My Dad's Secrets, Part 3...
Whilst my Dad doesn't look anything like Robert De Nero, he
had a real smilarity in mannerisms.
I can totally picture my Dad saying " You talkin' to me?"
Like Travis from the movie "Taxi Driver."
When my brother and I were young, we might be sitting in the
house with our noses in books on a summer day. My Dad would come in and say
something like ( and this is a true example):
" Eh ( or Ay) ! Why don'tcha go outside and blow da stink offa youse?"
And yet he carried around a book of poems by Emerson.
One time at the UCLA ER we were waiting along with fifty million other people
to be seen. There was a black woman in a Diana Ross Supremes style wig and dress,
standing in the middle of the chaos singing softly ( and badly).
A black boy of about 18 or 20 was covered in a sheet, with his head sticking out,
and was picking at himself under the sheet, and dropping the flakes to the floor.
A young Mexican man was wheeled in on a gurney, he'd been in a horrible car accident. His
face looked like a bloody mosaic. He rolled over on the gurney and revealed his ass as they wheeled him past us. I looked at the black girls sitting next to me, they looked at me, and we giggled.
I was 19, 20. I'd broken my ankle and didn't have my Dad's insurance anymore, I wasn't a minor.
A group of young white boys came in. Surfer- looking. Maybe they didn't really surf, but they
were wearing clothing and sandals that suggested it. They looked like surf punks. One of them had a mohawk.They went and checked in. When they
came and sat near us, it was unclear what was physically wrong with any of them. I don't remember there being any injury.
They wound up being really annoying. Loud, obnoxious. I think Diana Ross even sat down
and stopped singing, I think she was kind of afraid of them taunting her.
She was just a sad lady with mental problems. Everyone let her sing despite the fact that she really wasn't a good singer, because she was so clearly sad and nuts. In truth it HAD been annoying, though.
But these kids, punks, they weren't nice. Everyone was in pain, we'd all been there for many hours,
because all of the other trauma centers in LA county were shut down. AND it was a full moon.
This is what the nurse told my Dad. I wound up being there for an entire 24 hours. My ankle
never did heal right, looks like an M now.
So the white punks (on dope?) are clowning around, being loud, they are the only ones in the room that feel well enough to be so rowdy and belligerent.
I look at my Dad, and I realize that he's royally pissed. He's sitting there, his chin on his hand,
staring at the surf punks. I know he's pissed because I've seen him look at me like that many times. He had a hard look when he was mad. He had golden brown eyes that would look really yellow when he got seriously shitfaced or seriously mad. They were yellow now.
He was seriously " mad-dogging" these boys, and I'm glad it wasn't me that was getting that look.
They didn't notice, until My Dad actually said something. In his quiet way. But loud enough.
" What, ye think yer funny?" And he tilted his head up when he said "what".
I've seen him do that a lot. I know I mustve gotten it from him.
The punks just looked at him. He continued staring at them and "Shut the hell up."
They acted like they'd been slapped, their eyes got huge and they didn't say anything more, at all.
I thought it was great. I think everyone else liked it, too.
The boys wound up moving far away from everyone, way far.
I wrote this because it so perfectly illustrates this quiet yet scary toughness that my
Dad had. He would take anyone on. I now think I get this trait from him, not just my Mom or Grandpa. Duh, Lisa! I dunno, I always thought I'd gotten it from my Mom.
Anyway.
Fast forward, my brother and I are now 17, 18.
My Dad's ship collides with a Russian ship, pre-Gorbechev.
But he is a Master of the Downplay, so to this day we don't know what really happened.
I believe my Dad's version ( written in Part 2?).
But this is around the time that we are looking at my Dad a little differently anyway.
We'd overheard something that my Mom told a friend of mine.
Overhearing things is how I've learned most everything about my family, seems like.
I had this friend, he'd just joined the Navy. I overheard him talking to my Mom about it,
I think she was trying to warn him away from making it a career. As in "get the education that
it offers and then get the hell out."
He asked something about my Dad, said something, I didn't hear what.
But I heard something else, and then " Rescue the Pueblo" .
Hmm...
And yet she still didn't tell me anything, and I asked my friend after that.
" What did my mom tell you about my Dad?" And HE wouldn't tell me!
Except he said " Your Dad is a bad- ass."
I said " I know that already" ( I'd seen for myself growing up with the man).
He mentioned the Pueblo, and said that my Dad was involved in a famous mission.
But you know what? We STILL never found out the truth because my friend wouldn't
talk about it and got oddly respectful and serious and quiet.
And my Dad, we knew better than to ask him. And my Mom wouldn't say more than what
I'd confronted her with ( " So Daddy was part of a famous rescue mission?"),
other than to tell us to NEVER talk about it...
The very next year we finally hear a little something from my Dad himself. We are 18 and 19.
