Sunday, July 30, 2017

Viva Las Vegas!

My elderly father and I were sitting in the waiting room of his doctor du jour. I'd make a joke about how old the magazines were, but what would be the point? Besides...
      If the patients can be elderly, why not the magazines?
      Another elderly man sitting next to us was taking advantage of one of those magazines, however. It was an ancient issue of People, and he was doing the crossword puzzle. Crossword puzzles never age. If you haven't done it, then it's new to you. 

     The elderly gentleman went through it pretty quick, but then got stuck on one particular clue.
     My father, always quick to make another person's business his own, leaned back and sneaked a peek over the man's shoulder.
     "Wager," my father told him.
     "Excuse me?" the man said, lifting his eyes.
     "A five-letter word for bet is 'wager,'" my father said again.
     The man looked back down to check. Apparently, my father was correct, because...
     "Thank you," the man said. "I feel silly, it was so obvious."
     My father, his nosiness having come to a satisfactory conclusion, waved the guy an "It was nothing," and immediately lost interest.
     Finding what he thought was a new friend, the man asked my father, "So, do you like crossword puzzles?"
     "What?" my father replied, distracted by someone else doing something else across the room.
     "Do you like crossword puzzles?" he repeated.
     "Nah," my father told him, gruffly. "I just like to gamble."

 
 
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Sunday, July 23, 2017

Just Give Me The Ticket

If there's one thing my parents taught me, it's that marriage  has its ups, it's downs, and it's amber waves of grain.
     Many were the times that during the time change (Spring forward, Fall back), my mother would change the clocks on her way to bed, my father would change them a second time when he joined her an hour or two later, and we found ourselves being early or late to wherever we were going the entire next day.
     Once, when I was but a wee lad, we were on our way somewhere (let's say church, because it sounds good), and we came upon some road construction. A worker, using a flag, waved my father in a different direction and my father obediently did as he was instructed.
      This wasn't lost on my mother.
     "You did what that man with the flag told you to do," she pointed out to my father, who's been known to be stubborn.
     "Of course I did," he said. "He had a flag."
     My mother thought about that.
     "I've got to get a flag," she said.
     That little detour delayed us quite a bit. My father was not a speeder, but he did pride himself on being prompt, so it was no surprise when he was pulled over for speeding.
     "Sorry, officer," my father tried explaining his way out of it, "but you were coming up so fast behind me I didn't have a chance to slow down."
     The police officer didn't buy that, but he did see we were just an average family out for a drive, so he took pity on us.
     "Ma'am," he addressed my mother, "if you promise to watch your husband's driving I'll let you go with a warning."
     My father knew when he was beat.
     "Just give me the ticket," he said.
 
 
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Sunday, July 16, 2017

Count Your Change

The only thing my elderly father enjoys more than shopping with my wife at one of those members-only warehouse stores is sticking his nose into other people's business. Recently, he got to do both.
     We were in line to pay for our too much of everything, and my father was looking at his box of corn dogs. He was in the mood for ONE, so, of course, my wife insisted on buying him a carton of 42.
     When my dad finally put it down, he looked up and saw the customer standing in front of us, who was very tall.
     "Dang, you're a big one," my father told him, stating the obvious. "How tall are you gonna be when you reach your full growth?"
     "I'm six-ten" the man answered. He was polite, but obviously tired of continuously being singled out.
     "Wow!" our eavesdropping cashier chimed in. "I'M four-eleven, and you're TWICE as tall as I am."
     My father took this in, and then leaned forward and confidentially told the man, "You better count your change."
 
