The tractor story

This is a family story of mine that I've told a select few people who are important to me. I always cry when I tell it because it hits me so hard. It's a story I'm proud of though so here it is for all who would care to read it. I have it on my mind now because my father is in the hospital this week. It's just a minor surgery; otherwise I'd have flown up there to be with him as we're very close.

I'm very blessed to now have a stepmother who is there to harrass him and make him take care of himself. I have to admit that at the age of 33 or so when they got married, I was not so amused about getting a new "stepmom". To me, it was just the thought of someone taking my real mother's place. I think everyone goes through that if a parent dies and there is a remarriage of the surviving one. Not to be repetitive, but I am very thankful for Jo, my stepmom. But having Dad in the hospital has made me think about his mortality and the loss of my mom a lot. This little post is to celebrate my mother, father and the love that they had for each other. It's what a family is and should be about. We've had many flaws and trials, but when I think about this story for example, it reminds me that I came from a good place.

This is a true story and shows so many of the traits that my mom and dad both have. I love you Mom if you can see this somehow; I know that you're looking over Dad right now. I'm thankful to have been brought up in a home where my parents truly loved each other; many kids don't now and/or did not have that then.

Just a little backdrop so this story makes sense first: My mom and dad are/were entirely self made. They had no money when they got together and their honeymoon was in Tulsa, Oklahoma, just 2 hours away. They went there because that is all they could afford and both came from large, dirt poor farm families. I was on the way too, ahem, shotgun anyone?

Early on and shortly after my birth, my parents were struggling horribly financially. My mom was working full time as a bank teller to try and put my Dad through college, he was working nights and all hours that he could as a janitor in a local printshop to augment that. My grandfather on my father's side (Clark the 2nd) had died just before my birth. There was nobody on Earth that my father loved as much as his Dad. However, in the dire conditions my parents found themselves in, they had no choice but to sell off everything that they could to make ends meet. Most of my grandfather's farm equipment, land and everything was sold off to help my grandmother. One of the things that was sold was his tractor, which my father used to ride on grandpa's lap as a child. To my dad, there were only two things that had deeply symbolic and emotional attachments to his dad, they were his tractor and his truck.

The truck was never sold, but to my dad's horror, they had to sell the tractor to pay our bills. It was truly one of the darkest days of my father's life. He gave up something he loved that was deeply symbolic; he did so for my mother and me and the family they were creating; my little brother would not come till four years after me.

Well, fast forward a few years. The print shop that my Dad worked at as a janitor was now owned by my Dad. He was shrewd, and a good customer centered businessman. My mom was Assistant Vice President of that bank she worked at to put dad through college. They were living a fairy tale it seemed and suddenly had buying power that they had never imagined. But they never forgot where they came from or what was truly important to them.

My dad, much in his dad's memory, had taken up the responsibility of taking care of my grandmother. She lived well, had her own home and never lacked for anything. My dad paid all of her expenses whenever she needed anything. The tractor that they had given up was a thorn in my dad's side though, and one that he had to get back out of the loving memory he had for grandpa.

My dad desperately tried to find out and trace where that tractor had gone. He hardly needed a tractor, it was just the emotional attachment and that it was "his daddy's tractor". In my early teens, my father hired a private detective to search for it and trace it's whereabouts. The information we got out of it was not enough. The tractor had been sold to someone in Arkansas, moved to Alabama, and then back to Arkansas where we reached a deadend. We all got tired of hearing my dad talk about his biggest regret in life, that being that he no longer had "his daddy's tractor".

Well, when I was 17, my mom decided a couple of months before Fathers Day that she was "the nosiest bitch in Arkansas" and she could probably succeed out of determination where the detective had failed. She would start her own search for "Daddy's tractor" for Fathers Day. I can't go on enough about how much my Mom went through to find it. Words cannot describe it. She called, begged, pleaded and told everyone she talked to how emotionally important it was that we find that tractor. She came to a dead end at a rural East Arkansas town where the people had no idea what happened to it or where the folks they sold it to were. But they were sure the person was deceased and no longer would have it. My mom cried on the phone that day begging them to find a number or anything that might help. I was there on that Saturday morning, my dad was gone, and my mom was doing her part time job; she spent every waking moment that my Dad was not around working on "daddy's tractor".

