a television producer. By the time he was 32 he had be elected president of the National Association of Television Program Executives (NATPE) and was working as the program operations manager at KOIN-TV here in Portland. He ended up working at KOIN for 14 years.
He was not a perfect father. But he tried. He fought his addictions with stay after stay in treatment facilities. Recovery just couldn't emerge out of the chaos that has been his life. How might things had been different for him and our entire family if we knew then what we know now about abuse and addiction? I wonder about that every time I advocate for children's programs or mental health treatment.
Do I miss him? You bet. I'd like to be angry with him for all the times he failed us - and for finally leaving us the way he did - but most of the time that anger escapes me. I keep a picture of him as a child in our hallway to remember what potential he had and in my study here at home is a framed photo of him from Variety, a tribute to his time at NATPE.
I miss you, daddy. Happy birthday.
Related Link: Mick Schafbuch 's Eulogy to Steve Currie (Mick was the general manager at KOIN when my father was there).
