Come And Brag About Your Dad In Here.

In My Humble Opinion
21

My dad had a LOT of faults. He wasn’t the greatest dad in the world, I don’t think he really knew how to deal with a daughter.

BUT he loved me. I was adopted, and a blood relation to his wife, so nothing to him, and he always treated me like his own. I just wanted to share one story which always warms my heart whenever I think about it.

I was a teen when my grandma died, and he had to go to India cause the eldest brother was about to abscond with her money and property, which had been fairly divided up. I didn’t want to trouble him for anything, but he asked me very gently if there was anything I wanted.

Well, I loved costume jewelry back then, and I asked for red glass bracelets. Red bracelets are what you wear when you get married, and I always loved them.

Well he came back, stressed and weary from the court battles, irritated with his family. He unpacks - and pulls out a HUGE box of bracelets, every color of the rainbow, glass, metal, everything. They were beautiful. And it was wonderful of him to have thought of me while all of this was happening.

I’ve got to stop now, I feel my eyes pricking. But this was the kind of man my dad was: he showed his feelings rather than saying them.

22

My dad, he’s funny. He draws Frankenstein on the edges of newspapers and on walnut shells. He says “Well, shitski” when things aren’t going his way. He plays with animal crackers and has them eat each other. He tries on hats backward and makes faces. He tickles mom with his beard stubble.

He’s good with children. He has a bushy mustache and they love it. He lets them climb all over him and pull on his nose. When I was little he would give us horsie rides around the living room, and stop suddenly so my sister and me would fall off, giggling. He let us sit on his feet and wrap our legs and arms around his calves, and then he would walk around the house saying, “Where’s Elysian? Where is she?”

He’s curious. When he moved the last time he had to full his truck bed full of old books and take them to the recycling center because his new place just isn’t big enough to store them all. He has a picture of it. He reads about and owns holy books by Jews, Christians, Muslims, Scientologists, Hindus, Buddhists, and a whole army of others. He takes college classes on boat motors and Spanish and technical writing. He’s hugely open-minded. He bought the first computer available in his price range.

He’s smart. He is a master Tool and Die maker, and can draw precise diagrams and make whatever instrument you want. He’s got a master’s in Business and an Associates in Accounting, as well as a paralegal certificate. From careful investing, he’s worth way more than he should be. He can fix a car and build a house and write a book (even though he can’t type).

He’s a dreamer. He wanted to start a commune. He started a few businesses; didn’t amount to much. He’s going to start a winery, he’s going to make his own kit car, he’s going to travel the whole country on the back of his motorcycle.

I worry about him because he has a bad heart and a terrible heart attack a few years back. But he still works, and lifts heavy things, and walks and bikes and stays up far too late. When he was in high school he got a third place in the state of Indiana for wrestling. He played football in college. He’s stubborn, won’t accept that his body won’t do everything he wants it to do anymore.

What I learned from my dad is to be open to ideas, and how to put my ideas to life. How to work, how to learn, and how to play. He’s the best.

23

Wow, where do I start. My dad, my dad. You know how some people are described as being a character? Well, Al is a character. He’s a smart, funny, mean, crazy character. And everything I am came from the person he is. Somehow, I missed all of my mom’s traits and got all of my dad’s. You ever have a person that is just like you in every way and even though you resent it sometimes, it’s there? That’s my dad.

When I was a kid, my dad started his own painting business. He painted barns, buildings, whatever people would pay him to paint. He was determined to make a business of it, no matter that he had to work 70 hours a week sometimes to make it happen. I’m sure he never thought he’d have the kind of success he ended up having, but he wasn’t going to let anything get in his way.

He used to drink a lot when I was growing up, and smoke pot, and do a variety of other things. Painters are like that, they’re a crazy bunch. But I can remember lots of laughter and lots of yelling and just a ton of these wild guys who worked for him around our house partying all the time. I’m sure it drove my mom crazy, but my dad was the kind of enigmatic character that was the life of the party. Despite his temper and his shortcomings, people liked him, they liked him a lot.

He’d tell these stories, and I can never claim to be the storyteller he is, but his stories are the best. Even when he’s talking about something awful, he can make it colorful and funny. Me and my two brothers and my sis all love it when my dad tells a story, even though we sometimes roll our eyes because we’ve heard it before. But even if we’ve heard it a hundred times, we still want to hear it again. He’s just funny like that, and it’s hard to explain to people who don’t know him.