Well, a miracle of sorts happened that day. In rural East Arkansas at the time, they still had party lines. These were common in rural areas, essentially you're sharing lines with your neighbors. A little old woman's voice came on after hearing my mom's story. She had apparently been eavesdropping on her neighbors and heard the whole thing. She said "I don't want you to think I was listening in wrongly or anything, but I think I know where that tractor is". My mom got her information and we went to get my Grandmother right away.

My mom made up a story for why we were leaving and I had to drive us that day to East Arkansas, several hours away on country roads that destroyed my old convertible Cutlass' exhaust system. Eventually we made it to this God forsaken place and saw the heap of junk. My grandmother walked up to it and said "this is it", she was pretty sure. It was completely rusted, sitting in pieces and was pure junk and regarded as such by these folks. My mom begged and then ultimately bribed them to give it up. She paid them over $1000 as they were greedy and uncooperative when they realized it had sentimental value and that Mom had money. Ultimately though, my mom wrote a fat check and we owned the thing.
Delivery was arranged with another fat check from my Mom and we made sure it was on Father's day. She sent my dad on some bogus errands to get him away and have it delivered.

Well, what transpired after that makes me cry as I write this. You see, I never in my life had seen my dad cry. He grew up in a generation where men were not supposed to; he often bragged that he did not cry at his Grandpa Clark's funeral because "dad would not approve".

Sitting at the end of the driveway was this heap of junk. I had made a poster draped over it that said "Happy Father's Day". We, my mother, brother and I, were hiding in the bushes for the surprise.

My dad drove up and got out of his car. He looked at it and was smiling, obviously thinking it was a practical joke; this tractor hardly resembled anything other than that. But he got close to it and noticed the toolbox on the side of it that he himself had built onto it as a teen for Grandpa.

He collapsed on the ground and wailed, screaming, and curling up in a ball. It was a reaction none of us had ever seen or expected. For at least the next 10 minutes, all he could do was scream and wail "that's my daddy's tractor, that's my daddy's tractor, that's my daddy's tractor.........". It was a nonstop quote that he could not break away from. My mom, brother and myself by this point had all run out of the bushes to hold him and console him.

That day changed everything in my family. My dad lost his machoism forever. He cries openly now and is not that ashamed of it. I think he's healthier emotionally now as a result too.

You see, it is my opinion that some people are truly blessed. They don't always know it. I'm not sure my Dad understood how blessed he was at the time himself. It wasn't that he got that tractor. Sure, that's important. What made him blessed was that he had someone that loved him so greatly that they would dedicate so much of their time and energy into making him happy. I hope someday that someone loves me that way and that I have the chance to return it. If you've ever seen that from your parents, you probably hope for and expect it for yourself. That's a gift and blessing too; if you don't expect something, I don't think it will happen for you.

I tell this story because it's therapeutic to me. I also tell it because I'm proud of where I came from. It is not material things I'm talking about either. We often think of the problems we have and don't recognize what's so very right. I guess that's human nature. If anyone reading this has been blessed with that kind of love from a romantic partner, I hope this story will make you think twice about it tonight and perhaps communicate your appreciation.

As for my Mom, she's been gone from us for a little over four and a half years now. But she did leave this story among others as a legacy behind. When things got really bad for my Mom healthwise, dad once told me "that's my girl, and I love her" to excuse anything he was going through and express unconditionally that he was there to the end no matter what. I later heard that exact line in a movie called "The Notebook" . I see a lot of my parents in that story other than the quote itself, and as a result it is one of my favorite movies.

I'll conclude this story by saying that "daddy's tractor" looks like it rolled off the John Deere assembly line today. If it gets a scratch on it, Dad will take care of it. He waxes it regularly as if it's an exotic car.

