Things My Father Told Me to Never Tell My Mother

August 25, 2007

When it came to weekend exploring, it was my father and me all the way. Sometimes it was simply an innocent fishing trip, or an afternoon learning to shoot arrows or ride a horse. Some trips were business related, although Dad never seemed to wear his Navy uniform during these trips to nearby cities. Hmm.

Anyway, we had a bond between us as brothers of the road. There was no reason to tell Mom that the only public restrooms sometimes were the bushes behind a roadside billboard. In the spirit of partnership and humility - so it was explained to me - the daily catch of fish was attributed to both of us, even if my father only caught one small pan fish to my five monsters. And that cut on Dad’s cheek was from a wayward tree branch, not a civilian’s fist at that bar on the way home.

We spent a lot of time just inside the forests of America, before developers and speculators fenced off such natural land. Dad taught me how to hunt, fish and forage, build a cozy lean-to debris hut around the base of a tree, tell time by the sun and stars, where to find potable water, and how to start fires. Sooo cool.

In return, I would fetch cigarettes out of the machine at the bowling alley for Dad, or even refill his drink at the local bar while he “hit the head,” and he nautically put it. Those were the innocent days when kids were still allowed to serve their fathers so nobly. We were honored to bond on such intimate levels.

Once on a day trip to Seattle, Dad suddenly discovered a long lost relative in the phone book. What possessed him to stop at that phone booth and look them up, I couldn’t tell you. Even more odd, I was left in the car for this 15-minute family reunion. Hmmm. Well, we had our own “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy as far back as 1965.

As the years passed and my parents’ divorce became more a faded memory, I would get the occasional phone call from one of Dad’s private creditors, or from Dad himself asking for bail money. It wasn’t even treated as a secret at that point. But old bonds are hard to break, and silence was kept nonetheless. Besides, there was always a vicarious thrill to get this occasional update on my father’s continued adventures.

He would be living in a van in a shopping center parking lot, or sleeping in the same news stand that he fenced stolen goods from during the day. He’d travel south to sell New York Lottery tickets, and travel the Midwest selling anything from generators to coffee to “surplus” 8-track tapes. Always surviving. I sometimes wondered why he didn’t end up living off the land in a cozy lean-to somewhere, but mine was not to reason why.

About the Author: Raised in a traveling Navy family and not a pack of wolves, I still like to roam the forests… now in Vancouver, BC, where I create websites, write songs and stories, and produce videos for a living.