So, Happy Father's Day

I don't know how my dad did it.

I mean, he raised four boys, and he didn't succumb to the temptation to strangle any of us. I mean, hell, I'm part of a set of triplets (egearman and mithras are the other two), and we had to have been a handful.

Hell, I'll say this... if I had three boys, and they were as big a pain in the ass as we were, I'd be in jail right now for playing "punt the adolescent". (It would probably be the junior version of me that got the seven-league ass-kicking too.) I mean, if we weren't getting suspended from riding the schoolbus (which really isn't a punishment for the kid, it's a punishment for the parents), we were getting in-school suspension, detention, or the occassional note from the teacher about anti-social behavior or a disruptive attitude (I didn't mean to infer that the entire 4th grade class I was in were morons. They were, but that's not the point.) The PTA conferences must have been very interesting. "Oh, you're Mr. and Mrs. Gearman. Somehow, I thought you'd look more haggard."

And then there was the destructive shit we pulled at home after school, on the weekends, or during the summer. The chemical stain on the driveway from the chemistry set. The chemical stain on the back porch from the chemistry set. (Mom, Dad, this was an obvious mistake. You gave a chemistry set to us. What were you thinking?) The hole in the wall from a thrown chair (at me, by egearman), the lacerations to the linoleum, the burnt holes in the living room carpet (egearman again, only mithras got the initial beating for it.), at least two screen door replacements, poorly planned attempts to get onto the roof of the house, various other arsonistic escapades (which resulted in a variety of punishments, including a loss of some Boy Scout skill awards). mithras taking apart the goddamned TV, and to this day still blaming my mother for that. (She woke him up, so obviously, it's his fault he went into the garage TWICE for tools to take apart the TV.)

Teaching us how to swim (while we were actively trying to drown each other) teaching us how to drive (to this day, I don't think any of us have learned how to drive a manual transmission car, but it's not for lack of my father swearing profusely about clutch pads), teaching us how to play bridge (no, we can't bid worth a shit either), and trying to teach us gun safety (yeah, another bad idea, you should have seen that) and only ending up with a briefcase being shot. Instilling in us (well, me for sure, not sure about the other two) a love of John Wayne movies, war movies, World War II history. So many other lessons that, you know, we probably didn't get at the time, and a few we probably don't get now.

Happy Father's Day.