History revisions

This morning the puppy, craving attention, grabbed my freshly addressed bills and ran away. Maggie's quite fond of and adept at shredding paper, so I had to chase her down, although I try not to reward her like that. Payment on time and perforated! That's the way we like it!

After a week of research I was able to find and confirm my father's social security number. This entitled me to copies of his death certificate. I had evidence of the poor man, but nothing that counted with the Federal Government. I am evidence of the poor man, for that matter.

It's an odd thing to have a question about one's family, to think about asking one's parent, to realize again that they can no longer answer. Pieces of our history become unavailable. There was a period of time when my mother and I had some brutally frank conversations about our history together. I think Mom wanted to be sure I got the truth while she could provide it. I still have questions to ask, not the least of which was "Mom, what's Dad's social security number!"

A few years ago while rifling through literally hundreds of saved letters from my father's family I stumbled upon a letter from someone connected with a rooming house who had had a run-in with my father. In the letter, she put together some of my father's history in a way I had never heard, alluding to him as a "spoiled child, indulged, who was reckless, wrecking cars. . . and once shot another kid while hunting." The son of an insane person. My father had written a defensive note on it and given it to his mother, I suspect in response to her inquiry.

Dad was very intense and emotional. He was raised by his mother and grandmother, two world class worriers, while his father was hospitalized in an institution for the insane at Anna, Illinois. His mother, a woman in the early 1930's was assigned a guardian and given an allowance. It was all her husband's money. I'm sure Dad was a handful, and he told me about wrecking his mother's car, about swinging a shotgun around while hunting and blowing the top of a friend's head off. I recall that it was just the skin on his head and that he survived. I'm not sure, though. It was an accident and Dad did no time.

There are parts of our lives we'd just as soon not share with the oncoming generations. I'm sure not telling.

Some of my history, if I'm lucky, goes off into the mists off time unrecorded and unremembered. There'll be a lot of video of me playing in a band outside during the 80's and 90's. There's some stuff on public access video. There's a really embarrassing VHS tape of me drinking many shots of scotch in succession and sustaining an inane monologue for an excruciatingly long time (perhaps that will go un-noticed). Perhaps fairness and balance require that a little poison about us gets passed on, too. Someone's testimonial about what an insufferable shit I am. I suspect there'd be a few volunteers.

Send me some samples for review and I'll let you know.