 
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Saturday, July 1, 2017

The Big Tree

I’m driving my father to visit an old military friend a few cities away. On our way there he decides he wants to visit some family members who live somewhere in between, so I make a little detour to accommodate him.
    "You’re lost," my father informs me.
    I sigh and say nothing. Between you and me, I'm exactly where I’m supposed to be.
    "I’m serious. You’re lost," he continues, as his eyes start to bug out. “This isn’t the right street.”
    One funny thing I've noticed about my father is that his eyes tend to bug out when he thinks I'm lost. Another funny thing is his eyes tend to bug out in direct proportion to how lost he thinks I am.
    But I’m not lost.
    And I’ve got my GPS to prove it.
    Reluctantly, I tell him this. I say reluctantly, because my father is old school. He doesn't understand how a GPS works, so he doesn't trust it. I don't understand how it works either, for that matter, but I don’t care how it works. I only care that it work.
    "How does it know where we’re going?" he asks me.
    I say something about satellites and car positioning, but, since I don't really know what I’m talking about, the fault is probably mine that he doesn't understand. I have the same lack of comprehension when it comes to how airplanes fly. I understand in theory the concept of "lift" and "thrust," but what I don't get is how a metal tube that can weigh hundreds of tons is able to get off the ground and stay in the air.
    In a related side note, my first mother-in-law didn't believe we landed on the moon, because "there isn't an electrical cord that long," she insisted back in 1969. You probably think I'm making that up, but it's true. I'm not saying the mother of my first wife was the dimmest bulb in the pack, but it used to take her an hour to cook Minute Rice. Once, she asked me what came after “X.” I told her “Y,” and she said, “Because I want to know.” I heard she died in a tragic bank robbery gone wrong. When the crooks told everybody to “Get Down!” she misunderstood, and started dancing.
    But I digress...
    "...and that's how the GPS works, dad."
    "Yeah, but how does it know?"
    "Just humor him," was the advice my lovely wife gave me before we left, so I do.
    "I'll check my map the next time we stop," I tell him. A map he understands, so he says nothing for awhile. As long as he thinks I'm going to do something, it's almost as good as my doing it. It appeases him for awhile. Buys me time.
    But not a whole lot.
    "I don't recognize any of these houses," he says. "I know the house. There's a big tree in the front yard."
    "Hey, what's that?" I say, pointing to nothing in particular. I'm just trying to distract him, but he doesn't fall for it.
    Fool me once, I guess.
    I slow down--going slower sometimes calms him down--but, trust me, I know where I'm at. I’m on the right street, heading in the right direction. Still, he continues to look out the window.
    "Nothing looks familiar," he says.
    Sadly, nothing ever does.
    I can see the house just down the block. I slow down even more, hoping he recognizes it.
    "Isn't that it, dad?" I say, pointing.
    "That’s not it," he says. "The house we're looking for has a big tree out front. That tree's not so big."
    "Dad, I think that's the house."
    "Can't be. The tree..."
    "I don't know, the tree looks pretty big to me."
    "I don't think so."
    "I think it is," I say, and come to a stop. "Look familiar?"
    My father shakes his head.
    "I don't think so, son. I know the house, and this is not it."
   I tell him, "Let me check the address," and pretend to look at the map.
    My father takes a good, hard look at the house.
    "Hmm...  ahh...  well..." he says. "I guess it could be the house. Yeah, I'm starting to recognize it. See how big the tree is? I told you it was big."
    We've been parked in front long enough for his niece to come out to see if we're okay.
    "We were worried," she tells us. "Did you get lost?"
    It must run in the family.
    We step out of the car to greet her. The rest of the family come out. Hugs and hellos are passed around like slices of watermelon at a Fourth of July picnic. As everybody makes their way back toward the house, I can hear my father say: "Yeah, I knew this was the house because I recognized that big tree in the front. That's what I kept telling my son, look for the tree, it's big, but he didn't believe me. Yep, I knew this was the house."
    As I tag along behind them, I look up and down the street.
    Every house on this block has a big tree in their front yard.
 
When you visit The Duchene Brothers at RaisingMyFather.BlogSpot.com, JimDuchene.BlogSpot.com, or @JimDuchene, look for the big tree out front.
 
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