RIDING IN CARS WITH GHOSTS
Doug Stanhope, a brilliant comedian, once said “All traditions are stupid and meaningless unless you come up with the tradition yourself”.
I don’t usually celebrate the standard traditions. Christmas,Thanksgiving, Easter, the 4th of July. I ignore them all because they don’t mean anything to me personally and I’ve always believed that if something is celebrated out of misunderstood duty in the name of normalcy then it’s probably not something worth paying any attention to.
Today is my father’s birthday. I lost him four years ago March. Because I had him cremated and the ashes scattered in the Pacific Ocean I return to the sea every year and perform my ritual. My own tradition. I drive to a secluded place at seaside. So far this has been the stretch of Alki just south of the lighthouse where it’s always quiet. I mix a 7 and 7 in a cup with ice. That’s Seagram’s 7 and 7-UP, my fathers favorite drink. I tell him I miss him, have a sip and then toss the remaining beverage in the ocean so he can enjoy it.
This whole procedure takes about two minutes.
It is a tradition I created myself to honor the memory of my dad, a difficult man who never really got me, but who deserves those two minutes all the same.
My entire family, scattered as they are, have always been mostly a mystery to me so the concept of family traditions have never really stuck. My father had an older brother who lives (or lived) in Phoenix. Both he and his wife were alcoholics and they had several daughters, my cousins. If I passed any of these people on the street tomorrow I would not recognize them. I have no idea if they’re alive or dead.
I also have family in Pennsylvania, relatives of my mother, who may be step relatives since my maternal grandfather was actually my step grandfather so, in reality, I have no idea who those people are either. My mother once took me back to Pennsylvania to meet these relatives but I can’t recall a single...
RIDING IN CARS WITH GHOSTS
Doug Stanhope, a brilliant comedian, once said “All traditions are stupid and meaningless unless you come up with the tradition yourself”.
I don’t usually celebrate the standard traditions. Christmas,Thanksgiving, Easter, the 4th of July. I ignore them all because they don’t mean anything to me personally and I’ve always believed that if something is celebrated out of misunderstood duty in the name of normalcy then it’s probably not something worth paying any attention to.
Today is my father’s birthday. I lost him four years ago March. Because I had him cremated and the ashes scattered in the Pacific Ocean I return to the sea every year and perform my ritual. My own tradition. I drive to a secluded place at seaside. So far this has been the stretch of Alki just south of the lighthouse where it’s always quiet. I mix a 7 and 7 in a cup with ice. That’s Seagram’s 7 and 7-UP, my fathers favorite drink. I tell him I miss him, have a sip and then toss the remaining beverage in the ocean so he can enjoy it.
This whole procedure takes about two minutes.
It is a tradition I created myself to honor the memory of my dad, a difficult man who never really got me, but who deserves those two minutes all the same.
My entire family, scattered as they are, have always been mostly a mystery to me so the concept of family traditions have never really stuck. My father had an older brother who lives (or lived) in Phoenix. Both he and his wife were alcoholics and they had several daughters, my cousins. If I passed any of these people on the street tomorrow I would not recognize them. I have no idea if they’re alive or dead.
I also have family in Pennsylvania, relatives of my mother, who may be step relatives since my maternal grandfather was actually my step grandfather so, in reality, I have no idea who those people are either. My mother once took me back to Pennsylvania to meet these relatives but I can’t recall a single one now.
Both sides of the family were very bad at connecting the dots so I’ve never had a sense of history in that regard.
I have lived a very unconventional life in terms of family dynamics so this tradition for my father is the only date on the calendar than resonates with me, other than my mothers birthday. It’s definite. It serves a true purpose. Everything else is speculation and convoluted.
I’m told that when I was a baby my father played a vital role in my life. He was what is called a “doting” parent. Once I began to develop my own personality, however, he became more distant and eventually it was clear we looked at the world very differently. I’m not sure he ever understood me. I’m not sure it even matters. I became bookish and lived a life of thoughts and ideas. He probably wanted a baseball player. We grew to a comfortable distance. Once my parents divorced, in my 13th year, he played less and less of a role.
