Branded as discipliners, gatekeepers and unreasonable czars, fathers naturally carry bittersweet connotations, as unjustifiable as they sometimes seem.
   Consequently, teenage sons and daughters-suffocated by adolescence-often neglect the pros of having such an icon, rarely thoughtful of thanking their fathers for their hard-to-care-about-at-this-point, yet selfless efforts.
   I am guilty of the latter.
   I admit I seldom allot time or take advantage of opportunities to thank my father. To thank him for his driving skills. Rushing me to the hospital while holding up my blood-dripping head-hopefully queasy from the scene-deserves heroic admiration.
   To thank him for keeping awake at my painstaking award awards ceremonies, Karate competitions, birthday parties, Boy Scout meetings-even though I didn't.
   To thank him largely for keeping me grounded when my ideas became ostentatious, my aspirations hazardous.
   There is no thanking, however. There is only the cliché lack of communication between two people with conflicting view-points, typical animosities, and an undefined esteem and familiar love, who would-in a different setting-be able to maintain a bloodless conversation.
   As a poster-boy for that generic mold of immaturity which disallows any thanking and any serious communication between my father and I (beyond "Can you gimme a ride to the movie theatre?"), it is hard to reveal the following secret, but I must: not merely because of the teenager's textbook rebellious nature, but because I am willing to acknowledge my flaws-well, some of them.
   So, here's the secret: I know my dad knows more than I do. I know I should listen to him, and I know I should consider his advice. There.
   The only rules I choose not to break, however, just happen to deal with the limitations of father-son relationships. Thus, I must reserve my appreciation for now, and only mentally thank he or she who paired my dad and I this time around. I have heard the fatherless screw-up tales and the abusive-father horror stories, and it makes my Czar Nicholas father bearable enough.