Still don't think right wingers are crazy??

Check out this:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/01/05/robertson.sharon/index.html

I don't care to even comment on it. I think it speaks for itself in stupidity.

For something more entertaining though, check out this live video link that shows David Letterman interviewing (sorta) Bill O'Reilly.

http://politicalhumor.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=politicalhumor&zu=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.crooksandliars.com%2F2006%2F01%2F04.html%23a6571

When does PC go too far?

I struggle with the whole PC issue. I like to shock people in humor but I don't like to hurt people. So I naturally straddle that line a bit. There are so many things whereby people get their pants in a wad these days. There are a couple of things that make this issue resurface for me, but the Holidays just ending caused me to think about that devil of an issue again. You know the one, "Merry Christmas", or "Happy Hanukkah" or Ramadan or Kwanzaa or whatever people may hold sacred. I have non PC thoughts on Kwanzaa, but I'll suppress that for now, well maybe for just a couple of paragraphs anyway.

My brother was checking out at a shopping venue just before the Holidays and the guy in front of him was a bible beater. Christian of course, we have the only hateful bible beaters I know of. Anyway, the guy pays and the cashier looks at him and smiles and says "Happy Holidays!" He blew up on her and made everyone around uncomfortable. He says "it's Christmas, period" as if that is the only one that could matter. I guess he thought he was striking a blow for Jesus or something.

Well, around that time, I'm still in Atlanta. I'm listening to CNN, which I do way too much. The guest is Billy Graham's son and the subject was "happy holidays vs Merry Christmas, etc..... The cute CNN girl, Soleday, enlightens the audience of a group to illustrate a point. They show footage of a group of Jews in NYC who have banners on cars that say "Jews for it's ok to say Merry Christmas". I'm not sure they really represent all of Jewdom by any stretch, but it seemed wildly unnecessary and humorous to me to say the least. Young Graham is adamant that all Christians should say Merry Christmas to all, PERIOD. Now Soleday comes back with, "what about Jewish people?" Do you say "Merry Christmas" to them? He responds that he does as a testament of his faith. She then asks if he is offended if they respond with "Happy Hanukkah"? He says absolutely not, and that he responds right back to them with his own Happy Hanukkah.

Well, I think that I might somewhat agree with the younger Graham in this case. Not totally, but at least in part. I was raised Christian, though if you've read this blog you know how unflattering I can be about my so called brethren. I believe this, and YES I am coming down from the mount here.... If you speak to someone that you don't know, and who's faith you don't know, you should stick to "Happy Holidays". I don't give a damn if that is PC. It's just respectful. If I am addressing a known Christian, my holiday salute will always be "Merry Christmas". If I am speaking to a known Jew, I will say "Happy Hanukkah". I think if you do in fact KNOW what their holiday season is about, it is a personable touch to acknowledge it.

But people getting all worked up over this issue is silly. Yes, I think many Jews are possibly offended by being told "Merry Christmas" so often. I won't intentionally do that. But they should not be offended by it. No more than I should be offended by someone saying "Happy Hanukkah" to me. Furthermore, it would truly not offend me in the slightest.

Now I probably look PC or somewhat PC if you take this writing separately on its own merit. So let me shatter that notion real quick. My understanding of Kwanzaa is that it is a celebration of ancient African culture, stresses and accomplishments. The specifics are not of particular interest to me. It is not really a religious holiday per se. I also have little respect for it and think that the reason so many make it the butt of jokes is perhaps in agreement with what I'm about to say. You see, I'm about 80% German. You have to go back before WWI though. However, I am an American, PERIOD. I'm not a German American. I don't need to separate myself from society at large over some stupid celebration of something anciently German that is of little relevance. Kwanzaa strikes me as just such a "holiday". I think many black people are self seperating. Many constantly invent reasons where none may have previously existed to separate themselves from the masses. Kwanzaa was not even celebrated in this country for centuries, it has been created or brought here rather largely as another way for many Blacks to self separate themselves. My rant will end with this, I think it is hypocritical for Blacks to complain about being marginalized by others in American society (and by others I mean all others, Jews, Whites, Hispanics, Asian Americans) yet continue to create divides that didn't previously exist. It is a self perpetuating behavior that spits on the very real marginalization that once was prevalent not so long ago.