My dad yells, boy does he yell. You’ve never heard anyone yell like Al. He’s scary sometimes, but he was never physically abusive. I guess that psychological abuse is just as bad, but the older I get, the more I get why he was that way. It’s just his nature. He can call you every name in the book when he’s mad, but the minute he’s over it, he’s over it. He doesn’t apologize, because he doesn’t get that it hurts people’s feelings. I’m like that too. And I won’t lie, it’s caused a lot of problems in my life, being that way, and I’ve fought those instincts for so many years.

Both of my brothers work for my dad now, his painting business took off in the early '90s and has been huge ever since. I never could understand how they could work for him, because he can be such a tyrant. My brother Aaron is the foreman of a lot of their jobs and he says my dad sometimes comes in and yells at the crew. He yells in a way that would drive most people to say, “Fuck off,” and walk out of the building. But, they don’t walk out, because they respect the hell out of him, and he pays them really well for the work they do.

Aaron said one day my dad was yelling at the guys and they were all standing there just sort of taking it, and dad starts kicking whatever’s around, boxes, buckets, etc. At one point he kicked this little box and got his foot stuck in it. Aaron said my dad kept yelling, but at the same time he couldn’t get his foot out of the box so he was sort of jumping around trying to kick it off. He said all the guys were just biting their lips trying not to laugh because it was so funny. But, you wouldn’t want to laugh while he’s mad, no, that would be bad.

On another topic, my dad is always dieting, except he gets these weird ideas for diets. One night he ate a bunch of dehydrated potatoes that my grandma had given my mom. His theory was that they must be low fat. So, he’s not the type to sit there and eat a little bit of something, he eats ALL of whatever it is. He ate and ate these dehydrated potatoes, and you can use your imagination to figure out what happened when he drank some water. He was sick all night, he said he thought his stomach was going to explode. Haha, he hates when we tell that story, but it’s just so goddamn funny.

He also eats rotten food on a regular basis. I don’t mean milk the day after expiration, I mean Ranch dressing that’s sat in the fridge for two months past the date. Somehow, this stuff never makes him sick. My mom will pull out lunch meat that no one will touch because it has that nasty smell to it, and my dad will finish it off because he hates to waste food. Last summer he went mushroom hunting and found this gigantic mushroom that was not the proper variety to be eating, but he fried the sucker up and at the whole thing. My sister said it was so gross and that when he fried it up it was so big he cut it into strips and it looked like pieces of fish or something. His only comment, “Yeah, it wasn’t too good, kinda chewy.” Haha. Wtf? Only my dad.

My dad has made a shit ton of money in his business, and he loves Jaguars. He currently owns four, although if he found another he liked, he’d buy it. Despite his passion for fancy cars, he still buys all his clothes and shoes at Wal-Mart. I guess he feels it would be frivolous to buy expensive clothes, but all those cars are ok.

And, because of a chemical explosion when he was 17, my dad lost one eye. He wears dark glasses all the time because his eyes are extremely light sensitive. So, this makes him bad at depth perception. When those 3D puzzles came out a few years back, dad got mad because he couldn’t see the pictures. We were like, “Uh, dad, you only have one eye, and it’s 3D.” It was hilarious. You have to understand, we’re not viciously mean to one another, but each other’s handicaps are always joked about. We’re always giving each other hell. It’s great.

Maybe this sounds negative, but again, you’d have to know the guy. He has this crazy Jack Nicholson smile, and the loudest booming laugh you’ve ever heard. I love it when he laughs, because when he’s in a good mood he’s the greatest person in the world to be around.

I could go on and on, and I probably already have. But, the main point I want everyone to understand is that I respect my dad more than anyone else in this world. He’s a genius and a weirdo, a pot head and a hot head. I love the guy, and I wouldn’t trade him for any other dad on the planet (except maybe for Lemmy).

24

This is a really good challenge for me, because my father (1921-1995) was such a bitter, mean old sonofabitch that I’m going to work hard to find positive things to say about him.

  1. He fought in WWII, in the Pacific theater. That’s gotta count for something.

  2. He was incredibly brilliant in a book-learning way, though in a street-smart, everyday-living way, he was a complete boob.

