Good Things My Father Did For Me...
Father's Day coming up...a lot of fathers take it on the kisser these days, I guess that keeps most therapists busy in the 21st century. I know it did mine. But, I thought it would be a good time to unload a load of good stuff my father did for me. On reflection, the old guy did some good stuff.
In 1950, I was just 10. Dad had a habit of getting off shift work heading for a bar on Woodland Avenue called the Elk's Head. It was a corner bar with swinging "wild west" doors, saw dust floors, a piano, hanging chandelier lights and a lot of cigarette smoke. I was five feet, ten inches tall. Mom would send me down there to get him and scream under the swinging doors, " Dad!!! Mom says it's dinner time!!" I couldn't go in cause I was a kid. My father taught me never to go into a bar at my young age, cause if I did, they would throw HIM out forever. Cops were in the bar drinking, too. To let YOUR kid in was a permanent. Couldn't let THAT happen. He would growl at me," tell her I'll be right home." ....growl.
He hated guns, and that made me love them. He wouldn't touch them. I couldn't get enough of them. Loved John Wayne and kept after him until I met him, not once, but three times. One of my all-time heros. Duke's picture hangs in this room, autograph n' all.
Dad loved golf, made me caddy for him, loved soft ball, went out when I was a kid and dragged me along to his softball games with the guys at his work. I grew to hate golf and softball, stayed away from both. I took up football and played in high school. Football is a man's game. It's war, kill or be killed out on that field, not knocking around a helpless pebble on a lawn.
My father was forever yelling and arguing at the dinner table, I remember him saying he "loved" to argue. I developed a beaut of a hiatal hernia at 15, and lived with it until I was 70. Mom ate her dinner in the living room about half the time. I learned to be quiet and genteel in converations. Most women loved my style, Mom raised me as she thought a less abrasive manner would be appreciated by the gentler sex. She was right. I learned from Dad that a quieter, more diplomatic approach to people could get me farther in life than banging them over the head with dinner plates. Seemed to work out well.
Much later on, when I became estranged from my daughters as my ex-wife, la-baracha poisoned that well, he advised me, " I'd think twice before I'd let those girls back into my life," he was right. Keep your friends close, and enemies real tight by you. Cynicism wins out again, Pops.
At the end of his life, my Mom, finally exasperated with it all, took a swing at him, in front of me while we had dinner one night at their place in Tucson. I couldn't believe it. He didn't move. He just let her belt him. I had to get in between them. I was thunderstruck. At almost 90, I had never seen them behave that way, but, in a surge of self control, he just sat there and let her pummel him. I guess he thought he had it coming.
He taught me another lesson.
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In 1950, I was just 10. Dad had a habit of getting off shift work heading for a bar on Woodland Avenue called the Elk's Head. It was a corner bar with swinging "wild west" doors, saw dust floors, a piano, hanging chandelier lights and a lot of cigarette smoke. I was five feet, ten inches tall. Mom would send me down there to get him and scream under the swinging doors, " Dad!!! Mom says it's dinner time!!" I couldn't go in cause I was a kid. My father taught me never to go into a bar at my young age, cause if I did, they would throw HIM out forever. Cops were in the bar drinking, too. To let YOUR kid in was a permanent. Couldn't let THAT happen. He would growl at me," tell her I'll be right home." ....growl.
He hated guns, and that made me love them. He wouldn't touch them. I couldn't get enough of them. Loved John Wayne and kept after him until I met him, not once, but three times. One of my all-time heros. Duke's picture hangs in this room, autograph n' all.
Dad loved golf, made me caddy for him, loved soft ball, went out when I was a kid and dragged me along to his softball games with the guys at his work. I grew to hate golf and softball, stayed away from both. I took up football and played in high school. Football is a man's game. It's war, kill or be killed out on that field, not knocking around a helpless pebble on a lawn.
My father was forever yelling and arguing at the dinner table, I remember him saying he "loved" to argue. I developed a beaut of a hiatal hernia at 15, and lived with it until I was 70. Mom ate her dinner in the living room about half the time. I learned to be quiet and genteel in converations. Most women loved my style, Mom raised me as she thought a less abrasive manner would be appreciated by the gentler sex. She was right. I learned from Dad that a quieter, more diplomatic approach to people could get me farther in life than banging them over the head with dinner plates. Seemed to work out well.
Much later on, when I became estranged from my daughters as my ex-wife, la-baracha poisoned that well, he advised me, " I'd think twice before I'd let those girls back into my life," he was right. Keep your friends close, and enemies real tight by you. Cynicism wins out again, Pops.
At the end of his life, my Mom, finally exasperated with it all, took a swing at him, in front of me while we had dinner one night at their place in Tucson. I couldn't believe it. He didn't move. He just let her belt him. I had to get in between them. I was thunderstruck. At almost 90, I had never seen them behave that way, but, in a surge of self control, he just sat there and let her pummel him. I guess he thought he had it coming.
He taught me another lesson.
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