My Dad

My dad was the kind of guy who would spend more than the cost of dinner on a fishing pole hoping that he could catch enough fish in his lifetime to make the cost...um...work out in his favor. He wasn’t a very spiritual guy, he was a moron who actually thought that "the system" could be beaten if he could just figure out "all the angles" and latch on to the "right one".

Back in the very late fifties he drug me to the Santa Monica pier on just such a fishing trip. I was about three or four years old at the time. I seriously doubt I was even into TV Guide at the time.

We sat on an edge of the pier and cast our lines into the wind. Somehow (and I don’t even remember this) I reeled in a fish that was roughly the size of a nice "sammich".

There was another kid about my age, bored to death as he hung out with a father who was about the same age as mine. Another asshole who was hell-bent on "beating the system" just like my father was. This poor kid didn’t catch a fish and his dad was more than a bit peeved at this. Fucking fathers, man. You got me on that one. His kid was a fucking KID for Christ’s sake.

This kid’s dad kind of laid into him. "Geezuz! Can’t you even catch a fucking fish?", that whole vibe, so I reached into my dad’s bucket and gave the poor little fucker the fish that I had caught. He and his dad were amazed and both got real happy real fast, the whole point of life (at least in that moment) being "FISH!!!!" and not at all connected to real life at all.

My dad smiled and "let things slide", saying something sage like, "Kids? What you gonna do?" and let the dad and the now happy kid stalk off into the night.

On the way home he threw the fucking book at me and called me a pussy. Many, many, many times.

This is how I deal with my friends. Both in real life and on line. I give away my fish.

It’s left up to you to figure out what I mean by this. I’m not a professor. I’m an asshole with a ton of fish and it’s up to you to pick out the bones.