toodle-loo

Today was a long time coming but it finally came. My dad called me at 4:00 this morning and announced that he was sick and tired of being sick and tired and had made the decision to seek professional help, I was tasked with chauffeuring him to a better place. My dad’s idea of professional help and my mother’s idea of professional help are polar opposites. My dad seeks a spiritual rebirth while my mother wants to pump him full of drugs. Dad has always loved drugs but he has never trusted his health to the medical industrial complex. I guess one man’s meat is another man’s poison.

It was a bitter sweet moment when dad emerged from the house with his tattered alligator suitcase that once belonged to his grandfather, my great grandfather. In contrast to the tattered suitcase he was wearing his best suit and had a brand new pair of adidas gazelle sneakers on his gnarly old feet. He just stood in the doorway like a cigar store Indian until mother gave him a good shove and slammed the door. As I approached him it became clear that he had been crying. Was this really my father?

I took the suitcase from his feeble hand and was surprised by the weight, it was a lot heavier than it looked. Dad noticed the look of surprise on my face and whispered in my ear, “pennies from heaven son.” I managed to stow the old suitcase in the trunk of my trusty corolla and we were on our way but there was only one problem, where were we going? Dad handed me a scrap of paper with an address and we were on our merry way. The address turned out to be the greyhound bus depot.

My poor old dad struggled to get out the car and retrieve his suitcase from the trunk of the old corolla and then we just stood staring at each other for what seemed an eternity. I noticed more tears streaming down from his once bright eyes. he gave me a very tender embrace and once more he whispered something in my ear: “If I don’t make it back alive, tell your mother that there’s fifty pounds of gold hidden in the basement and 3 tins of hundred dollar bills buried in back yard. That should drive the old cunt nuts.”

As I watched dad enter the bus depot, it was my turn to shed a few tears and I noticed a scrap of paper he had slipped into my shirt pocket. It was the address of this blog along with his password and a note saying he loved the sons of bitches who read his blog and a request for me to tell his story but that will have to wait for another day when my grief has abated.

I’m going to miss the old reprobate.