When I graduated high school, instead of heading to college,my father wanted me to join his business rebuilding diesel engines. He wanted the shop to be mine one day and I assumed that meant he would teach me the business. In reality he wasn’t much of a mentor. I worked full time in the same building in Los Angeles's skid row district whose floors I swept every summer through grade school and high school and, once I became a full time employee, I wasn’t treated any different than the undocumented Mexicans that filled many of the positions there. Men I got to know well and some of whom I grow to respect greatly. When my father went bankrupt and the shop closed I was notified by mail like everyone else. I never even got my last paycheck.
I did my best to pick up the pieces and continue my education but the wheels had pretty much come off and he was much more concerned with saving his own ass then he was mine. We never spoke of the shop after it closed.
Years later, when I’d established a radio career, he flew from Los Angeles to Wenatchee, Washington, where I was working, for a visit to “see how I was doing”. It took him almost no time to reveal that he’d made the trip because he wanted me to give up that “stupid dream” and join him selling Amway products.
That didn’t go too well and he was headed back to LA in a very short time.
Eventually, towards the end of his life and with his third wife dead (my mother being the second wife) he lived with a very nice woman in a 55+ manufactured home park in Santa Clarita, CA. This woman had lived across the road from dad and, when dad’s wife died, he simply sold that unit and moved in with the blonde next door. He never knew how to be alone. As his health deteriorated from a lifetime of 7 and 7’s and unfiltered Camel cigarettes he kept passing out and falling which turned into many ambulance rides and lots of angry yelling at everyone, mostly this poor woman that took my father in.
One night she called my in tears and told me he was so mean that she didn’t want him there anymore. I wasn’t sure how to handle the situation so I talked to my mother about it. My mother, in her typical fashion and without my knowledge, took it upon herself to call this woman directly the next day and tell her that dad was an asshole and, since she took him in, she could damn well handle the situation herself.
The last time my father and I spoke was the aftermath of that sequence of events. He assumed that I had asked mom to call and he told me, in no uncertain terms, that I should “grow a pair”. Those were his last words to me. I never had a chance to tell him what happened.
He died soon after that. I received a call from a family friend to tell me he had passed and I traveled to Los Angeles to put the last of his matters in order and have him cremated. I haven’t spoken to his last girlfriend since I drove away. I’m sorry she had to go through that.
So he’s gone now and I think about him less and less as the years slip away. I miss him sometimes. He always thought I was funny and it was a joy to make him laugh but, overall, his lasting impact on me was one of indifference.
We never really understood each other. I hope he liked the drink.
Doug Stanhope, a brilliant comedian, once said “All traditions are stupid and meaningless unless you come up with the tradition yourself”.
I don’t usually celebrate the standard traditions. Christmas,Thanksgiving, Easter, the 4th of July. I ignore them all because they don’t mean anything to me personally and I’ve always believed that if something is celebrated out of misunderstood duty in the name of normalcy then it’s probably not something worth paying any attention to.
Today is my father’s birthday. I lost him four years ago March. Because I had him cremated and the ashes scattered in the Pacific Ocean I return to the sea every year and perform my ritual. My own tradition. I drive to a secluded place at seaside. So far this has been the stretch of Alki just south of the lighthouse where it’s always quiet. I mix a 7 and 7 in a cup with ice. That’s Seagram’s 7 and 7-UP, my fathers favorite drink. I tell him I miss him, have a sip and then toss the remaining beverage in the ocean so he can enjoy it.
This whole procedure takes about two minutes.
It is a tradition I created myself to honor the memory of my dad, a difficult man who never really got me, but who deserves those two minutes all the same.
My entire family, scattered as they are, have always been mostly a mystery to me so the concept of family traditions have never really stuck. My father had an older brother who lives (or lived) in Phoenix. Both he and his wife were alcoholics and they had several daughters, my cousins. If I passed any of these people on the street tomorrow I would not recognize them. I have no idea if they’re alive or dead.
I also have family in Pennsylvania, relatives of my mother, who may be step relatives since my maternal grandfather was actually my step grandfather so, in reality, I have no idea who those people are either. My mother once took me back to Pennsylvania to meet these relatives but I can’t recall a single...