Video Trek III: The Search For Dad - Part 1...

"So, I turned in my resignation, effective August 31st."

I couldn't believe it. Or, more likely, I wasn't sure if I was ready to believe it. Dad was actually going to retire.

I mean, here I was sitting there eating some chips and having a pleasant chat with my father. Chats between the two of us had never been really lengthy when I was younger. While my dad and I knew that we loved each other, we just never seemed to have the shared common interests that would help facilitate a conversation that would extend beyond the normal topics of school, work, financial responsibility and the building of good personal moral fibre.

It was either that or I was just too (insert lame excuse here) to make the attempt. It was usually easier to share things with either my mom, my grandfather or one of my older brothers. Those three and I had more common ground than I did with my dad, which meant that whenever a major crisis in my life erupted, they were usually the first to know about it.

One of the things I never fully appreciated growing up was that my father frequently had a hard time showing his emotions, a nasty side effect of losing his own father when he was a young lad of fourteen. My dad went through a tough time dealing with the sudden death of his dad and rarely ever discusses his childhood with the rest of the family.

It was a tough time in his life for Dad, which I understood and never tried to push him to talk about. It wasn't that he never would talk about growing up in Missouri or his dad, it's just that whenever he would start you could see almost a dark, lonely spot in his eyes that he'd never admit to anyone, except maybe my mom.

By all accounts, my biological grandfather was a kind, loving and hard working man. He tried to raise his sons with a good work ethic and to be good and decent men. While my grandfather died of a heart condition early in the lives of my dad and my uncle, he still left a mark in my dad's character.

My grandmother remarried shortly after the death of my grandfather, marrying her childhood sweetheart who soon moved my grandmother, my dad and my uncle to live with him in California. My step-grandfather treated the boys like they were his own sons, which carried over to the next generation.

I had always thought it was weird that my dad's parents didn't have the same last name as my dad or uncle, but I never knew my step-granddad as anything other than my real grandfather. He always spoiled us rotten and I never quite made the connection that he wasn't a blood relative until I was around twelve. By then, I didn't really much care. He was my granddad, I loved that man and I cried for a week after he passed away almost twelve years ago.

After my granddad passed, my grandmother came to live with us for awhile. By then she was slipping deeper into Alzheimer's Disease, which had the effect of her losing her short-term memory while her long-term memory was still reasonably in tact.

For a period of six months, I was my grandma's babysitter of sorts. I'd take her on errands, to go play bingo, cook for her and more. By then, she was starting to mix me up with "Louie", which was my biological grandfather's first name.

I started to hear bits and pieces of family history. "Hey, Louie, remember when we took the boys down to Lake of the Ozarks and..."

The thing I kick my ass over was that I didn't think to record these conversations. True, I'm sure that several of these memories could have been mixed together from a variety of her past memories, but I kept hoping to one day talk to my dad about a few of them to get his side.

Sadly, it was a conversation that I never had the courage to pursue to it's fullest. Dad and I talked about a couple of things that I could remember a few years later, but always after a few minutes, I can see that dark pain resurface in his blue eyes.

Happy memories or not, the time predating his family's move to California is typically a no-fly zone. You have to wait for Dad to escort you through restricted brainspace before you can ask what questions you have.

And you know, I'm alright with that. He misses his dad, which always made it tough during Easter (one Easter many years ago was the day that grandpa "Louie" died). Dad loved having his kids hunt Easter eggs and getting sick to their stomachs off jelly beans and Peeps, but it was tough on him some years. He'd never tell us why and he was good at hiding it, but yet you could somehow sense that something was amiss.

It took myself years and several rough experiences of my own to realize and to understand a little of the mindset. I never understood fully why my father is the way he is, but I can damn well say that I didn't appreciate him a tenth of how I do now.

As my brother, older and wiser than yours truly, once told me, "Dude, you have to just accept two things when it comes to Dad. First off and most importantly, he loves you. He may not always 'get you' or he may not be able to share the same emotional reactions that you have, but that man will jump off a cliff, swim through a piranha-infested swamp and run through dowtown Detroit at 3AM for his family. He does listen. He does care. He may not always share the opinion you want to hear from him, but he does what he thinks is best, decent and good. Secondly, stop eating all his peanuts and drinking all his root beer when you go to visit. Seriously, dude, that's just rude."

My dad is also a very decent, hard-working, loving and honest man. He made it to just about every baseball or soccer game (even when he wasn't coaching the teams himself!), Scout meeting, camping trip and major school event or play that he could for my brothers and I. He rarely missed a thing and when he had to, it killed him to do so.

Heh. That was another thing I never fully appreciated. Man do I feel like the fucking asshole or what for being such a little ingrate now, huh? Sheesh.

I will say this about Dad. He never shirked in working his ass off at home or at the office. His moral code was simple: do the right thing without expecting anything in return, be honest in everything you do, work hard, love your family and take care of them and you will live a good life.

My dad is humble, his idea of an award is the great feeling one gets from working towards a goal and seeing it successfully through to the benefit of others. He never cared for fancy plaques or medals, just the personal knowledge that he did his best.

This, of course, drives the rest of his family nuts...

*continues*