It’s a scene I’ll never forget.
I must have been six or seven years old. It was dusk, very cold, and the snow was falling as I stood in front of A & A Tires on Sunrise Highway in Baldwin, a small town on the South Shore of Long Island.
I was standing there with my sister, who was two years older, and we were waiting for my father’s train. For 44 years, my dad commuted into New York City, a 50-minute ride each way plus a 20-minute walk or 5-minute subway hop to his Manhattan office.
My father’s story was typical for a man of his era. Born during the Great Depression, he grew up in Brooklyn, in a cold water flat over a fish store. It was next to the elevated train that rumbled by his bedroom window at all hours. He said after a while, you don’t hear it, a good reminder of just how adaptable God made us to everything – but also a warning about how easy it is to grow accustomed to anything.
Jim Batura began working at age six, first delivering medicine for a neighborhood drug store, or notifying people they had a phone call down at the shop. Telephone calls were rare and expensive in those days, which meant most of them contained either really good or really bad news. I think that task helped nurture my father’s empathy and develop his emotional intelligence.
After high school, he was drafted by the Army for the Korean War but assigned to work as a medic at Camp Carson, and then serve as a clerk up in Camp Hale, both Colorado posts. He returned home, got a job, got married, raised five children.
When I was a young boy, Dad’s arrival home each evening was a highlight of my day. He left in the morning before we got up for school. Seeing him walk down those station steps at 5:45 P.M. each night at the Long Island Railroad with his briefcase and wearing his fedora, was the first time I saw him each day.
My father exuded positive masculinity, but he wasn’t the muscle or tough man many people associate with that profile. He was a faithful husband, always gave our mother a big kiss when he arrived home. It wasn’t unusual for him bring her flowers from time to time, just a handful of carnations. My dad worked at the same company all 44 years, cashed out stock options so we could take a yearly summer vacation, helped coach our teams, was a Boy Scout leader, led the singing at church, knew the guys by their first names at the local True Value Hardware store.
Jim Batura was a godly man, and he was my hero.
Masculinity has been under fire recently, but it’s a bum rap and a foolish, illogical controversy.
That’s because boys need strong men to admire, role models to emulate, heroes to hold up.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg created a stir recently when he said companies need more “masculine energy” – a renewed aggression to innovate, explore, and reach for things beyond easy grasp.
“I think a lot of the corporate world is pretty culturally neutered,” Zuckerberg told Joe Rogan. “It’s one thing to say we want to be kind of, like, welcoming and make a good environment for everyone, and I think it’s another to basically say that ‘masculinity is bad.’”
He added, saying, “I think having a culture that celebrates the aggression a bit more has its own merits that are really positive,” he continued.
Biblical manhood is more than that, of course. It’s loving the Lord, loving one’s family by caring and providing, and leading them back to Him. It’s being humble, empathetic, honest, self-disciplined, bold, courageous, fearless and confident.
If we wonder why culture is wobbling, all we need to do is consider the dearth of good men our boys have to admire.
That snowy night wasn’t the only one when my sister and I waited for my father, but I probably remember it so vividly because of the storm. When my dad passed away back in 2017, I had the privilege of eulogizing him. I recalled our tradition of waiting for him at the train station, and how he now waits for us on the other side.
Of all the tasks before us in culture, raising up boys to be men should sit high on our list of critical priorities.
Image from Getty.
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