It's Veterans Day....
had a real smilarity in mannerisms.
I can totally picture my Dad saying " You talkin' to me?"
Like Travis from the movie "Taxi Driver."
When my brother and I were young, we might be sitting in the
house with our noses in books on a summer day. My Dad would come in and say
something like ( and this is a true example):
" Eh ( or Ay) ! Why don'tcha go outside and blow da stink offa youse?"
And yet he carried around a book of poems by Emerson.
One time at the UCLA ER we were waiting along with fifty million other people
to be seen. There was a black woman in a Diana Ross Supremes style wig and dress,
standing in the middle of the chaos singing softly ( and badly).
A black boy of about 18 or 20 was covered in a sheet, with his head sticking out,
and was picking at himself under the sheet, and dropping the flakes to the floor.
A young Mexican man was wheeled in on a gurney, he'd been in a horrible car accident. His
face looked like a bloody mosaic. He rolled over on the gurney and revealed his ass as they wheeled him past us. I looked at the black girls sitting next to me, they looked at me, and we giggled.
I was 19, 20. I'd broken my ankle and didn't have my Dad's insurance anymore, I wasn't a minor.
A group of young white boys came in. Surfer- looking. Maybe they didn't really surf, but they
were wearing clothing and sandals that suggested it. They looked like surf punks. One of them had a mohawk.They went and checked in. When they
came and sat near us, it was unclear what was physically wrong with any of them. I don't remember there being any injury.
They wound up being really annoying. Loud, obnoxious. I think Diana Ross even sat down
and stopped singing, I think she was kind of afraid of them taunting her.
She was just a sad lady with mental problems. Everyone let her sing despite the fact that she really wasn't a good singer, because she was so clearly sad and nuts. In truth it HAD been annoying, though.
But these kids, punks, they weren't nice. Everyone was in pain, we'd all been there for many hours,
because all of the other trauma centers in LA county were shut down. AND it was a full moon.
This is what the nurse told my Dad. I wound up being there for an entire 24 hours. My ankle
never did heal right, looks like an M now.
So the white punks (on dope?) are clowning around, being loud, they are the only ones in the room that feel well enough to be so rowdy and belligerent.
I look at my Dad, and I realize that he's royally pissed. He's sitting there, his chin on his hand,
staring at the surf punks. I know he's pissed because I've seen him look at me like that many times. He had a hard look when he was mad. He had golden brown eyes that would look really yellow when he got seriously shitfaced or seriously mad. They were yellow now.
He was seriously " mad-dogging" these boys, and I'm glad it wasn't me that was getting that look.
They didn't notice, until My Dad actually said something. In his quiet way. But loud enough.
" What, ye think yer funny?" And he tilted his head up when he said "what".
I've seen him do that a lot. I know I mustve gotten it from him.
The punks just looked at him. He continued staring at them and "Shut the hell up."
They acted like they'd been slapped, their eyes got huge and they didn't say anything more, at all.
I thought it was great. I think everyone else liked it, too.
The boys wound up moving far away from everyone, way far.
I wrote this because it so perfectly illustrates this quiet yet scary toughness that my
Dad had. He would take anyone on. I now think I get this trait from him, not just my Mom or Grandpa. Duh, Lisa! I dunno, I always thought I'd gotten it from my Mom.
Anyway.
Fast forward, my brother and I are now 17, 18.
My Dad's ship collides with a Russian ship, pre-Gorbechev.
But he is a Master of the Downplay, so to this day we don't know what really happened.
I believe my Dad's version ( written in Part 2?).
But this is around the time that we are looking at my Dad a little differently anyway.
We'd overheard something that my Mom told a friend of mine.
Overhearing things is how I've learned most everything about my family, seems like.
I had this friend, he'd just joined the Navy. I overheard him talking to my Mom about it,
I think she was trying to warn him away from making it a career. As in "get the education that
it offers and then get the hell out."
He asked something about my Dad, said something, I didn't hear what.
But I heard something else, and then " Rescue the Pueblo" .
Hmm...
And yet she still didn't tell me anything, and I asked my friend after that.
" What did my mom tell you about my Dad?" And HE wouldn't tell me!
Except he said " Your Dad is a bad- ass."
I said " I know that already" ( I'd seen for myself growing up with the man).
He mentioned the Pueblo, and said that my Dad was involved in a famous mission.
But you know what? We STILL never found out the truth because my friend wouldn't
talk about it and got oddly respectful and serious and quiet.
And my Dad, we knew better than to ask him. And my Mom wouldn't say more than what
I'd confronted her with ( " So Daddy was part of a famous rescue mission?"),
other than to tell us to NEVER talk about it...
The very next year we finally hear a little something from my Dad himself. We are 18 and 19.
It's Veterans Day....
posted by Nabonidus at 8:21 AM
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