RaisingDad

I don't know if my father is exceptionally funny or incredibly rude. Having to live with him, it's healthier for my sanity if I think he's funny.      When we were visiting my sick uncle at the hospital, my father reached over and grabbed his younger brother by the wrist. He then looked at his own wrist, as if he were a doctor taking a patient's pulse.      "Either you're dead," he told him, "or my watch has stopped."      We all got a good laugh out of that one because he was imitating Groucho Marx and we were all big Groucho fans. The Marx Brothers made some of the rare movies that my father and I have been able to bond over. Even Zeppo couldn't ruin them for us.      Sadly, that didn't cheer my uncle up for long.      "It's not good news," he told us, gravely.      "What is it?" I asked him, but I already knew. The news of his illness had already mad...

My Dad's younger brother had been doing poorly for a while now, so, when he ended up in the hospital, I offered to take my father to go see him.      "What for?" my father groused. "He's sick, not dead."      "He's not doing well, pop," I told him.      You think he's not doing well," my father said. "What about me? I haven't been able to go to the bathroom for a week ."      Too bad my dad's not lactose intolerant like I am. A glass of milk would solve his problem pronto. Anyway...      My father finally relented when my wife interceded and told him he should go. She's like a good angel sitting on his shoulder, convincing him to be a better person. Myself, my father would probably tell you that I have a devil on one shoulder and an even bigger devil on the other.      "You never know," my wife wisely concluded.      "All I know is my laxa...

Our house was a little cool today.      Let me repeat: cool , not cold.      Why?      Well, since you ask, we had to leave the front door open because of the workmen we had working on our bathroom.      My Dad, when he wasn't busy standing at the bathroom door telling the workers how to do their job, complained about the temperature all day long. I mean,  aallll day long. Myself, I like a cool house, but that means nothing to my Dad.      "It's cold in here," he said.      "Dang, it's cold in here," he said, only he didn't use the word "dang."      "Are you cold? I sure am," he said, taking a stab at passive aggressiveness.      Yeah, I know, Dad. It's so cold Congress is keeping their hands in their own pockets.      And th...

I enjoy watching baseball on TV as much as the next guy, as long as the next guy is someone who doesn't enjoy watching baseball on TV. On the other hand, my elderly father who lives with me loves watching baseball on TV, and he'll spend many happy hours sitting in front of the television set doing just that. I pay extra for the Major League Baseball channel, and, believe me, it's worth every penny.      I want to spend time with my dad, but I don't want to sit in front of the TV for hours doing nothing, so I'll grab my laptop and join him. He'll do his thing, I'll do mine, and somewhere along the line we'll even exchange a few words.      Recently, during a commercial of course, he asked me, "What do you do with that?"      "What do I do with what?" I asked him back.      I must admit, I wasn't paying much attention.      "What do you do with your computer?"   ...

I've already told you the story of how my father diarrhea-bombed the Japanese during World War II when he was stationed in the Phillipines, and this story happened around the same time.      My father and his platoon were camped near a cliff. I don't understand the logistics of how the foxholes were laid out, but that's where they were. For some reason, the Japanese soldiers they were fighting were camped at the bottom of that cliff. For the most part, they left each other alone. There was no order on either side to attack, and no one wanted to die, so each group tried to pretend as best they could that the other group wasn't there.      It's pretty boring being a soldier. When you were camped, there was absolutely nothing to do. You could talk with your buddies, but after a while you begin to hear the same stories being repeated over and over redundantly, just like this sentence.      Duri...

We are having our Thanksgiving dinner this afternoon at 1600 hours. (That's 4:00 pm, for you non-military types .)      My wife is not only a saint, but she's also a first-class cook. Ask anybody whose eaten her food. Anybody, that is, except my Dad. You could give my father a million dollars, and he'd complain about the taxes he'd have to pay.      Another plus about my better half is that she's just like me. On-time. If dinner is scheduled for 4:00 pm, I like to be sitting down and eating at 4:00 pm. My wife is the same way.      I once went to a Thanksgiving dinner where the turkey was going to be prepared in an oil-cooker, which, from what I hear, is pretty quick and makes for a tasty turkey. I had never had a fried turkey before, so I was looking forward to it. The dinner was scheduled at 5pm.      We got there on time.      No turkey.   ...

