My dad grew up with an abusive dad on a farm in Ohio. Went to 'Nam in the Navy as a ship mechanic, ended up body bagging his buddies before the end of it all. Had an incident with a belt grinder that left him without one of his fingers (he now has three missing on one hand), so he was honorably discharged.
After that, he worked on small engines, then moved into carpentry. He basically worked non-stop to provide for my mother and us boys (I have two brothers, one 2 years younger and one 7 years younger). I rarely ever saw him because he was always working, and it meant that we never got to spend much time outside of when I was in Little League. It meant I ended up being more into the stuff that my mother was interested in (books, movies, music, arts in general) rather than my father's interests (cars, outdoors, fishing, etc). It made it difficult to really talk to him.
As I grew up, I started eventually working my way into some of that stuff that my father was into (I'm not a gearhead necessarily, but I love working on my own car). We were able to finally start talking about more stuff, but then my parents "found God" about a year or two ago.
That has probably caused the most strain on our relationship, as they feel the need to try shoving those beliefs down peoples' throats, and I am not okay with that form of "Christianity". In turn, I'm basically a heathen in their eyes that they will still talk to because they don't want to abandon their kids. Nonetheless, I get a different look from them now than I did before.
So yeah...my dad was cool growing up, if not a bit short-tempered and took the belt to us a little too quickly. However, he's been a hard-working muthafucker for most of his life for little in return. Nonetheless, while some people can say "well, my dad left when I was...", I can say "my dad is there, but he's not there like he used to be". It's kind of a shitty feeling. This is the man that introduced me to Led Zeppelin, and now he's the man that shuns Zep because it's not Christian music.
I still love the man, but he's not the man I knew.
Log in to comment