Things I Took from my Father.

As a kid, I had no idea what my dad did for a living. Bupkiss. He never explained it to me, or others, for that matter. He was modest, my dad.

He just did what he did and went about it with a refreshing absence of hubris.

I knew he worked inside the TV set.

And on tall poles sprouting out of the ground all over town, but not the telephone kind.

He created puzzles. He made waves. He was in the racket of grabbing attention spans and holding 'em long enough to land a point, conjure a feeling, or leverage an insight.

I remember TV commercials would occasionally come on, and my dad would say, "that's one of ours."

A tattered man floating on a raft in the middle of nowhere with a clucking chicken at his side. Ames Home Loan.

Huh.

One day, we passed a billboard while driving, "that's one of ours."

A harness-racing jockey suspended in position with no horse beneath him. Just a lone jockey floating in a horizontal white space. No big, loud headline.

Tasty type along the bottom of the board read: Western Harness Racing at Hollywood Park.

Huh.

I began asking. Where's the horse? Why the raft? What's Harness Racing? What's the deal with the chicken?

I soon understood that the work he did had a unique quality to it. Like a good puzzle, it left a gap for people to fill. It engaged you.

He didn't talk much about that, either, other than proudly pointing out his agency's work whenever we happened upon it.

He had a small agency.

A very, very good one, I would later come to realize while attending Advertising Center in Los Angeles.

Damn modesty.

Dad's agency partner was his polar opposite. Brash. Demanding. A gambler. He cycled through wives like most ad folks mow through marketing jargon. Jay was far from modest but truly gifted at attracting PR, controversy, and multiple mates as history would reveal.

Chiat/Day's office was on Olympic Boulevard.

Downtown, surrounded by bums, winos, and working girls in mini-skirts who actively avoided eye contact from kids like me and routinely ducked into alleys that reeked of piss.

It was a slice of heaven, as far as I was concerned.

Just twenty-five minutes away were the foothills of Glendale, my indigenous stomping grounds, where the Day family lived in a house with weird windows, and white rocks on its roof. And xeriscaping, lots of xeriscaping, whatever that was.

A Cliff May mid-mod. A "California Rancher," as they've come to be known. I learned of its architectural merit later in life.

Our home was modest but not nearly as modest as my old man. It proved worthy of an article in Sunset Magazine, once it had been faithfully returned to its original glory.

My dad played that fact mighty small, too.

It was probably the architectural firm's idea to get the article published. My dad was always happy to see talented folks get the credit they deserved.

Yet he rarely took any of the credit for himself.

There's that modesty thing again.

Sorry about the markers, Mario Donna.

I used to go to the office with my dad on weekends and spend countless hours drawing with every color of marker imaginable. The agency was filled with cool, quirky, engaging fodder for a kid's imagination. Props. Art equipment. Enlargers. Tracing paper. Giant printers.

It wasn't anything my dad ever talked about. I just took it all in.

I'd sit at a drafting table, with perfectly sharpened soft-lead pencils at my disposal and makers that could've been used to bring clocked boxers back to life in one whiff. The aroma was right up there with Testor's glue, Paco Rabbane and vintage spray mount, the highly carcinogenic kind you can't get anymore.

Industrial-strength. Only the finest for Chiat/Day's art department.

I have only one regret in retrospect. I wish I'd been more diligent about capping Mario Donna's markers before my dad appeared out of thin air to announce our immediate departure.

I'd also hear more about that later in life at an L.A. Creative Club meeting when I was a lowly junior.

An impeccably dressed older Italian gentleman, one hell of an art director by all accounts, crossed the room and read the sticker on my crappy Men's Warehouse lapel. "Cameron Day.... well, I'll be damned... you're the little fucker who used to ruin all my markers."

At least he was good-natured about it. Evidently, I had a hand in keeping the local art supply store in business.

I'd eventually come to understand exactly what my dad did for a living.

My dad taught me everything he knew about advertising, one nugget at a time when I followed him into the business.

I became a copywriter, a creative director, and finally a department leader, and yes, even a mentor just like my pop.

I'll never forget the stuff my dad taught me.

Beyond his infamous modesty, was a quality human being and a student of the craft. A strategic problem-solver and a thought-provoker.

A writer's writer.

A thinker, and a man with a wide girth for creatives so long as they were willing to apply their talents with discipline.

He was a spigot for advertising wisdom when I needed it. He knew how to turn things around and fix shit fast. When to dig in. When to let go.

