Sunday, June 18, 2006 | By: Unknown

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.

10 people gave us their .02 cents:

The Misanthrope said...

Hi Dusty, sorry to hear about your computer. Interesting Father's Day post, but you learned a lot of common sense that many people don't have.

Lucky for you I don't clean out my mail box very often, here is your note with the link. Take care, The Misanthrope:

Hi, hope your enjoying your time off :)
Here is the link to the webpage that lists all their podcasts by date and content:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/RadionationPodcast

lecram sinun said...

Aww, Dusty... that was sweet.

UnHoly Diver said...

My father passed away when I was 26, but we were always close. We did a lot of stuff together, both sports-related and otherwise. He's also the reason I'm such a Cardinals fan, too(Stan the Man was his idol). I see a lot of my Dad in my younger brother, Bob, and it makes me proud. Happy Father's Day, Dad; I know you're up there watching...

Omnipotent Poobah said...

Dusty,
Like they say, you can pick your friends, but you can't pick your relatives.

Unknown said...

Poobie..I appreciate the lessons I learned from my dad..it equipped me to deal with life on alot of levels..

Unknown said...

b..I am glad you have great memories..may they keep you warm on a cold night.

Nölff said...

Sweet.
My Dad and I didn't know it was fathers day till about 8:00 when I returned his weedeater.

jagular said...

Sounds a little bit like my dad. Except I never went hunting with my dad. Or to a baseball game (even when I went out and won free tickets). Neither did he ever bother to get me up for school. He did teach me to shoot though. Kinda. "Here's a gun, go out back and shoot it."
I went to the doctor once when I was a kid. I was ten years old and got appendicitis. I think I went and got some antibiotics when I had pneumonia at the age of four.
I can't think of anything he ever gave me other than a chipped tooth.
But you know what. He's dead now. And I miss the hell out of him. Because there comes a time when you have to let bygones be bygones. You have to decide that I'm going to be a better parent than he was. I'm never going to spank my daughter until she pisses her pants. I'm never going to hit my son with a closed fist.
And then you move to a point when you can actually forgive him for showing up at your school drunk off his ass and threatening to beat the crap out of the principal.
And then one day you look back fondly at the time he took everyone in for a haircut and forgot you at home.
And in the end you realize that he was nothing more than a poor broken down old man.
And you wish you could go back and make your peace with him.
But by then he's already dead.
And it's too late.

The Stiltwalker said...

this was really nice. full of somewhat forced sentiment.

Unknown said...

Stilt, the man was a major drunk and dick-head..but he is my dad :p