Wed 6 Jul 2011
I Want My Dad Back
Posted by jasonalberty under Family Tales
[2] Comments
I went home this last weekend to see the folks, and the first thing my dad does is say, “Hey, come downstairs. I got something for you. But you don’t have to take it if you don’t want it.”
This usually presages something that I don’t want to take with me but feel that I must, just so I don’t hurt his feelings.
What was it he had for me? A humongous wall clock. By humongous I don’t necessarily mean large in diameter, more than in how far it would protrude from the wall: it was nearly a foot and half in diameter, but it was at least eight inches thick.
“I got two of them, because I figured I could have one upstairs and one downstairs,” he said, opening up the face of the clock to reveal a cavernous interior with a sort of wooden pocket.
Then he said it: “You can keep your gun in here and grab it quickly when you need it.”
And he continued: “I thought having two would make it easier. But after thinking about it I figured the best place for my gun was by the bed, anyway. So you can have one if you want it.”
Okay, first the attempt at wit. I don’t even have a turkey baster, and I will damn well need a turkey baster well before I ever need a handgun in my house. And I am not in any hurry to run out and get a turkey baster.
Next, the freak-out. The idea of having my young, unabashedly intrepid mountaineering toddler-son in a house where you can easily open up a clock and grab a handgun makes me nauseous.
You may say, he’s to young to learn how to do that. I call BULSHIT on that thinking. This kid picks up the phrases “Oof da,” “How ‘bout that,” and “cunning linguist” after hearing them just once —don’t ask. He has figured out how to get chips out of the chip cabinet, even though it has a child lock on it.
Finally, the nearly debilitating sadness. I have never seen my father so scared of life. The older he gets, the more conservative and frightened he becomes. He was pulling a show from his TIVO for us to watch the other day — some military history— and his playlist consisted of this show and, I kid you not, nothing else but show after show of O’Reilly and Glen Beck.
I think he has started buying gold.
He did not used to be this way. Although in the last fifteen years I have asked him to stop discussing politics with me. When he brought up politics, his views made me so angry and sad at the same time that I could barely communicate coherently.
There was a time when we could talk about almost anything. I would love that old dad to come back. But his fear has hijacked him and, I think, made him sadder. I know it’s made me sadder.
When the Stewart/Colbert Rally to Restore Sanity occurred, there were a ton of really funny signs. One that I liked the most was a sign that a young girl was carrying. It said, “Fox News stole my grandparents. I want them back.”
I don’t think that sign is funny any more.
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