RaisingDad

as featured in Desert Exposure Magazine desertexposure.com    My uncle recently died.      Not only that, but it was the holidays, so when my buddy Maloney called, I thought it was to offer his condolences...      "I’ve got bad news," he told me.      ...but I guess he had other things on his mind.      "My mother-in-law," he said, sounding morose, "she might lose her eye."      "I’m sorry to hear that," I told him. "That IS bad news."      "Oh, that’s not the bad news," he went on. "The bad news is she’s moved back in with us."      Maloney and his mother-in-law have always had a contentious relationship, you could say. She had lived with them for a short while, and, when she moved out, Maloney promised himself never again, never again.      " As God is my witness..." he swore, but I think he was just copying Scarlett O'Hara in  Gone With The Win...

I was talking to our father on Friday.      Or rather, our father was talking to me.    He told me, “When you go get my gourmet enchiladas on Saturday, can you also get me a tube of Bengay? The next time your brother visits, I want to put some in my eyes.”    “What’s hurting your eyes, pop?” I asked him.    “Your brother’s face,” he said.       RaisingDad RaisingMyFather.BlogSpot.com JimDuchene.BlogSpot.com @JimDuchene   

When he got home from this month's trip giving "those characters" at the bank a what-for, my father told me, "When I got to the bank, they called the police on me."      That got my attention, because it sounded like it could be true, what with his old-geezer temper and all.      "Why did they do   that , pop?" I asked him.      "I was the only one who wasn't wearing a mask," he quipped.      I laughed.      The old comedic switcheroo, eh?       RaisingDad RaisingMyFather.BlogSpot.com JimDuchene.BlogSpot.com. American Chimpanzee @JimDuchene   

There was a shooting near our house late last night. I don’t think it was a domestic issue. I heard it was a drug deal gone wrong, but my wife heard it was an intruder, so who knows?      “Be sure to tell your brother,” our father insisted, “so he'll be too scared to visit me.”       RaisingDad RaisingMyFather.BlogSpot.com JimDuchene.BlogSpot.com. American Chimpanzee @JimDuchene   

as featured in Desert Exposure Magazine desertexposure.com I was packing my bags, getting ready to leave for the airport when I got the text: “I’m here for you.”      “Thanks,” I wrote back. “Yeah, it’s a bad situation, but I’m sure it will be okay. I just wish the doctor would have some good news for a change. The series of enemas my father has to go through isn't going to be any fun, but what can I do? I asked the doctor how bad it was going to be since my father will be treated at home. He said it would be "explosive." And "messy." And who's going to have to clean it up? Me. He's my dad, so I can't leave it for my wife to do. Anyway, thanks for being there for me, but I've gotta go. I’m waiting for my Uber driver.”      “I AM your Uber driver,” came the reply, "and I'm here for you."      I’m glad he’s there for me because every month my elderly father likes to check his bank statement. Sadly, he’s ...

Our father walked into the kitchen for breakfast and he was shaking in his rubber-bottomed socks.      “I just had a HORRIBLE nightmare,” he told me, his voice trembling.      “What is it, pop?” I asked him.      I was honestly concerned.      “I dreamt that your brother got the Caronavirus.”      “And the horrible part was that he died?”      “No, the horrible part was that he LIVED!”       Raising My Father RaisingMyFather.BlogSpot.com JimDuchene.BlogSpot.com. American Chimpanzee @JimDuchene   

as featured in Desert Exposure Magazine    I wasn't planning on writing a story for our issue dedicated to the noble turtle. My daughter submitted a whimsical tale for the occasion and I thought that was enough of a family representation. Plus, turtles have never been much of a muse for me. My granddaughter on the other hand... We were at the beginning of The Great Toilet Paper Shortage of 2020, and I was taking my granddaughter to visit with my sister. She lives in the house my parents owned, the one I grew up in.      Across the street is an elementary school where I got into all kinds of shenanigans as a kid. I wouldn’t say my friends and I were troublemakers, but, if there was trouble, we were usually around. Sadly, there’s a chain link fence surrounding the school now, so the playground was inaccessible.      “Inaccessible,” my granddaughter repeated. “What’s that?”      “That mean...