HAPPY FATHERS DAY ALL YOU WONDERFUL DADS!

These are some of the fathers in my life. Not all of them… just he ones I had photos of that I could use. I don’t have one of my dad…

So story time!

My parents were working on our house. They did this the entire 16 years I lived in that house. My mother could not stop redecorating. This particular evening, they were spraying plaster on the ceiling in the dining room. You know that icky popcorn plaster crap.

The dining room opened via wide pocket doors from the living room. The pocket doors no longer opened because they had laid carpet and forgotten to leave a bare spot for the doors to travel. The wide space was perpetually open. This my parents had covered over with several layers of plastic sheeting to keep the plaster in. Watching them through the plastic was like looking at a frosted bathroom window.

My brother and I were messing around while watching The Munsters. My mom had chosen ugly brown striped over stuffed chairs. I was sitting on my knees on the arm of one of these, facing the seat. My brother was sitting in my dad’s leather chair. He tossed a piece of clay at me. I fell forward into the seat of the chair to avoid the clay and bounced backwards, where I over shot and tried to save myself by wind-milling my arms madly.

I lost it. All of the dining room furniture was crowded into the living room. Our big, round antique oak table with the lion’s feet was directly next to me. I twisted to the right as I fell and slammed my head into the table edge. From there I went the opposite way and slammed into the glass door.

My brother’s eyes were huge as I stood on shaky feet. It hurt, but I did not want to cry. He wouldn’t stop staring at me with his big eyes and open mouth.

I yelled at him: “Stop it!”

He lifted a shaking hand and pointed at me then said: “Your

head! There’s blood!”

It was my turn to raise a shaky hand and touch my head. It was warm. It was sticky. I was fine until I looked at my hand. That’s when the high pitched keening began. I was sure it was coming from me, but could not seem to silence it.

Naturally I looked in the direction of the frosty plastic. For a dreadful few moments there was nothing on the other side of the plastic but the chuffing sound of the compressor that was spraying our ceiling with crap. Then the compressor shut down. My keening could be heard on the other side.

I recall now with absolute clarity, my father trying to claw his way through those layers of plastic. It was like some weird animal was trying to get in and I desperately wished it would hurry it up!

Meanwhile my mother, who had the presence of mind to go around the plastic… which meant going out the back door, scaling a six foot fence and running through the side yard, up the steps to the front door. She opened it as the fierce animal tore its way through the plastic at long last and scooped me up.

“Don’t let the blood drip all over the carpet, George!” was mom’s response to the situation. ( Ask crazy4coens, my mom was “scary clean” and you never, never made a mess. Blood was a stain, which was worse than a mess.)

As generally happened when I bled, my offending body part… in this case my face just above my eye… was dangled over the sink and washed clean. My dad examined the wound as I continued to wail, more over fear of drowning at this point. (I hate having water run over my face. Perhaps this is why.) I stopped screaming about the time my dad got a towel wrapped around my head and I could no longer see or feel blood or wetness. I was placed in the chair I’d fallen from and my dad phoned the hospital to let them know we were on our way…again. I ended up with only seven stitches, which was not much considering how much blood there seemed to be, but you know how it is with head wounds.

This is what I recall most about my dad; whenever I was hurt, he was the first one there. As soon as he was there, I knew that while it may continue to hurt, it was going to be okay. I was safe. I could begin to relax and begin to calm down. It has been that way all my life, even as an adult, despite the fact that we do not get along all that great. When I have truly needed him to be there. He has. Thanks dad!

*

INAPPROPRIATE LAUGHTER / SLIM JIM FACTORY EXPLODES

Okay... I was awful. When I was sipping my coffee and StbX said "Hey, a Slim Jim Factory blew up in North Carolina." I laughed out loud. What on earth could make a Slim Jim Factory blow up? It was funny. Then he did what he's so good at doing... gave me a look that clearly said I was not mentally right. "People died." "oh" I said.

We are talking a nasty bit of destruction. A terrible tragic thing. This photo and a story about it are found here: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gBj6FQpRXrxsKovHU6JL9I0MUveQD98OF4UG0

I have had huge problems with inappropriate laughter all my life.

When I was about 13, I used to work at a riding stable. I'd get up before dawn and walk the rail road track 3.5 miles to the stable where I would muck out stalls, groom and exercise horses and when the stable opened, I would be a chaser... the trouble shooter who kept green horns from being wiped off on fences or got their nags to trot. It was a great job for me. I could ride all I wanted for free.

