I hadn't written in the category since the year after my mom's death. But something hit me today and this would be the perfect place to share
A very good friend of mine's husband had brain surgery this past week (okay, okay, I'm using poetic license here, it wasn't his brain, it was the blood supply to the brain, so close enough!) and he's at home (two days after the surgery the released him; crazy). And she's mentioned some of the things that they're dealing with at this point.
And it got me to thinking about men and pain.
Back in 1971, my dad retired from the USAF. We lived at Edwards Air Force Base (go Scorpions! Desert High School! Purple and white!) and they looked for places to retire to and they picked San Diego county. They found a nice mobile home park and put their money down on a space and special ordered a mobile home. Unfortunately, there were some shenanigans with the mobile home and they didn't get what they'd ordered, some sort of runaround (oh, it was in an accident and was totaled or some sort of garbage like that).
Well, we'd lived in a little Winnebago, just the three of us for months. Mom and I, who had never had a particularly good relationship, were left alone, in a strange town, while dad went to work. It wasn't one of the most pleasant experiences I went through. Mom was so depresssed, at one point she took a bunch of the sleep aid called "Compoze". Don't know if it's still available, but it didn't kill her. It didn't even make her a little bit sleepy. But living in such close quarters was getting to us all.
So, they were able to work out a deal where their down payment was either paid back or they used it towards another model that was available for a decent price. And they'd decided they wanted to move to the top of the hill, getting one of the best possible views of the little town of Lakeside.
The mobile home got delivered (omg, it has red velvet walls in the living room! RED VELVET WALLS! Who originally ordered this? A pimp?). Walls aside, it was a nice place. Three bedrooms, bath and a half, good sized living room, a kitchen with a fair sized pantry. It even had a little room with a pocket door for the washer and dryer.
Fast forward a year or so. All settled in, nice little lawn going, flowers growing along the side walkway, great view, just very peaceful. One afternoon, mom asks me if I've seen dad.
Nope. No idea where he is.
So, I joined my mom in looking for my father. She calling out "David", me calling out "dad". I went next store and asked the neighbors if they'd seen him. No, sorry, they hadn't.
It was really weird. The cars were both in the driveway, he hadn't said anything about going anywhere. We must have looked for him for the better part of an hour with no luck.
Then, I opened the pocket door to the laundry room. And who was standing there, holding his bare foot, with tears in his eyes? Yep. My dad.
It seems he had walked into the leg of one of the wrought iron chairs between the kitchen and dining room. I mean, he really rammed it home.
The thing is we weren't a particularly sympathetic family. There was no sympathy for this man. This little wrought iron table and its little chairs had gotten us all at one time or another and if you get hurt, it's your fault. And dad knew. He knew what would happen if we were aware of what happened.
He wasn't wrong. Mom and I both laughed so hard we almost peed our pants.
Yeah, good times.
tales from the parkside