  3. Ummm . . . He had a vicious, dark, bitter sense of humor (now you know where I got that).

4). I’m fresh out, I’m afraid. Other than that, he was pretty much a washout. Oh, wait, he never indoctrinated my sister or I into any religion, he and my mother left us to come to our own decisions on that.

25

Due to circumstances I don’t want to get into here, I’m kind of in the same boat as Eve trying to think about good things I can associate with my dad. But I thought of three:

  1. He gave me my name (after his favorite Leon Russell song, “Sweet Emily”)

  2. He makes excellent cookies

  3. He has good taste in music

26

My dad has long been an inspiration to me. He’s not fought in a war, but is still heroic; although sometimes distant, he’s always there when it counts.

At age 17, I did the math while I was sitting in a Christmas Eve service. I don’t think I was planned for. Nonetheless, my longhair, prom king, soccer champ father drove from New Jersey to El Paso and back to get mom when he learned I was on the way. By the time I could remember anything, my parents were married, and we were back in Texas, having left underemployment and nosy relatives up north. I remember him working on the avocado green Chevy Nova in the driveway in the midst of an ice strom. I remember seeing the roofs he shingled on funky geodesic houses east of Kyle. He stopped coming home sweaty and started coming home dirty, covered in dust form the rubber he worked with at his new job. He was an excellent horsey, and liked the best cartoons on saturday mornings (Yay Herculoids!). For a while, in my haughty, self-important middle and high school years, I didn’t think much of him. He would help me with projects (his experience in construction and fabrication was useful) but not something that ever really interested me, as I was destined to be a student of the pure sciences.

I’m not sure even today if he kept collecting comics in the '80s. I have the impression he gave it up for quite as the budget was presumeably very tight at times. We never did without, even after the oil bust when his employer’s main clients were badly shaken. Sometime in the late '80s, I took an interest in the books, which I recall having earlier deried as not being “comic” despite their name ('80s Batman wasn’t a very fun guy…) The rest, as they say, is history. Our shared passion for the medium and characters is a bond we still share. While my little brother seems to have inherited his mechanical ability, and my sister his temper, I share his taste in graphic literature.

In recent years he has helped me move repeatedly, given me pointers on home maintianence when I had a house, and words of stern wisdom when my marriage failed. He’s moved up even as his company has moved on from the petroleum industry. In 1996 when I graduated High School and began shopping for a PC for college, he knew virtually nothing about computers beyond using the Mac we had and his CAD programs at work. He now administers the network and manages the hardware and sofware in addition to his design work. Said design work includes the conveyor in many amusement park water rides, including those in Six Flags Over Texas and Parc Asterix in France as well as prototype transmissions for the Saleen S7 and Ford GT. Guess the old guy is pretty sharp after all. :wink:

Having been aware of my dad when he was younger than I am now gives me an interesting perspective on him. I’m not sure how I would have dealt with what he did: an unexpected child, odd jobs, financial hardship. When I face difficulty, I realize that he struggled with worse, and I never saw it, even though I was there. He and my mom remain happily married, in a house at the edge of the Hill Country.

27

My dad is spending my inheritance. He just bought his last RV, a diesel pusher with two slide outs.

I didn’t realize who my dad was until after my parents divorced. My mother (I haven’t spoken to her in nearly 13 years, but that’s another thread) moved out of state and my dad kept the house. When I went home to visit I realized how much of a neat freak my dad was. There was nothing on the kitchen counters. Nothing. He’d even put the can opener away, to be pulled out on an as needed basis.

He lost his parenting bone when the grandkids were born. I can tell you, growing up, I never had cupcakes for breakfast, but my children have.

He never told me he loved me until I was in my 20s. I credit his longtime sweetie for that. She’s a wonderful, loving person, who’s gone out of her way to make me feel welcome. She’s Grandma to my kids.

He’s smart, conservative, and gruff He loves to joke. He’s an excellent salesman, and a fantastic people person. He likes to bitch and moan, but he’s having a blast, traveling the USA in his RV.

I love you, Daddy. May you live forever.

28

Wow, Shirley, and I thought it was bad that my parents split up on Christmas. Sheesh.

My dad is a riot. He raised me with “pull my finger” and all sorts of stuff. I blame him for my love of TMI and bodily functions stories. He actually had a plaque on the family room wall that proclaimed he had won the Blue Flame Award.

