U gents enjoy those dads. 

My bride’s ‘daddy’ is recovering from successful cancer removal from his one remaining kidney.  He woke-up to find they didn’t have to remove it, it made his day.  He’s a great ol’ vital cat with a penchant for unusual carpentry and cabinetmaking, a prior passion for dirt-track racing…that he’s since stopped doing after rolling his ¾ midget a half a dozen times and part way up the fence, & a present love of flying over the high desert where the family hangar is. 

The last conversation I had with my pop was the night before getting on a plane to Okinawa, I was 21, & it was the one & only perfect & wholly not-uncomfortable conversation I ever had with him.  It went on for hours into the early morning…as he brought me up to date about the ‘real truths’ of his life…and my childhood with a man who had most all memory of his family stripped of him on the operating table.  It was as if he had a premonition that it may be the last time we’d speak.  He was a riot & his eyes were filled with earnest meaning (& a warmth I only knew on rare occasions growing-up) as we sipped bottled beer at the kitchen table of my childhood.  He left me in love with him; finally, as a son should love a dad…but did not completely remove the angst and anger from all the bagnasty years, …which is always a good thing to hang on to.  Afterall, what would life be without the demons rising every now & then by firelight?

What’s my point?  Well, it’s a blessing…is all…to be able to grind gravel with the original source of your misery whenever you wana, …even if it seems not to be sometimes.  I’d love one more shot with m’ pop:  …Wish in one hand…I know.  Since his death, my mom has sent me soul-packages of old pictures, a couple of local news stories that he was partly the subject in, and some letters he’d written from Korea and Hawaii, etc.  I’ve come (after all these years) to realize he was a heck-of-a-guy before brain surgery.  Those who knew him then, admired him as a good friend…and an avid adventurer.

~~

[thread hijack]

hey Reg, lets all meet down ‘round Miami & make an indy flick about sailing:  Like Fire & Ice (by Paul Garrison) meets The Shipkiller (by Justin Scott) meets Dead Calm (by Charles Williams/[screenplay]Terry Hayes/[director]Phillip Noyce) meets…….um… whatever you already have on paper.  heh-heh   I’ll bring my copy of Filmmaking for Dummies…& we can panhandle…or prostitute ourselves for funding like the other indy filmmakers do.  :O)