Your Old Man and the Sea : Humble Pastimes and Family Hours Are the Hooks for Dads With a Dream

These days, the man-woman thing is all out of whack.

Women commonly ask men out, pay for dinner and propose marriage, and dads quit jobs to stay home with the kids while mommy brings home the mortgage payment.

Male secretaries aren’t quite the anomaly they once were, and men have taken their spot on the aerobics mat, once a female province.

Some things don’t seem to change, though, at least when it comes to recreation.

Ask a broad spectrum of Orange County dads how they’d most like to spend Father’s Day--even if money were no object--and what humble pastime do they most often mention? Something that, in the olden days, was the domain of Real Men who didn’t squirm at the thought of threading earthworms, chub or night crawlers through a treble hook.

“I’d probably charter a boat and go marlin fishing,” said single father Charlie Fisher, a special education teacher at Newport Heights Elementary School. He’d take along sons Dustin, 8, and Trevor, 10.

“I’d go fishing with my son,” said Vance Severance, a Newport Beach cruise boat captain and father of Al, 12.

“The only way I’d celebrate is to go south to Mexico and go fishing,” said Dal Grettenberg, an 80-year-old die-hard sea dog who still shows up for work at the Newport Harbor tour boat concern he launched in 1948.

Maybe the urge to “drag a couple of baits,” as Grettenberg puts it, is chromosomal. Certainly it would seem to be related to rearing.

“I remember fishing with my dad as a kid,” said Mike Montgomery, who’ll mark his first Father’s Day fishing off Catalina Island with 6-month-old daughter Taylor Marie, a few friends and his wife, Laurie, who loves the sport too.

“Once we caught like 60 barracuda off the coast of Ensenada with five other guys. He’d hook a big one and hand me the pole and I’d get to reel it in.”

And just what’s the fascination?

“It’s a challenge; it’s you against the fish,” said the Corona del Mar real estate broker, “and you never know what you’re going to catch, especially in the ocean; you can catch something real big, like a marlin.”

A day at the beach or near the water was another popular Father’s Day option, even if it didn’t include casting out.

Sharing the sun, the sights and the sea breeze with his family would suit Jim Miller, Chapman College professor of history, English and comparative literature, who hails from landlocked north central Texas.

“I’m not a swimmer, but being near the ocean has always been therapeutic for me,” said the 63-year-old father of grown sons Reade and Gregg. “Just gazing at the ocean I think brings one closer not only to nature, but to the ones we love. And it costs nothing. We have never had that much money to splurge.”

Christian Rassinoux, who oversees the operation of three restaurants at Dana Point’s Ritz-Carlton hotel, usually works on Father’s Day, a typically hectic holiday. But he’d break free from the feeding frenzy to take sons Olivier, 8, and Pascal, 10, snorkeling at Moss Point at South Laguna.

“Of course it’s not Hawaii or the Tropics, but you see fish and rocks. It’s nice,” said the French-born executive chef.

Local skateboard star Marty Jimenez, who has won several competitions, has already taught his 4-year-old son Matthew to skateboard and wants to start him surfing next. Jimenez, known as Jinx to skateboard zealots, said Matthew is still too young to surf, but he’d head to Huntington Beach with his wife, Cindy, and 1-year-old son, Ariel, for a little Intro to Wave, 101.

“I want him to really like the ocean and not to be afraid of it and to start enjoying it early,” Jimenez said.

Some dads, such as veteran Christian rocker Rick Elias, would go farther afield to realize their dream day.

Elias, father of Graham, 12, Amber, 9, and Taylor, 3, recently ended a monthlong national tour, is recording a new album, producing three other rock acts, and plans to leave on another tour next month.

“This sounds insufferably sappy, but I enjoy spending time with my kids so much, and I’ve been working so much lately, that just spending time with them and my wife” would do the trick, said the Fountain Valley resident. “Now if we could spend that time in Paris or Berlin, that would be wonderful. What a great thing to be able to have the thrill of discovery together.”

Richard G. Vogl, an Orange County Superior Court commissioner, spends his days deciding dependency cases in juvenile court, or as he says “taking drug-babies away from their mothers.” He would get away from it all on a cruise through the Panama Canal with his wife, Marcia, and children, Charles, 17, James, 15, and Stephanie, 12, he said.

“My fantasy world is travel. And because I work in an industry where families are breaking up all the time, my fantasy would be to have my family intact, having fun” on a liner gliding through the canal.

Then there are those dads who could find their Father’s Day Camelot just around the corner or, even closer, at home.

Scott Faulkner of El Toro is Mr. Mom. When his wife, Suzanne, gave birth to son Kevin just over a year ago, she returned to work managing the city of Chino’s computer operations and Faulkner quit his job as a UC Irvine copy shop manager to raise the child, rather than going the child-care route and leaving much of that responsibility to strangers.

“It was basically so we could warp him our way--I want to know why he’s weird,” Faulkner joked, adding seriously, “Suzanne makes a lot more money than I did.”

Faulkner gets great satisfaction from his new vocation, but naturally needs a break now and then. So for Father’s Day, “I’d probably play 18 holes of golf, and that would be kinda tiring, so then I’d go have a couple beers in the clubhouse, then go home and take a nap,” he said.

Jack Howell, who plays a variety of positions for the California Angels, has a game nearly every day during the season, so he said he wouldn’t want to do anything too taxing. He has two sons, Dallas, 3, and Joshua, 6.

“The best Father’s Day would be to be able to sleep in and have breakfast in bed and then get up and take my family to church, and then afterward go out for lunch and--so far pretty boring, huh?--and then just come home and sit around the pool or Jacuzzi with my family. Then I think at night, it’d be nice to have someone watch the kids and go out to dinner and a movie with my wife.”

Gary Blakesely, who has delivered mail in Costa Mesa for nearly two decades, said a simple back-yard barbecue would suffice--as long as the whole family could take part.

As of press time, Blakesely’s stepson, Steven Frawley, in the Navy, had not yet returned from six months’ duty in the Persian Gulf. He’d also want to round up son Grant, stepson Michael and Michael’s, his stepdaughter, Kellie, Steven’s father and stepmother--all scattered around Orange County--and Steven’s wife and granddaughter, who have been living with her parents in Arizona, as well as his wife, Sandra, of course.

“I’d just like to have everyone together for a family reunion,” Blakesely said. “Once they get away from you, it’s hard to get them all back together.”