He’s an electrician and can pretty much fix anything. He’s also helped me move a couple of times.

We’ve had our issues, particularly when I was a teenager, but now I love to sit around and reminisce.

29

My Father helped put people on the Moon.

My Father taught me to tie my shoes

My Father is very thoughtful and insightful.

My Father is a complete loon.

My Father helped track a lost child last month.

My Father played with his grandson last month.

My Father taught me to be independant.

My Father went to the divorce lawyer with me.

My Father wouldn’t let us talk in the car.

My Father gave his grandson bongo drums.

My Father is a good man.

I don’t just love my Father, I respect him.

30

It’s wonderful to read these stories. And it’s wonderful to sing the praises of my Dad.

My Dad is extremely kind. You know this the moment you meet him. He always looks for the good in every person. Even when someone is driving him crazy, he will try to see things from their eyes.

My Dad is a wonderful storyteller, both mythic and mundane. He could spin a bedtime story out of Beowulf and Snow White and the Apple Dumpling Gang. He could tell you the events of his day and have you laughing and crying.

My Dad gave us that greatest of gifts…he truly loves our mom. Every 5th year he celebrates the anniversary of their first date…every 5th year so he can always take her by surprise. Their first date was a picnic, so she’s been surprised coming out of work, driving down a highway, running mundane errands, and whisked away for a picnic far more lavish (and with many more descendants) than the first one.

My Dad knows how to have fun, how to work hard, what his duty is, and what truly matters most. He has loved me unstintingly my whole life and I wasn’t super lovable for some of it. I am proud he is my dad, but mostly I am so damn lucky he is my dad.

And we nearly lost him this spring. Thank you to God and the wonderful surgeons who pulled him through his emergency bypass so we can be blessed by his presence for awhile longer. Still, it’s been a real eye opener and I realize one day he really will die and my world will be a bleaker place without him.

31

My dad rocks. He is quiet, introverted, and yet possesses great inner strength. He can always be counted on to do the right thing. He is longsuffering and the most patient person I know, generous, a math whiz, and loves God, dogs, babies, and classic rock. He naturally has an architectural mind and excellent woodworking and construction skills, for which he doesn’t give himself enough credit. He can work wonders on AS/400s, actually understands IRS forms, and can sing and play the guitar quite well, though he rarely does so. He has been married to my mother for almost 30 years, and they still love each other deeply. He gives large amounts of money to charity, having personally funded the seminary education of at least two priests, among other things, but he never advertises this fact. He is modest, unpretentious, and a great guy to shoot hoops with. At one time, I was a deliquent, mentally ill, drug-addled juvenile; in large part due to his patience and guidance (a longer tale than I care to relate here), I have long since gotten my shit together. One of my younger brothers was born severely disabled, with a prognosis of being profoundly retarded and immobile; my parents adopted him anyways and he has since grown into an intelligent, active young man. I’m going to close by stealing Maus’s line: I don’t just love my father, I respect him more than any other person I know.

32

From what I can tell, had mean-spirited, unsupportive and general crappy parents (but I could be wrong), earned himself a pilot’s licence before he could drive, was extremely smart and did well at a prestegious university (while working with a family and in ROTC), went into the Air Force and finished top of his flight school, went on to fly Super-Sonic fighter aircraft (by this time he had 3 kids), retired from the service and proceeded to create a small “dynasty” that is today valued in the multi-millions and supports his surviving 4 (of 5) children and my mom (all of whom are lazy-ass whiners compared to him).

Every year at this time, my brothers and sister get together (when we can stand each other) and bash the shit out of him about what an asshole he was while eating his caviar, drinking his expensive booze and driving cars he paid for to the event in the house he provided.

My Old Man beat prostate cancer then one day was “laid low” by a melonoma (sorry for the spelling) and snuffed it within a month. Couldn’t walk, speak or anything near the end. I was in his home the night he died. My son never got to meet his Grandpa, but always is excited to yell, “Grandpa’s Airplanes!” when we pull into the garage.

I miss my Old Man.

The “wanting” usually surpasses the “having”.