If you read the last story, maybe you saw the same pattern that I did.      When a person is a baby, they ask you "Why?" all the time, and when a person gets elderly, they ask you "What?" all the time.      Most times, I'm sure it's because they can't hear. Other times, I'm sure it's because they just plain don't want to hear. If he's learned anything watching Law & Order , it's that you can't be held accountable in a court of law to what you haven't been a party to.      As I write these words, my father is sitting in the great room. I know the weather in other parts of the country is very severe with cold fronts if you're lucky and snow storms if you're not. That's why I live where I do, Here, the weather has been nice. It's not even cool, it's actually warm.      Don't hate me because my weather is beautiful.      From where I sit, I can he...

Being sent back in time to Dallas to stop President Kennedy from starting a nuclear war with Russia that will devastate the world.      Wish me luck.     RaisingMyFather RaisingMyFather.BlogSpot.com jimducheneblogspot.com  American Chimpanzee @JimDuchene  

Somehow... someway... I don't know how he did it, but my Dad found one of his great-grandson's Christmas gifts.      I bought my grandson a dual-propeller helicopter a few months ago and hid it in plain sight. I actually wanted it for me, but, since I'm too old to play with toys, I have to pretend it's for him.      Anyway, my better half became suspicious when my father was in his room all by himself in the middle of the day. You see, my father is very rarely in his room. If he wants to take a nap, he'll just plop himself himself down in the middle of everybody and their monkey, and expect the world to come to a standstill so he can sleep. He usually remembers to wear his pants, but sometimes he forgets.      My wife became suspicious because, you know how it is with children, when you hear them go quiet you know they're up to something.  ...

The TV in the great room is blasting.      It's on a cooking show. My father, who's never cooked a meal in his life and never will, likes to watch shows like Top Chef or Cutthroat Kitchen  or anything with Guy Fieri, who's given my father many hours worth of entertainment wondering how it's possible to have bleached hair with black roots.      "How does it grow that way?" he'll ask no one in particular.      "He colors it that way," my wife will explain to him      "He does?" my father will respond, seemingly amazed at the idea. And then: "But how does it grow that way?"      I like Top Chef , but mainly I like that hot girl who tells all the cooks to take their knives and stick them where the sun don't shine. An insult coming from a hot model somehow seems less insulting. If she told me, 'Take your knives and go," the only thing I would hear would be: "Chocolat...

Some days are better than others.      My father and I were sitting at the kitchen table. It was just after lunch, and my father was drinking a cold glass of ice tea and I was enjoying a hot cup of gourmet coffee, my only indulgence. I was also reading the morning newspaper, which is a rare thing for me to do so early in the day, because my father is known for hording the morning newspaper like it's the last roll of toilet paper during the zombie apocalypse. When, out of the blue, he asked my wife, "What are those things?"      My wife looked at the table and then around the kitchen counter, but didn't see anything out of the ordinary or unrecognizable. I looked, too, but saw even less.      "What is what?" she asked.      "Those green things?"      "What green things?"      He pointed at the decorative bowl in the middl...

I've been sitting here for over an hour watching cartoons. Let me tell you, spending my day watching cartoons is not what I envisioned I'd be doing when I retired.      My grandson likes cartoons the way my father likes his baseball games, and, having said that, let me tell you, my father is especially happy that the Mets are in and the Cubs are out, despite what Back To The Future predicted. Let this be a lesson for you. If you base your reality on a movie's fantasy, you're going to be disappointed.      When my father watches his games, we give him the peace and quiet he wants. He can hear me when I'm upstairs whispering sweet nothings in my wife's ear, but he can't hear the TV blasting in front of him from a distance of less than ten feet.      Go figure.      With my Dad, it's a one way street. We watch what he watches, or we can go watch something e...

Take one step forward and two back.      Isn't that the real world?      To make a very long story short--just because I like you--a water pipe in our house developed a pin-sized hole and it semi-flooded two of our bedrooms and two of our bathrooms. In math terms it would look like this: one house - two bedrooms - two bathrooms = I'm screwed. And not in the fun way. The water must have been spraying behind the wall for weeks, because the damage, while hidden for the most part, was extensive.      When I first noticed the water damage, I turned to my wife and asked, "What's my father been up to?" But, as it turned out, it wasn't my father after all. Just a faulty pipe. I felt bad. My wife made me feel worse.      We had a plumber fix the leak. He charged us extra because my Dad tried to help. Then the restoration team showed up to det...