I sometimes think about how my life would’ve been different if my father wasn’t a bit hard to get along with. For instance, if he could’ve gotten along with his co-workers in Charlottesville I’d’ve been able to drop out of the University of Virginia, just like Edgar Allen Poe. (Okay, it would’ve been ten seconds before I FLUNKED out, but…) Or if he could’ve gotten along with Stevie Nicks’ dad I’d be able to tell my grandkids how I had been shut down by a future pop star. That’d be sweet!
(mellow sigh) It’s nice to have somebody else to blame.
Yeah, my parents sold an oil field in Texas in 1969 when I was discovered…They wanted to spend more time with the new baby…the oil crisis hit a few years later and what we owned would have made the family millions.
…and then there is the stark reality of what my life would have been like if my dad hadn’t died when I was 10…
But, then again, I like who and what I am today. That might not be true if anything from the past was even slightly different.
I’m not entirely sure you would be all that different, which is would probably have been my point if I were to be a person who had points to what he says.
Hey you’re not on your own with bad father experiences, if my dad would just spend some time and consideration and not brought us into an argument that has lasted for around 4 years maybe things would have been different, I try to talk to him and he tries to talk to me, but, well, its just never ever been the same anymore.
If my mom hadn’t made me leave the junior orchestra and forced me to join the track team, where I was harassed mercilessly, which set the stage for me to be a pariah in middle school…If I had stuck with the violin, I could have played blues fiddle with a band that I knew in college. Who knows.
Mommie Dearest wanted me to do sports so she could “brag” about me to her siblings. I guess she couldn’t “brag” about my musical accomplishments. Or just skip the bragging, forget what her brother and sister thought about me (they didn’t generally think about me at all), and love me for who I was.
I can trace the main events of my life back to one particular Sunday School class. A young minister, dating a friend of mine, asked me to work in a church camp. Because of a friendship formed in camp, I eventually attended a college in this city. One thing led to another and here I am at the computer while Mr. Zoe sleeps on the porch swing. It’s been forty-four years since that Sunday. I like the way it’s working out so far…