33

My father was in politics. EVERYBODY knew dad and for the most part, adored him. I couldn’t do diddle without getting home and finding out somebody I didn’t even know had called and said they saw me doing this or doing that. I hated him for that. Family life was not normal…Christmas we had to pack our toys away at about 10 in the morning, as it was open house and over 300 people would drop by that day to say hello. Once, on a nice summer night, I head a sound out my open bedroom window and there was some crazed drunk with a shotgun who was gonna kill dad. The police showed up and after that, we had constant police protection, driving by and going around the house about every three hours.

I was the odd son of three he had. Dad was…no easy way to say this…a Republican. So was mom, and later, my two brothers (one of which was a Senator for one term). I was the Gay, screaming liberal Democrat. You can imagine the rather lively conversations at dinner.

But dad always respected me for my opinion…he accepted my lover as part of the family from day one, and even treated my SO’s mother and her sisters as extended family. (So did mom, to her credit.)

But dad was larger than life…to see him “in action” with the public was to watch a Hollywood star working the red carpet. We never went to a restaurant without him shaking hands with almost everyone at every table.

Whenever I had a problem, I could always go to him. Nothing shocked him.
He kept an open mind, despite the asshole cronies who hovered around him.

Partly because of living in that fishbowl, I fled the US and moved to Europe as soon as I was 21…but it is interesting that in a recent conversation with my brother, my father was very aware of all of the things I did while living over there…and I was really touched to hear how he seemed proud that I had the guts to pick up and move to a different country.

I miss dad, and though I am sure he would have called me after Bush was elected and gloated…I am glad he didn’t have to see the whole 9/11 history. That would have been very hard for him to deal with. Not that it was easy for anybody, but he would have taken it personally…I just know.

34

My dad left when I was about 2 years old. I saw him a couple of times when he’d blow into town and buy us some gift to ‘make it up to us’. He was a hard-workin’, hard drinkin’ guy who was a serious alcoholic and just couldn’t handle a family.

When I was about 15, we got a phone call from a hospital, asking if we were his family. We said yes, and they told us that his liver and kidneys were failing from alcohol abuse and other damage, and that he wasn’t expected to live the night. We hung up the phone and went on with our card game. It made no impact whatsoever at the time.

But he survived, somehow. When I was in college, I got a call from him. He wanted to meet me and chat. So I drove to the town he was living in, and saw him for the first time in about 15 years. He was a little old man, sort of the town mascot. Lived in a one-room apartment in a hotel, and spent his days on a barstool or helping people out doing small chores. I went to a parade with him, and it was amazing - everyone knew him. People on floats were actually calling to him and waving. It seems he found his niche in life - he couldn’t handle responsibility, and was pretty much a failure from top to bottom, but he had a heart. People kept coming up to me telling me what a great guy he was - how he showed up one day to help someone fix a roof. How he’d shovel a walk for someone out of the blue and just walk away without asking for anything. He tried to start a small handyman business at one point, but fell off a roof and broke his back and lost his company, and he never tried again.

I left him that day with a smile and a new appreciation for him - he wasn’t a monster, like my mother and brother claimed. He was just a weak man with a good heart who didn’t fit into the world very well. We promised to look each other up again soon.

About two years later, I got a phone call from my mother saying that she heard he had died - the liver finally gave out on him. He was in his early 60’s. A few weeks later a package arrived for me - he had willed to me all of his belongings. They fit in a shoebox. Some papers, a few little odds and ends, and a tattered wallet. In that wallet were his social assistance card, his Elk’s club membership card, and a faded picture of me as a child that he carried in that wallet for 20 years.

35

I haven’t cried in quite a while, and I’ve got tears pouring down my face right now. Reading this drives home what I haven’t articulated well in my O.P.

Our parents aren’t just the amalgam of our childhood memories. They’re individuals with inner lives.

-sigh- man this got me.

36

Didn’t mean to bring anyone down on Christmas Eve. Sorry about that.

37

Nah, Sam, it was a healthy response. You didn’t bring me down, your words and remembrance touched me. :slight_smile:

38

Pops Mercotan (nearly 10 years gone now) taught by example: Treat people the way you want to be treated, return anger with kindness or at least acceptance, do the right thing anyway, be good to yourself because you deserve it, there’s no shame in failure but only in failing to move on from failure. The best thing he ever told me, after I’d fucked up majorly majorly, was that I was going to be okay.

The turnout at his funeral was astoundingly large.

Gosh, I still miss him a lot.

39

My dad is Qadgop!

:smiley:

40

No fair, elfbabe. We need more than that!