RaisingDad

My Dad's favorite sport is baseball.  I don't know why.  Maybe it's because he comes from a time when there was nothing else to do.  Back when he was growing up, it didn't matter that a baseball game could go on for hours and hours.  And hours.  What else were you going to do?  Go home, cut an apple in half, and watch it turn brown?      My wife tries to make it as enjoyable as she can for him.  She fluffs his pillows.  She makes him snacks.  She even sits him down and turns on the TV for him.  The only problem is, he won't stay sitting down.  He gets up and goes to his room constantly.      And when he does, after ten or fifteen minutes, we'll change the channel.  But my Dad must have some kind of radar, because, when we do, that's exactly the time he decides to come back.  He'll walk into the family room, stand on one side of the TV, look at it, at us, at it, ...

There's an old joke that goes:       An elderly man says to his doctor, "Doc, I have this problem.  I keep throwing these silent little farts all day long.  (See?  There goes one now) .  I can't help it, doc.  I keep farting and farting, but they make no noise.  ( Oops!  There goes another one.)   I don't know what's wrong with me.  I can throw the most massive farts, and they'll make no sound.  ( Ahhh, that's three in a row.)   What do you think?"      "Well," the doctor says.  "I think you need to have your hearing checked."        Now, I told you that story to tell you this story:        My Dad has his own room.  His room, actually, is in a guest house in the front of our main house.  If it's not called the Father-In-Law House, then it should be.  His ro...

"Honey," my wife says to me.  She's giving me her sweetest smile.  I know something's up.  "You need to repair the toilet roll holder.  Dad said it came off the cabinet."      "What?" I almost spit out my coffee.  "How did that happen?"  The holder is bolted onto the side of the cabinet, and the cabinet is made out of one inch plywood.      Actually, I know how it happened, or, at least, I can put two and two together.  It was Dad.  Godzilla may have lumbered through downtown Tokyo knocking down buildings, but Godzilla's got nothing compared to my Dad.      So when I ask my wife how it happened, I'm not really looking for an answer.  I mean, I know  how the toilet roll holder got broken, but my wife is kind enough to give me an answer anyway.      "Dad says that the house cleaner is rough on the stuff, and she probably pulle...

"Honey," my wife says to me.  She's giving me her sweetest smile.  I know something's up.  "I need you to fix the shower curtain in Dad's bathroom.  It fell."      Again ? I think to myself .      "I just fixed it," I tell her.      "Fix it again," she tells me.      "It can't be broken."      "And yet it is."      Again?  I think to myself.  Again?   I must have fixed that darn thing, what, eight, nine, ten times?  It seems I retired from a job I enjoyed just to spend my retirement fixing my Dad's shower curtain.      "The problem," I tell her, "is that Dad uses the curtain for support when he gets out of the shower.  We have the same kind of rod in our shower, and how many times has it fallen.  Zero times."      "Just fix it," my wife tells me, thus ending the ...

My father and I have just returned home from an appointment with his doctor.      It's 11am. Still early. He's studying the medicine his doctor prescribed, and which we've just picked up from the pharmacy.      "Can you believe the price of this medication?" he asks. Of course I can. I just paid for it. "Now when am I supposed to take it?"      "The doctor said you have to take it in the morning when you first wake up," I tell him, "with lots of water. Or you can take it right before you go to bed. But you have to take it on an empty stomach."      We walk into the kitchen, and seat ourselves at the table. My wife comes up to say hello.      "How did it go with the doctor?" she asks. "You guys hungry?"      I look over at my wife. It's been a long day, and it's not even noon. She can see it in my eyes....

My father was very respected in the neighborhood I grew up in. Years after my friends grew up, they would always come by to visit and pay their respects to my Mom and Dad. Even after my friends had gotten married, had kids, and moved far away to the promise land of California.      Myself, after I grew up, visiting the parents of my friends was one of the last things I was interested in doing.* I'd list it just behind getting my prostate checked. One of my friend's dads was our grade school's janitor. It's an honorable job. We never stopped making fun of him.      One story/legend about my father that circulated around the kids in the neighborhood was how in World War II he saved his platoon in the Philippines by catching a bomb that had been dropped from a Japanese warplane. I don't know where this story originated. I never heard Dad kid us about it, or make reference to it. As kids, me and...

My father and I were sitting at the kitchen table, having just finished a five-star breakfast prepared lovingly by my wife, and we continued to sit there enjoying a nice cup of gourmet coffee. Gourmet coffee is one of my few indulgences.      We were reading the morning newspaper, or, rather, my Dad was reading the newspaper.  I usually help myself to the sections he doesn't enjoy reading, which means I sit there paperless, because my father hoards the newspaper like Hints From Heloise was printed on gold.  I buy the paper, and my Dad reads it.      Go figure.      It's been that way ever since I was a kid.  My Dad got the newspaper first, and no one else was allowed to even consider swiping a section of it until he was done.  Not even the comic section.      "Dad," my wife asked my father sweetly, with the patience of a Mother Theresa, "do you want any ice c...