Sunday is Father's Day -- a great day for greeting-card companies and the makers of barbecue tongs, yet a slightly odd occasion when you think on it. Nearly 65 million Americans are fathers. That is a huge demographic segment, but not one sharing the distinguishing denominator present on other observances such as Veterans Day or Rosh Hashanah or even Boss' Day. Father's Day might be the only celebration honoring a class of persons that includes some accidental members who are unaware of their membership.

Fathers run the gamut from the exceptionally good to the exceptionally bad. Sometimes the same man spans the whole spectrum -- sometimes on the same day. The existential fear of suddenly slipping from one pole to the other might be part of the reason fathers sometimes look so tired. That, and the lurking sense that no matter how hard you try you always could have tried harder. (Mothers feel the same way, maybe even more so.)

If the young provide any indication, then most men manage to muddle through it pretty well -- despite the impression one gets from popular culture these days. Entertainment still provides the occasional good-father role, but by and large Andy Griffith and Bill Cosby have been replaced by Homer Simpson, the nutball dad on "King of Queens," and a host of other beef-witted oafs who can barely tie their own shoes without knocking over the china cabinet. It's funny, for a while.

It's funny because some fathers are oafs -- only one step removed from their bachelor days of living like bears with furniture. Just as some fathers fit every other generalization. Sixty-five million people makes for a very broad behavioral range.

THERE ARE still a lot of strong, silent fathers from the Old School who smell like Vitalis and Lectric Shave and tobacco and leather and motor oil. And there are a lot of New Age fathers who smell like moisturizer and mousse and who talk about needing to have their feelings validated. There are fathers with racist jailhouse tats and seven more years to serve before they can hug their kids again. And fathers in Iraq who might never get to.

There are fathers who stand on the corner all day drinking tallboys and smoking blunts and planning their next hustle. And there are plenty more fathers who live on the same streets who go to church every Sunday, work double shifts, and do without to save for their kids' college funds. There are fathers who will watch their cum laude scholars give graduation speeches this weekend, and fathers who will spend the day at their children's gravesides.

There are fathers who come home to gated communities and hide out in the study and can't be bothered to take their daughters to soccer practice. And fathers in trailer parks who spend every spare second with their light of their lives. There are fathers with piercings in places that look downright painful, who instinctively know more about parenting than whole armies of experts. And fathers in khakis and polo shirts who think you teach a toddler to stop crying with the business end of a belt.

Biologically, it takes almost nothing to be a father. Being a good one takes everything you've got.

ALTHOUGH social science once flirted with the idea that fathers are superfluous, it eventually had another look and discovered how crucial fathers are. Children raised without them are vastly more susceptible to early death, drug addiction, criminality, and other ills. This isn't meant to lay a guilt trip on single moms, many of whom are single through no fault of their own. But odds are odds.

For all their diversity, fathers still face some common expectations. Generally speaking, fathers are fixers. They remain the go-to parents when a spider needs squishing or a bicycle needs a new tire. They are the guys to see about throwing jabs and sharpening knives and roughing in plumbing. They are half the team that gives most of the answers to life's most burning questions, and half the time the answers they give aren't half bad.

Not that fathers don't have questions of their own: Should they work overtime to provide more financial security -- or would that rob the family of something even more valuable, their presence? How do you reach through the walls put up by a brilliant teenager who is ruining his future by smoking dope with his pothead friends? How do you teach the difference between ambitious striving and avaricious scorekeeping? Your daughter's pregnant -- now what?

You lie awake at night and wonder. Wonder what to do, wonder how it will all turn out. When morning comes you get up and remind yourself that the youngster you're about to rouse from slumber is just on loan to you for a while, and all you can do is your best. Then you open the door and find him or her already up, having a deep and profound conversation about something or other with Tickle Me Elmo.

And you wonder how you could be so lucky.

My thoughts do not aim for your assent -- just place them alongside your own reflections for a while.

--Robert Nozick.
Contact A. Barton Hinkle at (804) 649-6627 or bhinkle@timesdispatch.com.