The Captain Doesn't Fall Far From The Tree....Or Does He?? Wait a minute....Is this some kind of fucking riddle?

      Now that we have a good idea of who I am, Gentle Reader, I think it is time to talk about where I come from. Even a superhero comes out of a uterus at some point. I had a wonderfully perfect, all-American childhood. My mother was a stay-at-home mom. My father coached my baseball team. Everything should have been all shits and giggles, right? But apparently, it wasn't. My father once bought my mother a shotgun for their anniversary. Nothing says "I love you, baby," like a 20-gauge pump-action boom-stick. A few months later, he slyly asks, "Honey, if you aren't going to be using that gun I bought you, would you mind if I went hunting with it?" Yeah, real fucking smooth, Pops. That will fool her. Considering he took it with him after the divorce, I guess it was never really hers to begin with.

      My father has been a womanizing drinker as long as I can remember. I can barely remember going out to a restaurant with my family, and my dad NOT hitting on the waitress. I don't think he could help it. It was a reflex, like squinting your eyes when the sun's in your face. At least I get it honestly. It is just part of who he is. My mother had the flu once, when my brother and I were quite little. She was badly sick and bedridden. My father came home from work that first day, and he asked how she was feeling and could he get her anything. She replied, "I don't feel well at all. Would you mind making me something to eat?" Apparently, a bologna sandwich was the blue plate special. Upon arriving home on the second day, my father asked the same thing. Again, she replied, "I don't feel well at all. Would you mind making me something to eat?" Guess what, Gentle Reader? Bologna sandwich again. So, by the third day, my mother had put up with enough. This time she said, "Please, if you don't mind, could you make me something HOT to eat?" Being that selfless, giving man that he is, my dad thought, "OH HELL NO! I don't mind at all. Nothing is too good for the mother of MY children. If she is sick and wants something hot to eat; that is damn well what she will get." And he promptly returned......with a fried bologna sandwich.

      As I grew older, my father began to come home later and later. Drunker and drunker. When finally faced with leaving the house or quitting drinking, he claimed he was only drinking so much because he recently found out he had lymphnoma. Had I been older and wiser, I would have pointed out that it's actually lymphoma. Without the "N." If you are going to tell a lie, at least make sure you spell it right. So, he told us he had lymphnoma, he would have to go to chemotherapy/radiation, and he might not make it. We...were...devastated. Like the way rednecks felt when they heard Dale Earnhardt died. My mother went in to work on Monday, and promptly asked for a day off to take him to his treatment. She called my father to tell him that she got time off, so she could go with him to the doctor. His response? "What the hell are you talking about?" She is talking about taking you to chemo, Pops. "Chemo? I don't need chemo. I have a spot of carcinoma on my nose. They are going to just take it off at the doctor's office." When my mother lost it, and said, "Jesus Christ, you told us you had LYMPHNOMA!" Being the smooth motherfucker that he is, my dad simply said, "A 'noma' is a 'noma'." More philosophical words have never been spoken. A fucking "noma" is a "noma." 

      I think that we all sometimes worry that we will follow in the worst of our parents' footsteps. We try so hard not to simply repeat their mistakes.  I could always say my father was a drunk, my grandfather was a drunk, so I never had a chance;  I could let that be my crutch, my excuse for why I do the things that I do. Our lives always seem so much worse when looked at through a microscope. We all feel inferior at times when we look at other people's lives. I realize that my childhood was amazing compared to most. I appreciate everything that my parents did for me. I loved and still do love my father. He taught me how to play baseball, how to shave, and how to talk a girl into letting me take her virginity. Thanks Pops! The stories I shared were the low-lights, but people still think my childhood was perfect. Not that it was bad, it was great, but sometimes you just need to stop looking around and appreciate what you had or have now. Things aren't always as good as they look from the outside looking in.

      I think this same theory applies to our love-lives. At one time or another, whether happily married now or not, I think we have all looked around and wondered "What the hell is going on around here?" This person is fatter, uglier, and dumber than me and THEY have a family. They SEEM happily married. How the fuck did that happen? Why not me? When is it going to be my turn? Why don't I deserve what they have? What did I do wrong? First off, love is about more than looks and brains. I hope we have all learned that by now. Second, we have to learn to realize that most of these poor bastards are miserable anyway. They jumped on the first train that came by. The divorce rate is nearly 50% in this country, and that's only because the other half hasn't reached that point yet. I know that something really special will come along for me one day. It just isn't my time. There is someone out there whose eyes will light up whenever I enter the room, and I now refuse to ever settle for anything short of that. Not sure when that will be for me, because if she reads even half of this blog, she would have to be somewhere close to out of her fucking mind to even give me a chance. But that's okay, crazy wife from the future. Daddy likey the crazies. Until next time, Gentle Reader.