It’s been about twenty years since my Dear Old Dad passed away. He was a drunk and a failure and I seldom give him a second thought. I also have no kids of my own, as I am of the opinion that there are too damned many people on planet Earth already and all our problems would be solved with a bit of creative sterilization-maybe every other person would do teh trick.
Dad was an odd character. He looked just like Juan Valdez of Colombian Coffee fame and yet hated ‘wetbacks’ with a passion. This was a bit confusing to me as I couldn’t tell him apart from them. He was also Mexican in his taste in music-he was especially fond of anything with accordions and braying mules. And he could cook tamales.
If Dear Old Dad had one shot of getting into Heaven, all he would have to do would be make St Peter a dozen hot tamales and he would be in like Flynn. He used a pressure cooker and the house would smell of tamales for days before and days after. My brother has the recipe somewhere-I don’t even recall if it was pork or beef inside the masa. But they were The Best Tamales I ever ate-though I have had a few since that come close.
Dad used to work at an Air Force Base-where he was a cook and every night when he came home, he would have something stashed away in the back of his old gold pick up truck. Often it was milk-like four or five five gallon cartons of milk. I drank a lot of milk and credit this for my growth spurt to 6’3″ between 7th and 8th grades. He also brought home giant trays of pastries and I am sure he brought home real food as well-but only the cookies and cakes were stored in my child’s memory as being worthy of note.
One year he brought home about ten flight jackets. Now Flight Jackets are cool, have always been cool. Expect-when they have something like Dave’s Girl embroidered in white letters on the back of them. Dad got these particular Flight Jackets as they were left at a dry cleaners and never picked up. So imagine, if you will, a very tall, very thin, boy going to an inner city school wearing a jacket that says Dave’s Girl on the back. I only wore it once and consider it one of many character building lessons courtesy of my Dear Old Dad.
He also brought us a box of shoes one time-only a few of which fit, or sort of fit our growing feet. They were all brown and white Oxfords-shoes I would soon learn were the primary footwear of Pimps and very, very old men. And they hurt like hell when you wore them.
I think that Dear Old Dad did the best that he could, but that he really wasn’t all that interested in being a father. Which was fine with me and my little brother, as we were not all that interested in being his sons. I have a wide array of oddball memories about my Dad, from the time he caught two very large catfish and put them in the bathtub to the time he got a bag of live chickens and brought them home for city girl Mom to slaughter and cook. Neither of these stories were pretty pictures.
Like many people, I tend to wonder from time to time, what my life would have been like if I had rich parents, Hollywood Parents, or parents like Tiger Woods and The Williams Sisters who trained their kids for sport from the moment of conception. As it is, I had parents who loved me and let me do whatever the hell I wanted. This has not made me rich or famous, but most of the time, it has left me happy.
So thanks for the stories Dad, and happy Father’s Day wherever you are.
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