vapros
Verified Member
Dad and me
Dad and me
My dad was okay, I guess. During the depression he got a job in Federal civil service and raised a family of five. I was born in a grand three-story plantation house called Woodlawn that he was renting for fifteen dollars a month. It was in the middle of a sugar cane field by that time, and on a dirt road. In wet weather the old car sometimes bogged down in the mud, and a black guy named Brock would come with a mule and pull it out.
Did Dad and I bond? Maybe so, after a fashion. I remember we did some stuff together. Looking back, all of my memories of growing up are colored by the fact that I am/was schizoid. Schizoid personality disorder, Google knows all about it. I didn't know about it until I was more than eighty years old, but I have no doubt that it began sometime when I was a kid. I don't really do relationships, even in family. Terrible, but there it is.
I left home when I was eighteen years old, to join the military, and that was just about the end of whatever tied Dad and I together. He worked in Cuba and Honduras and finally retired to Florida. Wherever he was, I visited once or twice a year. I finally realized he had no common sense at all. I don't know if he ever made any serious money in his life, but it didn't matter. Whatever he had, people took from him - and made him like it.
He was obstinate and cantankerous as hell as he got older, and never admitted to being wrong about anything. In one of his more serious fender-benders, he explained to the cop that he was making a left turn, and the other guy was just coming too fast to stop. My sister and I finally went to the local police and persuaded them to lift his driver's license. Thank goodness he never knew we had done it, or he would never have spoken to us again. The state of Florida had just renewed it for three or four years, by mail, and he was more than ninety at the time. Old people are big business in Florida.
Somewhere along the way, the telephone thieves got to him, but good. They got all he had. When my mother died he cashed an insurance policy for thirty-five thousand, and they got all of that. He took out another mortgage on his little house, and they got that. They called him and talked to him in the afternoons and blew smoke up his ass, telling him they were his only real friends now and that his son just came to see him by way of a vacation. I couldn't make him see what was going on. Several times, face to face, he would nod and tell me they had warned him what I was going to say, and here I was doing it, just as they had said.
They made him think he had won a Cadillac in a drawing, and it would be delivered after he sent them some necessary expense money. He always had to send his money by UPS, not by USPS, and they had a reason for that. Damn right they did. I tried to show him what they were doing, No dice. At one point he explained that he had quit dealing with the bunch in Vegas, as they just wanted to rob him. The current callers lived in Illinois and they were from the midwest, and therefore a better sort of people, and could be trusted. They sold him a home entertainment center, for $800. It was a plastic radio in a box; maybe ten bucks at WalMart. They sold him exotic medicines with magic qualities that he could sell to his neighbors and make a huge markup. But all his neighbors were trying to sell the same pills. He ordered all manner of promotional trash with his name on it. Drink coasters cut out of thin Naugahyde, with 'Courtesy of Eaton Summers' printed on them. Five dollars each, and he bought a lot of them. For many thousands of dollars he got maybe $200 dollars in useless trash. Nobody is as blind as a guy who refuses to see. Finally they quit calling him. Dad was flat broke, and they knew it. He died flat broke at ninety-nine, about eight years too late. I never want to be as old as he was.
The space between us grew as he went down hill. My younger sister had to look after the old goat for a long time, going to his house after work every day. Bless her. I don't think I would have done it. In his old age, my Dad was not a very lovable character. I see signs that I might be a lot like him if I live long enough - or too long, to be honest. Scary thought.
Dad and me
My dad was okay, I guess. During the depression he got a job in Federal civil service and raised a family of five. I was born in a grand three-story plantation house called Woodlawn that he was renting for fifteen dollars a month. It was in the middle of a sugar cane field by that time, and on a dirt road. In wet weather the old car sometimes bogged down in the mud, and a black guy named Brock would come with a mule and pull it out.
Did Dad and I bond? Maybe so, after a fashion. I remember we did some stuff together. Looking back, all of my memories of growing up are colored by the fact that I am/was schizoid. Schizoid personality disorder, Google knows all about it. I didn't know about it until I was more than eighty years old, but I have no doubt that it began sometime when I was a kid. I don't really do relationships, even in family. Terrible, but there it is.
I left home when I was eighteen years old, to join the military, and that was just about the end of whatever tied Dad and I together. He worked in Cuba and Honduras and finally retired to Florida. Wherever he was, I visited once or twice a year. I finally realized he had no common sense at all. I don't know if he ever made any serious money in his life, but it didn't matter. Whatever he had, people took from him - and made him like it.
He was obstinate and cantankerous as hell as he got older, and never admitted to being wrong about anything. In one of his more serious fender-benders, he explained to the cop that he was making a left turn, and the other guy was just coming too fast to stop. My sister and I finally went to the local police and persuaded them to lift his driver's license. Thank goodness he never knew we had done it, or he would never have spoken to us again. The state of Florida had just renewed it for three or four years, by mail, and he was more than ninety at the time. Old people are big business in Florida.
Somewhere along the way, the telephone thieves got to him, but good. They got all he had. When my mother died he cashed an insurance policy for thirty-five thousand, and they got all of that. He took out another mortgage on his little house, and they got that. They called him and talked to him in the afternoons and blew smoke up his ass, telling him they were his only real friends now and that his son just came to see him by way of a vacation. I couldn't make him see what was going on. Several times, face to face, he would nod and tell me they had warned him what I was going to say, and here I was doing it, just as they had said.
They made him think he had won a Cadillac in a drawing, and it would be delivered after he sent them some necessary expense money. He always had to send his money by UPS, not by USPS, and they had a reason for that. Damn right they did. I tried to show him what they were doing, No dice. At one point he explained that he had quit dealing with the bunch in Vegas, as they just wanted to rob him. The current callers lived in Illinois and they were from the midwest, and therefore a better sort of people, and could be trusted. They sold him a home entertainment center, for $800. It was a plastic radio in a box; maybe ten bucks at WalMart. They sold him exotic medicines with magic qualities that he could sell to his neighbors and make a huge markup. But all his neighbors were trying to sell the same pills. He ordered all manner of promotional trash with his name on it. Drink coasters cut out of thin Naugahyde, with 'Courtesy of Eaton Summers' printed on them. Five dollars each, and he bought a lot of them. For many thousands of dollars he got maybe $200 dollars in useless trash. Nobody is as blind as a guy who refuses to see. Finally they quit calling him. Dad was flat broke, and they knew it. He died flat broke at ninety-nine, about eight years too late. I never want to be as old as he was.
The space between us grew as he went down hill. My younger sister had to look after the old goat for a long time, going to his house after work every day. Bless her. I don't think I would have done it. In his old age, my Dad was not a very lovable character. I see signs that I might be a lot like him if I live long enough - or too long, to be honest. Scary thought.
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