One of many things my Dad taught me

         I have read some things on the Internet and in the mainstream media the last few days that have me pretty ticked off.

 I am going to relay an event that happened almost twenty years ago. I was twenty eight years old and was living in a house I had purchased from my parents. It was November of 1990, right after Thanksgiving. I was at home on a Saturday afternoon watching College Football when my Dad rang my doorbell. I lived next door, so in his mind it was easier than calling on the phone.
        My Dad was an officer in a church organization that went out whenever they were asked and delivered food to needy families. A call had come in that a family had been overlooked in the need for Thanksgiving baskets, and had no food or money. He needed someone to go with him, and asked me.

     First we went to the church and made a basket from the goods in their pantry. We took a Turkey from the Church basement freezer that was extra from the big basket delivery that had been done on Wednesday. Then we went to a market and purchased milk, fresh bread and vegetables.
     
       I drove us to the home of this family, in a real crap hole of a neighborhood a few miles from ours.
     The paperwork said there were four children ages 3 to 9 in the home. At the door a large Jabba the hut like man started screaming at us that he could feed his own damn family and get the f**K off his property.
     Then he turned to the woman and started beating her, chastising her for calling for help, and he stated that it was good he hadn't left for work yet.
      I wanted to intervene, but my Dad stopped me, and told me to get back in my truck. We drove away, and he had me pull into a fast food drive thru and get him some coffee and I got myself a soda. He had me park and he turned on the radio. We listened to a football game for a few minutes, and then he turned it off.
    "Let's go back" he ordered.
  "Why?" I asked.
   "You heard the fat man, he was about to leave for work. He might be gone by now."

  So I drove back, and the nasty bastard was gone. The mother looked like hell but I kept my mouth shut. She had enough problems. The kids asked us many questions and thanked us for the food. The oldest girl was especially happy to get chocolate pop tarts.

      As we drove home, I asked my Dad why he bothered going back, after the way the so called Father had spoke to him, and he told me something that I never forgot and I remember to this day.
   "I won't let kids go hungry just because their dad's an asshole."

   I translated that as I should never hold what a parent does against the children.

   You can think what you want of me, and whatever actions I should have taken and did not that day, but it was a different time and place. I have not forgotten the lesson.

    And that is why when I see people posting comments on blogs, facebook, or other social media disparaging children because  a parent or parents has done something imbecilic I shake my head in disgust.

     Whether it is the kids of Russian spies or the kids whose mother faked their kidnapping to cover her embezzlement, we can never deride the children or hold their parents sins against them.

    It is wrong to ostracize any child of any creed, race or color that way. And that's what I think of the matter.

I have had some bad weeks in my life. Last week was not the worst, but it was definitely not the best. So for tonight (Tuesday as I write this) I am going to focus on something I am happy about.

This year I finished a novel. Not 75%, n0t 90%, but 100%. I wrote it from start to finish over seven months. I based it on the outline I wrote seven years ago when my dog Fred died. This past Saturday Ethel joined him. In a way, I guess it symbolizes the cycle of life. I finished a book based on Fred, I have started one about Rags, the dog that preceded him, and now I wrote a brief history of Ethel to work from later.

I am happy that I had three such faithful furry friends around me, during my many good and bad times. I still have Lucy and Sally, and God willing, there will be more in the future.
But there is one distant memory I recalled, that in my all recent sorrow, managed to make me smile.

When I was growing up we had all kinds of animals around our home, not just cats and dogs, but rabbits, ducks, hamsters, and even a tortoise. And like all living things, eventually they would die, and my Dad would inter them in our personal family pet cemetery at the rear of our yard. In doing so, we would say an Our Father, a few words about our late pet, and then bow our heads. Dad would always close things up by telling the same old joke about an old Irishman and his dog. Dad would always change the name of the dog to the same as that of the pet we were burying, I think it was his way of reaching out to comfort whoever was mourning.



The joke went like this:

There was an old Irishman who had a faithful dog that went with him wherever he went. One day the dog died, and the Irishman wanted to give him a proper burial, so he went down the road to the nearest church, which happened to be Protestant. He walked up to the pastor and asked if he would have a service in memory of the dog, and let him bury the dog on the church's hallowed ground. "Lord, no," replied the pastor sternly. "We can't go burying a dog in the cemetery with people."
Disappointed, the old Irishman thanked him for his time, and went down the road to the next church, which happened to be Baptist.
Once again, the pastor was adamant there as well, that burying a dog in a cemetery with people just wasn't done.
So the Irishman went back on the road and continued along until he came to the local Catholic church.
From the Priest he got more of the same. "We just don't bury dogs in our cemetery," the priest shook his head sadly. "It isn't proper."

The old Irishman took a step back, and with a tear in his eye, bowed his head. "I would have thought there would be one church willing to bury my dog for $500 dollars."

The Priest's attitude immediately changed, and he let out a hearty laugh. "By God man, of course you can bury your dog here! Why didn't you tell me the dog was Catholic!"

White Right Shoe, Blue Left Shoe

I'm Cheap. My lovely wife, the wonderful Mrs C, will attest to this. I am a bit on the frugal side, but today's trip down memory lane took place back in the summer of 1993, when I was a wee lad of 31.
I was working at a place called the Salesian Center Boys and Girls club, a one man work force that cared for and operated an 8 lane bowling alley on the 2nd floor at 45 south 6th street in Columbus Ohio. It was the home of the Downtown Boys and Girls Club, and was operated by the Brothers of a Religious order founded by St. Don Bosco.
When you walked by on the downtown City Streets next door to what was then Grant Medical Center, you could look up, into the windows, and see the back of the Bowling machines, as well as hear them when people were Bowling.
They operated a summer camp during the day, which consisted of 8 hours of me teaching kids between the ages of 7 -14 the fine art of bowling.

Yes, you read that right. Every hour, 24 kids, 8 lanes, one coach, and I had a helper, 18 year old blue eyed, blond haired, fresh out of Bishop Watterson high school Emily. Emily was about 5 feet tall, and 100 pounds soaking wet on a good day. It was the two of us and Twenty Four inner city minority children, many of whom had never picked up a bowling ball before.

Just so you know, it was by far the most rewarding summer of my life.

Anyway, at that time, I lived in my house with a roommate by the name of Fred the Dog, a Buff colored purebred Cocker Spaniel. Fred liked to chew things, especially shoes, and it came to pass that Fred ate a pair of my high top Nike shoes.
Fortunately, I had two pairs I had purchased at a two for one sale.

Unfortunately, Fred ate one from each pair.

Fortunately, he ate one right foot shoe, and one left foot shoe.

Now I could have been mad, but my reasoning was this: I still had one good pair!
Who cares if they are different colors? I didn't! So it came to pass that I wore them as a pair, and was openly mocked (in a fun way) by other Center Employees.

I did have a casual lady friend at this time, who had graduated from Ohio State with a degree in Social work, and was a practicing Catholic like myself. I introduced her to her future husband, by the way, and all you need to know about her is that she enjoyed instigating water balloon fights on the playground. She was aghast that I would wear those mismatched shoes everyday, and secretly took up a collection to buy me a new pair, which were presented to me on the last day of camp in August. After that, I felt obligated to wear the new shoes, so I retired the others for when I was doing things around the house, like Lawn mowing.

Mrs C will tell you, that to this day, I do not throw out old pairs of shoes. They are in the garage, waiting for that moment that they can be used again. You never know when I might need them. as for that pair of mismatched Blue/White Shoes? eventually Fred the Dog ate those as well. It was one of many indulgences I granted my wife's "Bow Bud."
How did he get that name? That's another story, another day.