OK, I'm back but I don't know for how long.

You know, sometimes I feel guilty when I read some of the blogs here. I mean, I've got my troubles and some of them are rather severe, but I seem to have so few compared to some other people. Some days I actually go through the whole day reasonably happy. I really feel for the people who have (or had) bad relationships with their parent(s), who are totally unhappy with their life and especially those who have sunk into depression (my stepson has seasonal depression so I know how disabling it can be).

As I've mentioned before, I grew up poor, and my father, I know, was disappointed that I wasn't more like my older brother, interested in things he was. But, I was like my mother, and somewhat of a momma's boy. My father died when I was in high-school and it wasn't until years later that I missed him. But, I can still remember him (I think he looked and sounded a lot like Randolph Scott (who?)) I remember him as tall, silent (until he got drunk), and a little scary.

I suppose nowadays he would be considered abusive in his discipline, because when he punished he sometimes didn't know when to stop and my mother would have to step in. On the other hand, he seldom punished me (I can only remember 2 times), he didn't have to because I was scared of him. But I loved him nonetheless and when he did punish me, I definitely deserved it. On the other hand, when I was about 13 and they were gone somewhere at night and I rode my bicycle down a pitch-black road for a couple of miles and went to a drive-in theatre in direct defiance to orders, when I got back home he was more worried than mad and, I think, sort of accepting that I was getting old enough to defy the rules a bit.

You see, his father was much worse than him. His father had the rule that before any of his sons could leave the house they had to fight him and win. On the other hand, my grandfather was a very small, scrawny man, so I don't think it would have been to hard to satisfy his requirements for leaving. My dad was the only one who wouldn't do it. I have the image (from stories I'm told, of course), of my dad as a very young man walking down a country road, his father right behind him demanding that he fight him. And my dad (again, according to the story), saying "I'm not going to fight you, but I AM going to leave." So you see, he understood that period when a boy becomes a man and HAS to violate SOME rules. But he absolutely would not put up with lying, stealing, cheating, etc. (not being an honorable man, in other words).

My dad was a hunter and fisherman (most of the meat we had for our meals came from these efforts). By the time I was old enough to notice, his days as a farmer were over other than a few vegetables in a small plot, and he was working for an oil company in very menial physical work, the kind that men go into the army to avoid. Then, when he got home, he would bath and then go hunting. Bathing, by the way, was frequently in the creek (and boy, can that be cold), because we had to heat water on the stove and then put it in a big washtub for baths (we had an out house, too, in case you're wondering). I can remember sitting in that tub in the middle of the kitchen floor when the neighbor lady came over and I can remember shivering as the water cooled because I wouldn't get out until she and my mother finished talking.

Anyway, I can remember my dad getting ready to go hunting and because he wouldn't be back until well after dark, he wore a carbide light on his hat. Now I doubt that many of you have ever seen such a thing, but it consists of a container when you put the carbide (a solid, rock-looking substance), another with water and a valve that mixes the two slowly. Carbine, when combined with water emits a gas which burns rather vigorously and with a very powerful white light. This was then reflected with a reflector sort of like the one inside a flashlight. And SMELL. Oh, what a horrible, horrible smell. Of course, normally you're outside so the smell dissipates, but when it's first lighted, wow!

Then he would take his .22, and go hunting, bringing home (usually after I was already asleep), anywhere from four to a dozen squirrels. Most were shot through the eye (they naturally look at the light my dad wore and their eyes made natural targets) which meant that the meat wasn't torn up. The next morning, before going to school, I would help him skin the squirrels, a skill I feel I have little need for in my modern life, but one which I still possess.

Fishing was usually on weekends and sometimes I went but mostly I just had to get up at 5:00 A.M. on Saturday, go down to the creek with him, strip off, and help him seine some minnows to use fishing. Now, I was shorter than him and he might only be in up to his waist, but I was up to my neck and sometime (when I stepped in one of those hidden holes) a little more.

Anyway, that's a little bit about my dad (of course, coming from the part of the country I did, he wasn't "dad", he was "daddy"). I wasn't particularly close to him, but it sure seems like it was a better relationship than a lot of kids have nowadays, and I really feel sorry about that. Makes me sort of guilty at times.