RaisingDad

  Our father must have been in the mood to set some family history straight.      We were talking about how President Trump heroically couldn’t serve in the military because of his patriotic bone spurs and how Clueless Joe weaseled out of going to Vietnam by receiving a Section 8.      “I know my brother wanted to join the Navy,” I told him, “but dropped out when he got a girl pregnant.”       “Is that what he told you?” he asked, then told me the real story: Seems you volunteered and were itching to go, but in the middle of your physical you were discharged when, standing in the middle of a room full of guys in their underwear, you popped a boner.      “Really, pop?” I asked, not believing it.      “As God is my witness,” he sadly confirmed.    RaisingDad RaisingMyFather.BlogSpot.com JimDuchene.BlogSpot.com.  American Chimpanzee @JimDuchene

  as featured in Desert Exposure Magazine My wife lied to me.      “No, I didn’t,” she insisted.      But she did.       By omission, that is.      You see, every year we go to a Christmas Fair with my buddy Maloney and his wife, Gail. Local businesses set up booths there to sell their wares. This year, however, my beautiful wife “conveniently” forgot to tell me Maloney wasn’t coming. He played it smart and scheduled an appointment with an exterminator to fumigate his house. I’m not saying shopping with your wife is boring, but when a man would rather breathe poison, well, you tell me.      It cost five dollars to park in the underground garage, but a sign said no cash. Credit or debit only.       “What if you don’t have a credit or debit card?” I asked my wife. “By the time you see the sign, you’re stuck.”   ...

I once asked our father  if he really took you to all those places you say he did, and he said: “I took your brother everywhere ... but nobody would take him.”       RaisingDad RaisingMyFather.BlogSpot.com JimDuchene.BlogSpot.com.  American Chimpanzee @JimDuchene     

  I once  asked our father if he really took you to all those places you say he did, and he said: “Yes… but he always found his way back home.”     RaisingDad RaisingMyFather.BlogSpot.com JimDuchene.BlogSpot.com.  American Chimpanzee @JimDuchene     

as featured in Desert Exposure Magazine My father.       I don't know how he knows, but he does. He can't see to the end of the room, but whenever I'm doing any kind of work in the house , somehow he knows and a few seconds later he’s situated himself right in the middle of it. It could be something as simple as my walking into the kitchen early in the wee morning hours to fix my wife a cup of coffee. I won't even turn on the light, but I'll see the light go on in the little in-law house in the front of our property. Then I’ll see him walk out his door toward the main house. Sometimes I'm able to sneak back upstairs with our coffee before he makes it into the house, but sometimes...      "Where's my coffee?" my wife will ask when I walk back into our bedroom empty-handed.      "Um... ah... well..." I'll begin to explain.      "Your father?"      "Yeah." ...

Talking with our father on Saturday, I asked him,  “How was your birthday?”     “Your brother didn’t call me,” he said, and started to cry. “It was the best birthday EVER.”       RaisingDad RaisingMyFather.BlogSpot.com JimDuchene.BlogSpot.com.  American Chimpanzee @JimDuchene

 as featured in Desert Exposure Magazine Every now and then one of my readers will ask about my mother.      The reason I don’t write about her more often is because my beautiful wife can always tell when I’ve been crying. When I cried at my mother’s funeral, she asked if it was because of my haircut.      I write about my father by default. When my mother died, my wife and I--mainly my wife--made the decision to invite my elderly, pre-Alzheimer’s father to move in with us. His good years were mainly behind him. He went from being someone who could fix anything to someone who could break anything at any time at the worst possible moment. I’m not particularly handy, so it’s been a chore.      My youngest sister took care of my mother the last years of her life, and I’m grateful to her. Bathing my mother and changing her diaper, well, let’s just say I’m not half the man my sister is. My father, for the most pa...

as featured in Desert Exposure Magazine 2021 has been a milestone for my 6-year-old granddaughter (and if anyone can tell me what a milestone is, I’d be grateful). A few months back she rode her bike without training wheels for the first time, and recently she swam without floaties .     I guess all kids look cute, but she looked ESPECIALLY cute dog-paddling across the pool all by herself. She’s evolved to a more traditional way of swimming now, and, cold water or not, is not afraid to jump in. That little girl takes up a lot of my time, but the day will come when she'll have other things to do and other people to do them with, so I'll enjoy it while I can.      Myself, I didn't learn to swim until I was 13, and only because I didn't want to look like a dork to any of the girls at the public pool. You can't put a move on somebody when you're drowning.      My mother, bless her heart, was deathly afraid of water. If I ...

I was talking with our father and he told me he was worried about you.      “Why, pop?” I asked him.      “Because of this new Delta Variant of Covid,” he told me.      “I wouldn’t worry,” I tried to assure him. “It’s only dangerous to people with a pre-condition.”      “THAT’S the problem,” he insisted, “his whole FACE is a pre-condition!”        RaisingDad RaisingMyFather.BlogSpot.com JimDuchene.BlogSpot.com. American Chimpanzee @JimDuchene     

as featured in Desert Exposure Magazine Last year, my then five-year-old granddaughter came up with a math theorem that was elegant in its simplicity: 10 = 10.      I was playfully showing her math equations on my phone’s calculator, mainly adding ridiculously long numbers together, when she snatched it from my hand and taught me this important lesson: Everything Equals Itself .      It’s an obvious concept, but not one that I’ve ever seen or heard expressed before. It was an original idea, and I’m a sucker for original ideas. The brilliance of her smile showed just how proud she was of her theorem. So proud she repeated it for me again and again.     On the other hand, my elderly father is losing his relationship with numbers and their value. When I take him to the doctor, the receptionist will say, “Your co-pay is...”      “Pay it,” he’ll tell me.      I often wonder...