Since this storm hit, we have been spending a lot of time together as a family. It took an opportunity like this to be able to get to know my father better. Since he only had me and my sister around he had no choice but to talk to us and put up with us. It was a very interesting dynamic. Here is the man that hollered at us as kids and now when he said "You don't listen to me" I could honestly say "I'm an adult now and I don't have to." I was finally able to hear some of the stories about my dad when he was a kid and all the trouble he got into. This is what I learned:
He shot himself in the foot with a gun he didn't realize was loaded. He was in the woods hunting pheasants with his friends when he stooped to talk to someone. He rested the gun on his foot and accidentally pulled the trigger. When he went home to tell his mom she didn't believe him. It wasn't until she saw the blood that she took him to the doctor.
He was playing cowboys and Indians with his friends and they tied a kid to a tree in the woods and then forgot about him. He said to me- "I got my ass booted that night."
He got his hand stuck in a ringer washing machine when he tried to put a nougat cookie through it. When I asked him why he did it he said "well we didn't have those ipods and computers like you guys do."
He got thrown out of high school for destroying the body that God gave him when he got a tattoo
He spent four years in the Navy visiting countries that I can only dream of.
Now I understand when he used to say to us as kids "Don't even think about doing something cause I already did it."
I am sorry that it took a storm for us to have a chance to sit down and get to know him better but I have a feeling that from now on whenever we get a chance my sisters and I will be asking our dad a lot more questions.
So today I am thankful for all the stories my dad is finally telling us.
No comments:
Post a Comment