street fighting man.
today is my father’s birthday. he shares a birthday with mick jagger. he is also a fan. the main thing i’d say they share is a healthy ego.
my relationship with my parents from the beginning of my life has been complicated. when i look at them, i hold two views in my mind. there are the memories of my childhood, largely unhappy and violent, chaotic, confusing and terrifying. then there is present day. sometime around the year i turned 19-20, things changed. they mellowed out. and i finally began to understand a little of why our lives were hell back in the day.
drugs played a part, for sure. my father had a history of drug and alcohol abuse that started in his teen years and didn’t truly end until i was around 10. my mother brought her own issues into the mix. they both lived through tragic childhoods.
but my father quit using cold turkey. he refused help. the strain of it i believe helped turn him mean and viscious at times. i was afraid of him growing up. they both kicked the shit out of me and my siblings.
this is also the man who worked every day. he did not call out sick. he did not stay home when it snowed. he would dig himself out of the snow to drive an hour to work. we were never hungry, we were never neglected in any way. when he was home, he often found projects to work exhaustively on. he forced his work ethic onto us. he won awards for his insane marine tendencies. he has high expectations.
i was a timid child, and he would try to force me into situations where i would have to form some confidence. i would wiggle out of that shit pretty quick. he is a force to be reckoned with, bottom line. one time we found one of his elementary school report cards, and a teacher had written a paragraph on dad’s rebelling attitude and apparently as a tot he acknowledged to this lady he had a problem with authority. dad will do what he wants to do, when he wants to do it, and does not care what anyone thinks.
he also has a keen bullshit detector. my father grew up in p.g. county, and he will fuck you up. there have been many times where i’ve witnessed his confrontations with people, and these poor guys just seemed stunned. as i’ve grown older, i’ve come to realize that i have picked up a little of his temper. when i got rammed by a salt truck this past winter, i called the large truck driver a fucker. to his face.
he is also very funny. he loves george carlin and frank zappa. he follows no one blindly, but he is a staunch democrat. he dislikes the police. he likes being silly. both of my parents love music, and it was just such a huge element growing up. there was always music playing. he is incredibly protective. he would hurt himself to protect us. he loves learning new things, reading or watching the discovery channel. he loves animals.
he is the strongest man i know, and probably will ever know.
