This has turned into an awful trip. One bad turn after another. Getting no help from the Mother Ship, either. I wish I was in a better mood, but I'm not. I'm edgy, a little bit snappy, and my sense of humor is ragged at best. Hmm. Ragged is one of those words that looks misspelt every time I look at it. As does misspell.
OK, while I wait for the tech support callback (it's a sev 1 issue, shouldn't take them long), I'm going to think about, and write about, something completely different.
COS (change of subject).
My father was the strongest person I know. I say "was" because he died several years ago. I'm not saying that to garner sympathy, it just is. My memories of him during childhood are vibrant, painted across my inner cortex.
You see, I would never say that my father was smart. He was no idiot, but he was the kind of guy who had to labor for his living. As a young child in Kentucky, this meant that work was often sparse to non-existent. During my very early years, he drifted from one construction job to the next, never making very much money and never being able to stay with one outfit for very long. This was no fault of his, he worked very hard and was a skilled heavy equipment operator. However, it wasn't like the housing booms of the recent years...underground work was sporadic at best, and he would be hired for one job, then spend several months on unemployment. He got tired of the uncertainty and his family's poverty, so he went to a trade school to be an electrician... I remember looking over his shoulder at electrical drawings, being fascinated by what he was studying. He would teach me things, like Ohm's law and how electricity would always seek the shortest path to ground. I was his helper on small side projects for various family/friends, using the needle-nose pliers to twist the wires together inside of junction boxes and electrical outlets, finishing them off with trafic-cone orange wire nuts...wiring up switches and light fixtures, running to the truck for more conduit, or the other toolbelt. I would hand him the tools, just like I did when he worked on the car or fixed the gate on the chicken pen.
"Son, hand me the side-cutters and the lineman's."
"Here you go, Dad."
You see, I loved my father, but it was more than that. I worshiped him, like many young boys do. I worked hard to emulate him. I wanted to be big like him, strong like him. I wanted to have big feet like him, to drive like him, to fix things like him.
My father was not perfect. He had his bad ways and bad days, and there was a mingling of fear in our relationship. However, I refuse to let that define my memory of him, and I won't tarnish the brightness of my recollections in order to justify some fault of my own. He did not earn that, nor does he deserve it.
He loved me, I loved him, and that was enough.
I miss you, Dad.
