To my Father..

Hey dad..I will give you a call later but just wanted to think back to my life as a child under your tutelage..

I learned how to drink good liquor..and not to use alot of bullshit to spruce it up..If your gonna use good stuff, don't muck it up.

I learned how to play the ponies at the track..its not easy to handicap those large four legged mammals..but our trips to the track under the guise of going to a movie or a swapmeet were some of the best times as a young child. I remember your face when I picked that huge longshot to win on a muddy track. You asked why in the blue hell was I picking that one..my response..he's got big feet, he will run the best on that muddy track..so you put a couple of bucks on it for me..and the sucker WON!..you never gave me my winnings you dick.

I learned the fine art of story-telling. And we aren't talking the boring kind of stories that make the listeners eyes glaze over. I learned that in order to keep someone's attention you need to spice it up a bit..and then when you have them sucked in hook, line and sinker..you really throw in the bullshit with a straight face and see if they buy it..usually they do.Once they are amazed..you smirk..and they know they were taken for a ride..and they sometimes laugh and admit you sucked them in..or threaten to knock you on your ass for lying to them.

I learned to appreciate baseball and all sports. I learned how to cuss at the tv when my team is getting their ass beat..and the best part..how to pull out a handgun and shoot the tv..whereby the bullet passes through the tv, the wall behind it and barely misses the gas line to the stove in the kitchen. DAMN those RAMS and Roman Gabriel anyway!

I learned the fine art of coming home drunk and waking the entire house when you bounce off the walls all the way down the hall to the bedroom. Then, 20 minutes later your "praying to the porcelain god" off and on for the next hour...and yet your bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at 7 friggin AM the next morning. Its called still being drunk.

I learned the art of debating from you dad..and when your 17 year old kid is making you look like a fool you call her a fucking little commie and tell her to pack her bags and get the fuck out...NOW. Its the best way I know to end a discussion dad..

I learned how to hunt my own game..I learned a most valuable lesson as you watched me put the rifle too close to my face and got a gigantic black eye from the recoil..then you laughed like hell and said.."bet you never do THAT again".No, I never did it quite like that again..it was a pain in the ass explaining for two weeks how I got that black eye.

I learned how dress out my game by hanging it in the garage and then having the house infested with fleas from the carcass. Nothing says loving like huge,nasty wild fleas..biting you incessantly until Mom called the damn exterminator. But I still love the flavor of venison, I just start scratching like crazy when I see deer skin.All those deer brains I took to class made the teacher happy as a clam and helped me pass biology in highschool..thanks Dad.

I also learned that you and I share something special..we are both severely allergic to poison ivy and tramping through miles of brush will usually mean theres some of that friggin stuff somewhere and we will always find it..and have to go to the doctor for shots and major medical treatment..and miss a week of work when the breakout covers our entire body.

I learned that your sick sense of humor serves a purpose...I am really not sure what that purpose is..but I know there is one...either that or your one sick sumbitch...but I love your humor..when its not addressed at me. I learned that a genuine New Delhi elephant horn blown five inches from your ear at 7am on a Sunday morning will get a person out of bed faster than mom yelling to "get up" from the doorway every five minutes.

So, even though you weren't around alot, and when you were, you behaved rather badly sometimes and would most certainly of failed a field sobriety test 9 times out of 10..I still love you Dad.