as featured in Desert Exposure Magazine
RaisingDad
by Jim and Henry Duchene
A Frisky Four
"What was he thinking?"
...one...
Back when I was a kid, my parents bought me a very expensive gift for Christmas.
It must have cost them a pretty penny and, trust me, a pretty penny was a lot of money in those days. Ugly pennies, not so much. Being in the lower single digits age-wise, I played more with the box than the gift that came inside.
The following Christmas, not knowing they were talking about me, I overheard my father tell my mother, "Why not give him another box and buy something for ourselves instead?”
...two…
Somehow, my brother remembers those holidays like this: "Remember when Santa brought me a bike? It was an expensive, top of the line Schwinn and must have cost mom and dad a month's salary. All he left you was an air pump, two tire tubes, and a dollar. When you asked dad why, he told you, 'If your brother gets a flat, Santa wants you to fix it. The dollar is for you to buy him a soda while he waits.' It was the best Christmas ever!"
...three…
My wife and I ran into an old buddy of mine at Costco. He was with his wife. Sadly, he’s in the early stages of Alzheimer's.
He and I sat down in the snack area to catch up with one another. I even bought him a slice of pizza because 1) I was hungry, and 2) if I waited for him to buy me a pizza I'd be waiting a very long time. I'm not saying he's cheap, I'm just saying copper wire was invented when he and his brother fought over a penny. Meanwhile, his wife and mine wandered off to see who could empty their bank account first.
On the drive home, my wife confided that she asked how it was having a husband with Alzheimer's.
"Great," my buddy’s wife answered. "Whenever he’s feeling frisky, I tell him, 'Honey, we were just in the bedroom. Don't you remember?' He’s too proud to say he forgot, so he'll say 'Oh, yeah,' and wander off for a nap. I haven't had to fuss with him for months."
All I can say is…. I hope I never get Alzheimer's.
...four…
Speaking of Alzheimer’s, even before my father was diagnosed with it he never had an internal editor to filter out the things he shouldn't say. If you had a question, but didn't want an honest answer, my father was not the one to ask. He was more than blunt, he was brutal.
Another thing he was, especially before he was married, was a hound dog. If you've ever heard the old blues song Nosy Joe by Bull Moose Jackson, it pretty much tells the story of my father's bachelor years.
I remember once going with him to look at a truck he saw advertised in the classified section of the newspaper. He was planning on going alone, but my mother made him take me along. She didn’t want him getting into any shenanigans afterward.
He pulled up to the house and we both got off. When he knocked on the door a very attractive lady greeted us and then went inside to call her husband. When he stepped outside my father was already checking out the truck which was parked in the driveway with a For Sale sign taped to the inside of the rear window.
"So," the man said, "are you thinking about buying my truck?"
"No," my father told him, "I'm just looking at your truck. What I'm thinking about is your wife."
******************************
I’m not getting old, I’m becoming a classic.
@JimDuchene
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