My dad sat cross legged in this cheap ass vibrating vinyl recliner that some huckster at the state fair had hustled him for. Unusual for my dad because he was a depression baby penny pincher. He assured me quite often that the only people that can out jew a jew is a Welshman. Funny he always had enough funds when it benefitted him. As for us kids, we were raised poor.
When I think back on it I don’t believe he was really watching tv for the 14 hours he sat there every day. He never laughed at jokes or blurted an answer to a game show. I came to believe that he was in his own head thinking about tax law and estate planning regarding the gentleman farming he was “engaged” in 30 miles away. He would tell me “anybody can make money, it’s screwing the taxman that gets you rich.”
he would light one cigarette with the preceeding one. if second hand smoke is a thing i’ve got 18 years from him and probably another 5 from the bars and clubs. We lived in Florida and another of my dad’s addiction was air conditioning. We were not allowed to roll down the windows for fresh air because that would be letting all his air conditioning out. Of course the ac was set to recirculate mode. I bet from outside that car it looked like a module of smoke out of which it would be hard to even see. No smoking indoor laws wouldn’t emerge until i was probably 40 years old.
My dad had this fetish for “Ban-lon” shirts. They were all he would wear, cigarette burn holes be damned. They were some sort of heinous polyester. I decidedly went the other way prefering all cotton, linen, etc. One of my micro rebellions.
He even spoke a quasi different language. Grad school taught me that language is above all shared and social. Not with him. He was always coming out with these one liners that I never heard anywhere else. For example as I left the house to go collect my high school girlfriend he would say “why buy a cow when milk’s so cheap?” If I asked him what time it was he would answer “what’s time to a hog” reminding me that young people are on par with non thinking animals. If I had lost something really important, in a panic I would ask him if he had seen it or knew where it was. He would say yes, relieving my torment and flooding me with seretonin. I would say “where is it” and he would gleefully say “right where you left it.”
One night my dad was running low on cigarretes and booze so I tagged along with him to Dan Goode’s liquor store on the main drag. I probably went with him to escape the regular bullying i received from my older brothers at home or just out of pure boredom.
Normally he would just use the drive through and get his case of Johnnie Walker red and a carton of pall mall menthols, but this time he wanted to stop and go in.
inside was a customer in his 20’s. My dad struck up a conversation with him and learned he had been or was in the military. My dad had flown p51 mustangs before World War II ended abruptly via nuclear devices.
As he and the young man chatted i became antsy and wanted to get going home. the next thng i know my dad has invited this person over. My dad told him how we had a bb gun target set up in the living room and how fun it was to see who could shoot the best.
I sat in the back seat with a mixture of confusion and dread. What if this guy is some crazed murderer or something. Its not like we ran into him at the library in the ethics section.
We shot the bb gun and spoke randomly. At one point I ended up in the back bedroom alone with him with the door closed. My dread level spiked. I can’t remember what we talked about but he did not inerfere with me, try to, or even make overtures.
After a couple of hours my dad offered to give him a ride wherever he needed to go. I reminded my dad that he had had a few and maybe my mom or oldest brother should drive. My dad’s response was typical: “son, I am a professional drunk driver, I do it all the time…the ones you have to watch out for are these new years eve ameature drunks that don’t know what the hell they are doing.”
vignettes 