June 13 - Bill's Ad for The American Fatherhood Council

Bill sat in front of his monitor and hated it for being so, so . . . blank. He'd had writer's block before, but this was ridiculous. The assignment from The American Fatherhood Council should have been a lay-up, but it was kicking his ass.
They were pretty vague when they gave him the instructions for it--produce a 30-second ad that encapsulated fatherhood--but at the time, he didn't think it would be a problem. A 30-second ad about fatherhood? Damn thing will write itself. And yet here it was the night before the deadline and he had nothing to show for it.
Well, not nothing. He had countless false starts that together comprised a sort of Greatest Hits of Fatherhood Cliches: father and son playing catch in the backyard; father and son fishing from a rowboat; father videotaping his children performing in the school play; father running alongside his child as (s)he wobbly rides a bicycle without training wheels for the first time; father shaving in the bathroom as his son looks up in admiration; father teaching his son/daughter to drive; father and son washing the car; grandfather, father, and son at the lake house; father and son working on something in the garage or basement; father teaching his son how to swing a bat (it was next to impossible to avoid baseball); father and son hugging at the son's high school/college/rehab graduation.
OK, so no images of graduating from rehab made it up onto his screen, but maybe that would take it in some sort of direction. Anything was better than nothing.
The problem was that everything he was coming up with was so damned sentimental, which shouldn't have been a big deal. After all, he had sentimental feelings about his own father, but sentiment and schmaltz weren't what he wanted the ad to focus on. It was like a ridiculously over-earnest greeting card that seemed suited only for making your father really uncomfortable.
Besides, sentiment wasn't what he thought about when he thought about his father. He thought about the first (and last, really--or at least the only one that lasted) male role model in his life. The guy that got him into watching football, but was fine when he himself didn't want to play it. The guy that got him into photography and encouraged him to keep it up, but didn't force him to do it until he hated it. The guy that always came to all his soccer games and middle school band concerts and, hell, everything else he was ever involved in because he was so unflaggingly supportive in everything he did, and OK, so maybe he did think of sentiment when he thought of his father.
But it wasn't just that. He also thought of the guy that, when he was a kid, he wanted to be like when he grew up. And that even as he became an adult he strove to be like him, too, and dammit! More sentiment. He couldn't escape it.
Back to the ad. More images: Father and son watching Airplane! together and laughing their ass off; father and son flying a kite together; father and children running in a field. Father and children running in a field? When do people do that?
OK, enough images. You know what a father is. You know what a father does. Just call the man. Hang out with him. Shoot the shit. Spend some time with the guy and have a beer with him. I promise you you'll enjoy it. Jesus, people. It's not brain surgery.
After working on it all night, that was the script he finally submitted to The American Fatherhood Council the following morning.
When they predictably balked, he came up with a second offering that was more of a father/son baseball/barbecue, families running in fields montage, and everyone was happy with that script and the resulting ad, including Bill's father who secretly thought it was a little bit too sentimental but kept that opinion to himself and told his son he loved it and that he was proud of him.