I've told it before and i'd do it again, but it is a bit shameful and, since i now care for my aged father and he gives me the look that reminds me almost every day, it remains very present in my mind.
My dad's the son of a subsistence farmer who was the first in the fam to get a higher education. Never made any real dough for himself but made a coupla billion for Sylvania/GTE by inventing the
growlight. His total disinterest in humans (and the contracts R&D men used to have to sign to get a job) kept him from getting his due, so he looked
hard for the next step in the family dynasty coming from me.
Your humble servant tested off the charts, was double promoted twice (sent back each time for being a #####) and the old man was sure the succession was set. He didn't figure on a few years of yelling at me for B-plusses turning my interest away from education, nor society-at-large becoming so damned interesting in the mid 1960s. Daddy's scholarship boy started cutting to go to drug parks & beaches as soon as he could find rides.
That progression gave fruitful end to my education when i knocked up the daughter of a pretty shady character (hi-rise construction union official with a bentnose and vowely name) and had to skeedaddle licketysplit. All my junior and half my senior year living in communes, under bridges, hobo camps, scorekeeper booths of out-of-season ballparks. Returned with a Masters Degree in What is Hip.
Contacted fam only to let em know i was alive, had no intention of going back to skool. A local businessman i'd done some work for talked me into going back and arranged it so finishing my senior yr and going to summer school was all i needed to gradiamate, so i did it. Even got me a job in the school's new special ed program that fall. By that time things had normalized with my fam enough that i went over for dinner every other Thursday nite, but i never left before my father's picking at loser me ended in a fight.
Less than a year later i got an extraordinary break in the rock&roll biz and i was running tours for a big promoter before i was 20. Now there is more dough lying around for grabbing in the production end of the music biz than is ever available to artists and i filled both arms. Spread it around pretty good but saved some too.
Still made family dinners a ritual, though the more my wealth increased, the flashier my style became, the more bitter the old man got. Don't like to be cruel, but it so happens i'm good at it. Decided to shut him up for good and all.
Arrived at my folks house for Thursday dinner carrying a briefcase. Told em it was work stuff. Scarfed down some pork chops or whatever and, sure enough, the "you're nothing without an education" crap began with the strawberry shortcake. I calmly went to the closet, got the briefcase, emptied its contents - $16,000, my estimate of my father's annual salary - upon the kitchen table and whipped out my cigarette lighter.
"This is a year of your life, old man, and if you dont shut up and stay shut up about my prospects, i'm gonna burn that year right in front of you."
You don't want to see any face that destroyed, especially the guy who worked three jobs and went to school to feed & clothe you. I knew it was glorious and the worst mistake of my life at the same time. Scooped the dough back up and scooted. Didn't see any of em for over a year.
A peace was eventually negotiated before i moved west and we been pretty darn civil to each other ever since. Love, not so much like. Mom got sick a few years ago, a bad back had ended my career in the poker biz, so i moved in to take care of her. She recovered, but remains an invalid for whom i care for my keep, i guess. Dad's pretty spry but a honkin' bag of senility anymore, but i'm all-in now til at least 'til mom dies. I cook for em but dont eat with em, mostly cuz the old man gives me a remnant of that look pretty regular, whether he knows it or not, tho he never says a thing. Want to break his jaw & hang myself every time he does. nufced