A picture of me

What peace could be solved in 30 days?

A co worker today mentioned a show that airs on FX tonight. I looked it up and quickly recognized the producer. It's called 30 days by Michael Spurlock. He became famous by living on McDonalds food only for 30 days and chronicling what it did to his health. Now he took that concept to more serious fare.

Apparently I've missed some good shows already. He put an Evangelical Christian who had problems with Muslims into a Muslim home for 30 days. This person lived, worshiped, ate, and slept with a Muslim family.

Tonight apparently is the gay night. They take homophobe ( who's hot, but I digress ), and put him in San Francisco's Castro district with a gay roommate. He essentially lives the gay life, joining a gay sports team, attending parties, bars, and joining a gay inclusive Christian church. He's from a fundamentalist background and is former Military. Quite a concept, huh? I will tivo it and perhaps report back if it's interesting enough.

This makes me think of the other things that could be done. There are limitless skits that could happen with that concept. On the serious side, you could put a Palestinian into an Israeli Jewish household in Israel and vice versa. I'd want the host familes to be representative of perhaps a Median statistical counterpart for the population. This way it's not skewed by anything. I wonder what would happen? Would they become friends and how would it change their views if at all?

Wouldn't it be great if we could put everyone into a 30 day crash course into another walk of life that they have issues with? Perhaps we could also put a flaming gay guy or butch lesbian into a fundamentalist household for a month; I don't know of any that would be so willing, but work with me here.

An expensive public service

I haven't written anything in a month, so a lot has happened. Since I do enjoy writing, I have no excuse; I'll start with the most important stuff.

About a month ago, this witch I know sends me an email. I actually like her, but she's a witch for doing this to me. It was an email attachment showing all the dogs, pictures and all, that were going to be exterminated by Spalding County Animal Control that week. Wouldn't you know that there would be a cute little dog that looked a bit like my Toby in there. He was listed as a beagle as well. Well, I waited till Wednesday came, his d-day, and called in the morning with the reference ID to see if he had been rescued. Of course not would be the answer.

So I took off work and drove to Griffin, GA to check him out. He was shy, in the corner of a horrible cell, and seemingly petrified. Some dogs were jumping on the fence for attention, but this one was just sitting in the corner, so I could see why he was still there. Long story short, I took him out, he was friendly and I took him home where he and Toby did in fact get along well.

Now for the problem. My budget is busted big time. OUCH. I expected Vet bills, shots, checkups, etc... But I did not expect to have him destroy so much. He ruined an expensive area rug, then I put him in my bathroom so he'd not have anything to pee on for a couple of hours. BAD IDEA. I came back from my workout and he'd eaten the trim all around my bathroom door. $250 there, Another $300 in vet bills and the rug. I'm POE now. Some people are credit poor, some are car poor, and some are house poor; I'm dog poor!

Now before it looks like I'm just going to complain, I have to say it was a great move in spite of it all. He's a little angel, very loving, and he adores Toby. Officially he is a beagle-basset hound mix, so I call him a bagel. His name is Winder. Please join me in welcoming him to my little household. Ooops, gotta run, he also had an infection that I have to call the vet about.......

Lighter thoughts

I have a tendency to only write about things that I have a burning desire to get off my chest. By nature, I think that tends to be things of a serious nature. Let's see, I've covered off the top of my head:

• dating situations and the changing status's thereof
• a host of anti Bushisms
• rants about issues of pop culture
• the death of my Mom
• living wills and the right to die
• vociferous rants about sports figures and fans

With subjects like that, you'd think I was an entirely serious person. I'm really not though. I'm crazy. I'm a schemer for good practical jokes. I get it from my Mom. Since I talked about her in such a serious situation regarding her death in the context of the "right to die" rant I had, I want to pay tribute to her a bit so you can see how I became so weird.

