Things I Learned About My Father

I learned a lot about my family this Mother's Day. I learned how, when my Nanny (mom's mom) was pregnant with my mother, my great-grandma gave her whiskey sours to help with the labor pains. (This did not go over well with her [dick of] a doctor. [He was not a dick because he rightfully scolded her about this, but rather other actions too long to get into in a blog preview.]) Can you imagine that happening today? (My mom turned out fine, bee tee dubs.) I also learned how, when my mom was giving birth to me, my father SCREAMED at the doctor right in the middle of all the ahem, action, "WHAT THE F@#$ ARE YOU DOING TO HER?" (The doctor replied coolly, "Trying to get this baby out." ZING! And ew.) But these stories weren't HALF as good as the ones I learned about my dad when he was 17-18 years old.

My dad, around the time of these delightful stories. (What an impressive BEARD.)

 
So apparently, around this age, my dad flipped two cars. I know no real details about these two events (I don't know where they happened, what kind of cars they were, etc) but, the best part about these car flips (or, at least, one of the flips) was that there were two passengers in the car with my dad. And they weren't wearing their seatbelts. So my dad used his massive right arm to keep his friend in the front in his seat as the car flipped over. And it worked. (The guy in the back seat just bounced around. He was okay too. I don't see how that's possible, but okay.) As he told me how he used his one extremity to save his friend's life, my dad started to cackle. "You should have seen his face!," he laughed. "Holy Toledo, bro," I thought. (Supposedly, the only injury the front seat guy sustained was to his tongue ... which he bit himself. Ha ha.)

And finally, the other story I heard happened when my parents were still dating. I guess they were in their early 20s. My dad came home after a long night out with friends, driving his new car - an old trooper car. He pulled into his driveway (the house which is currently next to my house [my grandfather paved the street I live on, and built its first two houses! It kinda went like: My grandfather: "I need a place to live!" Township workers: "There's an unpaved road here." *points on a map* My grandfather: "Perfect. This road is mine."]), and promptly fell asleep, his foot on the break.

The next morning, he woke up with a bolt and slammed on the gas, thinking, for whatever reason, 1) the car was already in reverse and 2) he was about to collide with the closed garage door. Except, the car was still in drive, so collide he did. Oops. The car was fine, but the garage door was toast. His mom, my grandma, ran out of the house, screaming. My dad got out of the car, walked into the house, lied on the couch, and went to back to sleep.

This was no big deal, because apparently, my grandpa had a spare garage door anyway! How oddly convenient. So him (my grandpa) and my uncle popped the new door on and it was like it never happened.

Now, despite his checkered past, if either of these things happened to me ... wait, I should phrase that differently. If I did either of these things, I would either be a) dead, or b) in deep trouble. And no doubt severely in debt and potentially arrested. Man. The seventies were a different time.

Now, my dad shakes his head if I drive down the shore on a weekday night (usually to visit a friend, or go to art show;, how much more wholesome can you get?!) and holy crow, did he play a intense game of 20 Questions with me when I nonchalantly mentioned a potential trip to Russia next spring. My dad. The man. The enigma. The silent giant. What a crazy, unexplored past he has.