Happy Father’s Day! The Rough & Tumble have been blessed to have wonderful fathers. In honor of them we’re releasing what has been called “a sad song about science,” in which The Rough & Tumble sing about the great and weighty sadness that is passed along in one’s genetics. We didn’t inherit all of our sadness from you, we’ve made some of our own. But what you did pass along to us is the ability to create something kind and lovely out of our sadness, and in honor of that, today we feature Rough’s father writing something kind and lovely to help us introduce our Father’s Day song, Genetic Sadness.
“An acquaintance of mine caught me the other day and was anxious to tell me that he had met my brother. He had been in an aisle of the pharmacy, heard my brother talking and knew that he must be a relative of mine. “He sounds exactly like you,” he said.
My two brothers and I do have the same voice. We share the same inflections, the same timbre, and the same halting way we put our sentences together. This, I guess, would be a great advantage if we were all in a gospel quartet, but a disadvantage when answering the phone.
Besides sharing a similar sounding voice, we share the way we walk, the way we stand, and the way we hold our heads when we are nervous. Many of our cousins and uncles share the same characteristics.
But beyond the physical characteristics, my relatives and I are susceptible to obsessive-compulsive behaviors, arrogance, depression and many other things one wouldn’t want to brag about. These were passed down through my father from his father, and go way back, I understand.
In an attempt to be a good dad I have, and will continue to, remind my boys about some of the dangers of being part of the clan. I want them to be careful with the areas that have tripped up those of my family who have gone before me, and to deal with the little things that can grow to be the big things in their lives. Hopefully the good traits outweigh the bad.”
–Rollin Heinrichs