Daughters Love.. Cont 2

To say I was raised in a bar is both truth and a bit of an exaggeration. How can it be both? Doesn’t growing up somewhere involve it being a part of your earliest memory and consistently there through childhood? The first and only memory I have of my grandfather on my dads side is him leaning down off the barstool, his nicotine stained fingers clutching a quarter, him patting my head before settling back onto his stool. That’s it. Yellowed fingers, the subtle scent of beer, a quarter. Go memories! I thought no more of walking into that bar than I did walking into the grocery store.

What does this all have to do with the story? Well, beer and drunks were my childhood. In a normal home you watched your dad drink a cup of coffee when he got up. In my world I watched my dad drink a can of beer. My parents going out to ‘tie one one’ every weekend was a given. Softball games at the local ballfield that involved copious amounts of beer were the norm in the summer. Getting in the car with either parent after they had been drinking wasn’t even thought about.

I remember leaving a softball game with my mom and we were about halfway between home and the ballpark. Why we ever drove I’ll never understand. We could leave the ballpark, cross a bridge over the railroad tracks, take a right and we’d be home. Instead, we got in the car, to circle allllllll the way around. There was a blip sound, a muttered curse from mom, she stopped the car and she got a DUI. I’m not sure who went to get who but someone that hadn’t been drinking showed up to get me and my sister and the car and take us home. I get times confused because that wasn’t her only one. I remember another occasion that the end result was a weekend in jail and us at one of the ‘bar uncles’ house.

That’s not to say Dad was an angel. Lord, if he got paid by the can for each beer he drank we’d be swimming in money. From Coors to Keystone then finally O’Doul’s. He drank constantly. He got more DUI’s than I can count. One of which he blew so high he should have been dead, the cops had to help him to the cruiser. He lost his license, his CDL, his motorcycle license and still he drank. He lost his family, his job, his home, his belongings and still he drank.

I hated him so. Only I didn’t hate him. Then I did. Then I didn’t. It was some mind game. I was constantly reminded of why such and such was his fault. What he did wrong. The finger was always pointed and wagged. I was shaped and taught to hate him. I couldn’t help it. How dare he! Look what he did! That lazy bum! Damn him! Damn him to hell!

It was only later that I realized he had already been damned to hell a long time ago. His actions towards those around him were just aftershocks of the big quake.