When to lay down a bunt and when to break out the heavy lumber and ventilate a windshield in the stadium lot. And he served it all up with a dose of genuine compassion.

My dad knew how to make horrible situations tolerable and how to disarm a bomb using psychology and intellect.

Yeah, I had a secret weapon until a dozen or so years ago when he left this planet. Modestly. No funeral or wake. His agnostic choice.

Ray Donovan, he wasn't. But make no mistake, I had a Guy.

I learned a metric shit-ton from my dad about what really matters, and just as much about what doesn't.

Marriages matter. Balance matters. Decency matters. Course-correcting on a fucking dime matters. Having hobbies and living in a larger world than advertising matters.

As you can see from the shot of my garage above, I listened.

Shiny shit didn't mean all that much to my dad. It doesn't mean much to me. Process matters. Applying yourself matters. Taking matters into your own intellect and trusting your gut matters.

Don't get me wrong. I've never turned down an award in my life. But I can think of a thousand things I'd personally rather invest my energy into than awards.

I'll let you in on a little secret.

I stopped obsessing about awards a long time ago.

Ironically, that's when I started winning a lot more of them. And to be clear, it wasn't my money that entered the work.

Making things that are truly interesting and solving real business problems for actual clients is my reason for being. Understanding the ethos of brands. Doing work that works for people who genuinely appreciate it.

Honoring my dad's legacy. That's my shiny object.

I'd sooner spend money on car parts than stroking my own ego. I know I'm good at what I do and don't need an award to prove it.

Going home at a decent hour. Having a life beyond the trenches and not falling under the spells of false prophets. Making sure I have the tools and the free-association time to get the job done well, whether it gets entered into anything or not.

I've never been to the South of France.

I know many successful people who've been plenty of times and have pulled down tons more awards than I have. But many of them didn't get the life part right.

The giving credit to others part.

The decency part.

The parts my dad drilled into my noggin on numerous occasions.

My dad, who passed away a dozen years ago gave me a genuine appreciation for his way of looking at this crazy fucking business. He taught me to solve problems without creating more of them for myself in the process.

I wish more people subscribed to my dad's ethos.

Modesty is a damn good policy.

Sadly, Chiat/Day became much better known for torturous hours than true compassion. My father's ethos got buried in the pursuit of PR and the glory of big accounts if not better ones.

My dad left when Jay and his board of directors ditched Porsche for Nissan. It was the last straw for my dad who personally oversaw the Porsche review for his client.

He didn't talk much about that episode, either.

He was over it.

The world doesn't know Chiat about Guy Day.

I wouldn't be the ad guy I am if it weren't for dad.

The modest one. The mannered one. The one who believed in letting the work do the talking and going home to his wife and family.

A lot of other people he mentored wouldn't be who they are, or where they are if it weren't for my dad's ethos.

I would come to realize late in life that he did much good for far more people than myself.

It came to me in a torrential flood directly following his death. Notes from all manners of people. Creative heroes. Agency presidents. Administrative assistants. Planners. Clients.

People I didn't know my dad knew came out of the woodwork to tell me how much my dad's wisdom and guidance meant to them.

All modesty aside, I knew I had to do something.

I sat down and began writing stories of the times my dad bailed my ass out of jams. Of the times others I went to for advice came to my rescue.

My dad taught me to recognize and seek out mentors in every department, far beyond the creative department.

To treat everyone with respect and ask lots of questions. To always go to where the product is. To listen as much as I spoke (easier said than done, particularly for me).

To actively avoid the tired us-versus-them tropes and the infantile bitch-bonding.

To not blame the brief but instead focus on helping refine it.

My dad and the handful of people I've come to admire made a huge difference guiding my career through bumpy air and turbulence.

I wrote it all down for posterity and it became catharsis.

Before I knew it, I had written an entire book. And that book turned into three when I realized how much damn ground I'd covered.

The Advertising Survival Guide trilogy will be completed this year with the release of "Sticks & Stones," Book Three of the Advertising Survival Guide.

I'm proud that Book One is now treated as a textbook in a handful of ad schools. I'm glad I'm no longer walking around with it all in my head.

But mostly I'm just proud to carry the name and dad's ethos.

I'd be honored to introduce you to my dad.

It's all in the books.

Cameron Day is an Austin-based writer and idea generator. His first two books, "Chew With Your Mind Open" and "Spittin' Chiclets," are available through his website, www.iamcameronday.com, or via Amazon.

His third book, "Sticks & Stones" is written and will likely launch this calendar year.