I made a new friend. She was Mormon. I knew nothing about them other than that her mother trusted no one who was not Mormon... this included me. When this friend asked if she could come with me, I said sure. My assumption being that she would get permission and things would be fun. No, she didn't get permission. She left a note. Half of the note on one side of a note pad, the other half on the back side of the top page. Basically the first half said that she was leaving with me. The second half that her mother never read said that she would return at such and such time.

So the stable was fun until it began to pour so heavily that they shut the place down for the day and I was cut loose early. She was afraid of the railroad tracks, so we headed into the ritz area of town, got lost and then found our way to Virus Count's house. Virus was great. We played poker with pinto beans as money for a time, waiting for the rain to stop...then after I had tried to call my parents several times to tell them where i was... but the phone was constantly busy... I decided that things felt wrong and we should leave.

We were maybe two blocks away when the cop car... whooping noise and flashing lights stopped to pick us up. Yep. My first trip in the back of a cop car. I've riden there four other times... but this is the only time it was due to being wanted by police. Here we are riding in back and passing kids I know from school. Andy McWilliams looked like he was going to have a stroke when Iwaved at him. Not that I was having fun. I was scared spitless!

They took us to my house. There inside the door were my parents who seemed to be sane and reassuring and Marsha's parents who acted as if we were feared dead at the bottom of a pit somewhere. Then the policeman... who lived around the corner and who's son used to help me climb off the car port late at night to run wild with him and his brother... made an "ehem" noise and took center stage.

The lecture was a torture. It was all about being lucky to come from good families, not "white trash", about being a good and obedient daughter... not like the trash in "juvie" and how dangerous it would be for a innocent like us to be locked into juvie with that white trash. Yikes! He was on a roll, shaking his finger at me when I snorted.

It was a tiny snorting laugh. The snort amused me further and great big gobs of laughs began to burble out of me like a fountain. The cop's eyes got HUGE... and that was so comical! His neck and face turned red... oh it was so much worse now and I was never going to get control of myself. I knew that I was losing it badly. Faces around the room were staring at me like I'd lost my freaking mind. I had. I couldn't stop it.

Incredulous cop stomped toward me in a way that made me cringe and ball up my fists for protection. He yelled "YOU THINK THIS IS FUNNY? TO SCARE YOUR PARENTS LIKE ..." It was at this point that my dad hopped to his feet and started in with "NOW WAIT A COTTON PICKING MINUTE...SHE DIDN'T DO ANYTHING WRONG..." Angry words were exchanged and I switched from hysterical giggles to big giant tears. My dad stopped barking at the cop long enough to order me to go to my room. I made it there in record time. Never was I so happy to see my bed. Or so glad that I had a dad!

I have many,many stories about bursting into laughter at the exact wrong moment. My mother's funeral accompanied by my sister, Cindrella. Anytime one of my kids gets hurt... yep, mom laughs out loud. Squeaky used to get so mad! I laugh when I hurt myself too, and kids... if you act scared you guarantee that your child is scared. If you act like it's no biggie, then they know they are going to survive.

Besides who wouldn't laugh at a line like "I've cracked my head open and now I'm going to die." said by a very somber three year old who believed mom when she told him a billion times that he was going to crack his head open and die if he didn't stop doing that.

It does not really matter why I do this laughing thing at the wrong time. But I'm fairly sure it is some sort of failsafe to keep me from losing it. I even laughed hysterically at the guy who flashed his family jewels at us on the escalator in the underground parking garage. Wait... I have to stop laughing now over that one. Ahhh. Now that was funny, not scary. But most females are insulted by that. They get indignant, not amused. He seemed insulted. That just made it funnier!

I am back at work and have no real post today, just this jumble of words. I hope your day is productive and acceptalbe. My boss is not here. I am alone except for a secretary and the custodian who pops in to chat. I am obviously not being very productive if I am typing this. Ha. But I won't count this in my work time. ;-)

I would like to say one last thing... I have ridden in the back of Washington State Police cars on four different occasions. Three times when I ran out of gas. My VW didn't have a gas gauge. Each time, they drove me to a gas station, filled my can with gas, drove me back to the Dub, poured in the gas for me, and made sure my car started before they drove away. The other time, my truck broke down. That marvolous trooper drove me home... into the next state, through my town all the way to my house only to find out that my dad was not there, but at the tavern. Trooper then drove me back through town to the tavern where he waited while I made sure that my dad was there. In Oregon I have run out of gas or broken down on the freeways many times. Our cops drive past me as fast as they can go. To this I say...WASHINGTON STATE TROOPERS, YOU ARE THE BEST! The only cops I know who actually take that "protect and serve to heart." I heartily thank and commend them.