My Father...

...was a flaming asshole. That opinion was shared across the board by our neighbors, extended family, casual acquaintances and folks in general.

He drank like a fish whenever he could, constantly belittled anyone who might disagree with him. It was his way or the highway. As a gauge of his personality in general, he stopped watching "All In The Family" because he felt Archie Bunker was too much of a wishy-washy, spineless dolt who wouldn't stand up to his daughter and son-in-law. Nope, Dad was not a snuggly-wuggly, cuddly type of guy.

He also taught me the very few things I know about being mentally and physically tough, showed me that even tough guys can cry at the proper time and stressed the importance of family ties.

For the sake of my brother and I he stayed married to our mother, even during the years she was out catting around and weeks would go by when we had no idea if she was alive or dead. For our sake he made peace with her later and never allowed us to speak ill of the woman. If you've seen "Divine Secrets of The Ya-Ya Sisterhood" you've an idea from the Ashley Judd character what she was like. Hollywood sure glamorized the hell of that one, actually living that life was another thing entirely.

He gave me the most important piece of advice of my life, "Experience is a great teacher but only a damned fool relies strictly on his own."

I recall an incident when I was 17, he got pissed off at the two clerks in an appliance store while I was with him. I forget what it was about but the upshot of it was him shouting at the top of his lungs, informing them they were a couple of idiotic shitheads. These guys were fairly big and young so as this was going on I began laughing, thinking we were sure to get our asses kicked when they took on the crazy one-legged man and his son. Funny, they just stood there taking his abuse. He wore a wooden leg so they couldn't know he was crippled and if it'd been me in their shoes I'd have come over the counter in a heartbeat. They just stood there, open mouthed and jaws dropping to the floor.

He lived hard by his own choosing, alienating all and sundry at the drop of a hat and dying at the relatively young age of 57. It's always puzzled me that his funeral was so well attended. The church was packed. The family and friends who came actually missed him, they weren't there to make sure he was finally in the box.

When I named my five year old son after him my mother was shocked. "What the heck did you do that for?" was her question. The followon comment was to the effect that my brother and I always "took his side". Because of the respect the man ingrained in me for her, I never said that was easy when he was the one we could always count on to be around if necessary during our childhood, that he might knock me on my ass for being intentionally stupid but he'd always give me a second chance. No one was beyond redemption in his book, everyone had sins to answer for and nobody was a genius all the time.

Dad, Happy Fathers Day. It's been thirty-two years since you died, I still miss you.