RaisingDad

Imagine that...in just a few short weeks your daughter will have TWO people in her life in diapers. YOU... and a brand new baby.      How time flies.      Your wife must be excited, especially since it gives her ANOTHER reason to tell you no when you're feeling frisky.      “Sweetheart, you look beautiful tonight.”      “We’re babysitting.”      “Oh, fudge,” you'll say, only you won’t be saying “fudge.”      Meanwhile, your wife is already letting your soon-to-be-a-mom daughter know: “Whenever you need a babysitter, I’ll always be here...      "...telling your father no.”     Raising My Father RaisingMyFather.BlogSpot.com JimDuchene.BlogSpot.com  American Chimpanzee @JimDuchene  

It's always a learning experience.      I remember the time you told me you were hiking and ran into a park ranger.      “What’re those bells you’re wearing around your ankles,” he asked you.      “It’s to scare away bears,” you told him. “When they hear the tinkling, it gives them a heads up, and they’ll leave the area.”      The park ranger nodded his head thoughtfully.      “Is that so?” he commented, rubbing his chin.      He walked with you for a while, and the two of you came to an area of the trail which several wild animals had used as a bathroom. There were scattered piles of animal poop all around.      “Can you tell which dropping came from a bear?” he asked you.      “No,” you admitted. “Which one?”      The park ranger smiled.      “The one with the bells in it,” he said.     Raising My Father ...

“Do we really have to go?” I asked my wife.    She didn’t answer. She just gave me The Look. The one that means Tread Carefully. Still, I pressed on.     “It’s not like we’re really related or anything,” I tried to reason, but there was no reasoning with The Look.     And it was true. The person who had just died and whose funeral my wife was obligating me to go to was the relative of a relative, and not even a blood relative. He was of the in-law variety.     “Look,” my wife told me, “it’s YOUR family. If anything, I should be the one complaining.”     She had a point.     “Okay, pop,” I told my father. “It’s time to go.”     My father reluctantly got up from the baseball game he was watching. A classic, according to the premium baseball channel we get for him. In other words, it was one he had already seen.     “Why do people have to die and ruin my day?” he grumbled.     Raising ...

You have a point about fitness and death.     Fit as you were, you had a heart attack at 55. Now you're 70, ugly as ever. Me, at 60, I’m still chugging along, even though I sit for over ten hours a day for a living. The more weight I gain, the handsomer I become. I don't know why that works, but it does.      Our two brothers-by-law: both are diabetic, tallywackers don’t work, one is morbidly obese... and they’re STILL having just as much sex as you are, which is zero.      Keith Richards and Mick Jagger of The Rolling Stones, both in their 80s, one’s been doing heroine for most of his life and the other continues to rock & roll with chicks in their 20s.      Well, at least you have your memories.      Until you get Alzheimer’s.     Raising My Father RaisingMyFather.BlogSpot.com JimDuchene.BlogSpot.com  American Chimpanzee @JimDuchene  

There’s a business where a person can rent a grandparent. I read about it on the internet, so it must be true.     Now, I tell you THAT to tell you THIS:      My father lives with me. He’s elderly, widowed, and has been diagnosed pre-Alzheimer’s. The trifecta of reasons why I should cut him some slack.     On one particularly stressful day, I was worn out from dealing with him. My children and grandchildren COMBINED weren’t as much trouble.     “Think I could sell him?” I joked with my lovely wife, after he had finally settled down.     “You could,” she told me, with a playful tone to her voice, “but who would buy him?”     Raising My Father RaisingMyFather.BlogSpot.com JimDuchene.BlogSpot.com  American Chimpanzee @JimDuchene  

I get the Odessa newspaper from a hotel I stop at when I'm driving through town.      Front page story?      A prostitution sting operation that took place over a fifteen day period and was conducted on the internet.      “It’s the best way to do it,” the police chief was quoted in print, therefore telling anyone who can read that if you want to sell or buy sex and not get caught... hit the streets!      The old ways are truly the best.      “We’re telling the predators: ‘ Stay away from our children! ’” he also was quoted as saying, which was an odd statement because the average age of those arrested was 29. The newspaper didn’t specify if that was the prostitutes arrested, the johns, or a combination of the two. The OLDEST prostitute was an Asian woman, Hui Sun Lee.      She was 67!       If you’re feeling frisky and a 67-year...

On a trip to visit family who live out of state, I sat with my father as the plane we were on slowly filled.      Pre-boarding rules.      I sat by the window, and my father sat in the middle seat. Soon, an attractive elderly lady came and sat in the seat next to him.     Playfully making small talk, she told us, “Are you the gentlemen who paid extra to sit next to a beautiful woman?”     “Yes, we did,” I told her.     If I had a hat, I would have tipped it.      My father, on the other hand, turned to me...     “Is it too late to get our money back?” he grumped.     Raising My Father RaisingMyFather.BlogSpot.com JimDuchene.BlogSpot.com  American Chimpanzee @JimDuchene  

Seeing the very sexy 72-year-old actress Helen Mirren riding onto the Academy Awards stage yesterday on a jet ski reminded me of the following story:        My father was romantic in his own way.     Back when my beloved mother was still alive, my parents were watching a movie starring the lovely Helen Mirren.     “I can’t believe she’s MY age,” my mother told my father. “She’s so beautiful.”     Tenderly, my father reached over and took her hand.     “You’re almost as beautiful as she is,” he told her.     Raising My Father RaisingMyFather.BlogSpot.com JimDuchene.BlogSpot.com  American Chimpanzee @JimDuchene