Succinctly, here are my Mom's favorite stunts:

• She was Asst Vice President of a bank. This meant she had keys to everything. She got up extra early one morning years ago, went to the bank, and hid herself in the vault. She then jumped out at co workers when they got into work.
• She faked a crying fit to my poor gullible grandma in the doctor's office waiting room. My grandmother was at the doctor for a routine checkup and lots of people were there. My mom bored easily. So she used her talent to cry at will.. When my poor little horrified grandmother reached over and said "honey, whatever is wrong?", my mom cried louder and said "I just want you to tell me who my daddy is, do you know?". The waiting room just about erupted in laughter realizing the stunt, but my grandma was horrified; she thought that people believed it. My mom was about 40 at the time and my grandma was 81.
• We bought a new convertible when I was a little kid. We took it to my grandmothers house and parked it in the carport with the top down. It started raining and my grandmother said "how will we get back to your house?" She was coming to stay with us. Well, my mom immediately realized that grandma did not understand that convertibles have a top that goes up, so she starting crying at will again. Grandma ran off to her bedroom with my mom starting to snicker and returned with 4 umbrella's thinking we'd drive 15 miles back to our house in the rain holding umbrella's in the car. Grandma was a sweet southern belle, but worldly knowledge was not her thing, and thus made her the target of my mom for fun.

Some of my stunts that I've pulled are:

• I used to cook chocolate chip cookies from scratch all the time. Problem is, my brother would always come in and eat them all. I got irritated and thought to myself, "I'll fix that". I made a batch of them with exlax instead of chocolate chips. Well, wouldn't you know that my brother for the first time ever didn't want any. My mom ate a big plate of them though and missed work the next day with the runs. We didn't tell her about it until years later.
• My brother didn't escape the runs from me on another occasion though. We started a road trip once to Florida to our condo in the redneck riviera. Chiclets gum was popular at the time. I bought a pack of them and dumped all the Chiclets out and replaced them with Grandma's Feenamints. They looked the same if you don't know what they are, but are actually a laxative gum. Anyway, I had fun with it until I realized it would make us stop at every exit across Mississippi , thus keeping me off the beach that much longer.
• They didn't all backfire though. My favorite one against my brother was when we were both little. I was 15 and he was 11 or so. We had watched "The Exorcist" and neither of us were sleeping well frankly. My brother was 4 yrs younger and very wound up, he slept with me in my room unbeknownst to my parents for 2 weeks; that was me being a good brother. But on his first night to stay in his room, I plotted. I knew he was trying hard to stay in his room and move on from the green head spinner in the Exorcist. I waited till about 3 in the morning; I heard him head for the bathroom. I snuck into his room and got under the bed; then I just waited. I let him get in his bed and waited a few minutes, then I added some very subtle sound effects. First there was breathing, then I'd stop when I was sure he'd heard it. Hollywood has nothing on me in the creepy department ya know. Then I waited a bit longer and lightly whispered "michael.......", well, I let this go on for 15 minutes or so of torture with him petrified in his bed, and then I reached up over the bed and grabbed him and in my best Freddy Krueger said "MICHAEL". He bolted from the bed screaming at the top of his lungs. My parents came running in thinking someone had died. Well, I didn't care how much trouble I was in; I could simply not stop laughing. Ultmately, the laughing was contagious and my mom and dad started laughing after being very angry. This just served to make my brother jump up and down and scream "i hate you, i hate you i hate you, over and over again.
• At work, I waited on a female I work with to leave her desk. She did not close her computer down, so I decided to send off a few emails from her email address. She's engaged to be married few months at this point, so I sent off an email to a male co worker that I know well saying "if things don't work out with my fiance, would you consider a no strings hook up?, I'm going to need it badly." In a second email, I shot off a note to other female co workers titled "please help". In the body I explained that I was "dying here" as "I had a very uncomfortable yeast infection, do you have anything I could use?" Needless to say when she sat down she was getting some interesting replies to her requests.