I thought long and hard about posting this one... first of all, because as a born-again Christian, it is not my intent to glorify drinking. I hope that's not the message that comes across here, because while I don't have a problem with social drinking, I believe that overindulgence takes away from the fullness of life that Jesus wants us to experience. And obviously, many people who drink end up battling addictions and losing control of their lives in what started as a seemingly harmless recreational activity. Secondly, I didn't want to negatively paint a picture of my late father, because in this story, he comes off as a bit silly.
But here's the truth. My dad was a drinker. It was a part of who he was. To me, it never defined him. He was so much more than that, and I can honestly say that I hope he's able to enjoy a round or two in heaven, because he took great pleasure in doing so here on earth, and from my point of view, he wasn't less of a father or man for doing so. Furthermore, in an attempt to create humor, it may seem that I'm exaggerating in this story... but I'm not. I don't mean to write AT my father's expense. It is actually these colorful memories that have stayed with me that, having lost him, help me to cherish his memory and love him even better. So I intend no disrespect with this story, it's actually quite the opposite.
This story, though never before shared online, was actually the foundation for my latest book in progress, This is Going to Sound Like Fiction. I wrote it during a winter writing retreat, and literally, before tentatively sharing at our open mic, I explained, "This is going to sound like fiction... but it's not." The response I received that night was so encouraging and warm, I actually began weaving together a collection of similar stories that explore the everyday craziness of life.
So yes, this story is a little crazy. No, we don't all come off as perfect in the version I'm about to tell. But Dad, if you know my heart, you know I share this in love, to bring a smile to someone else's face. You were much more than just a partier--you were a great father, a hard worker, and a fantastic friend. But your colorful antics were always a reason for me to smile... so I hope you don't mind that I share this with the world. I love you and miss you. Happy Father's Day.
The Lebaron Meets A Sad End
“So we’re
sitting on the porch, chillin, hanging out, and all of a sudden Dad comes
bursting in. He coulda been drunk, or
maybe not, with Dad, it was hard to tell, so who knew?”
I laugh,
pausing my brother in the middle of his story, as he stops to grin and
nod. We’re standing in my kitchen, Dad’s
kitchen, except I’ve got new hardwood floors and shiny stainless steel
appliances, and the walls are a soft yellow now. I’ve heard this story before, and I love
it. I listen to Johnny tell it again.
“So anyway,
Dad comes busting in all upset. ‘Johnny,
Johnny, we gotta go now! We gotta get my
car out of the ditch down the road!'”
I can
picture it—a younger version of my brother with his brown curls cut short,
sitting around with his twenty-somethings friends, maybe drinking, maybe
smoking, all wasting time in the leisurely way of the young before careers,
marriages, and social obligations. My
father—six foot two, Albert Einstein hair, wrinkled and reddened but kind
face—yanking open the creaking sliding glass door, stumbling onto the porch,
squinting and glaring at the group of boys lounged about in mismatching outdoor
dining chairs. His naturally booming
voice louder than usual from that extra round at Smitty’s and the commotion
he’s just been through.
I smile at
Johnny. “How’d he get home?” I ask,
forgetting this part of the story.
Johnny
grins. He looks a lot like my
father. He, too, has been drinking. His brown eyes are glassy, his pale
complexion pinkened. “He got a ride from
one of your high school friends!
Remember?”
I literally
laugh out loud as I rack my mind trying to recall which of my former cheer
squad teammates experienced what had to have been the very memorable event of
picking up my sixty-six-year-old hyperactive father, rescuing him from a
two-mile walk down a tree choked one lane road, black as coal during the
night. I bet that was a long five
minutes in that girl’s life. God bless
her.
We can’t
remember which of my friends it was, and Johnny moves on with the story. “Now mind you, this was Dad’s convertible,
the Lebaron, but to Dad, this is the car to end all cars. This is the f-in (my brother does not say
f-in, but I can’t quite bring myself to say what he actually said) Mercedes
Benz of cars in Dad’s eyes!”
I remember
this car, though I do not recall ever riding in it. A boxy, early nineties red soft-top
convertible, my Dad’s pride and joy. Dad
wasn’t a car guy, but I think he saw this car as a chick magnet of sorts. I wonder if he thought of himself as Fonzie
or James Dean as he cruised Rt. 54 to Smitty’s, trying on different pick-up
lines with the fifty-plus crowd of white-haired women.
On this
particular evening, Dad had wrecked the car in a curve that was so steep it was
practically a right angle. A common
mistake. Tourists and teenagers who took
the turn with too much speed were forever being fished out of that ditch. I’d landed in it once myself when my best
friend went flying around it on a rainy morning a few months after getting her
driver’s license.
After what I
imagine to be much yelling and excitement, Dad convinced Johnny and a friend to
drive him back to where a buddy was towing my Dad’s precious LeBaron out of the
ditch, so Johnny could drive it home.
But when they got there, the cops had beat him to the scene.
“Who’s car
is this?” Johnny sneered, an unkind impersonation of the policeman who had
arrived on the scene. Cops, in general,
hated my brother, with his punk t-shirts and baggy jeans and multiple
earrings. “So I said, ‘It’s my father’s
sir.’ ‘This isn’t your car?’” He
demanded, changing his voice into the high pitched snarl he was using for the
police man. “ ‘No sir,’” (a humble
voice) “ ‘it’s my father’s.’ ‘Where’s your father? How’d this car get in this ditch? He drunk?
You drunk?’ ‘No, sir. We’ve not been drinking. My dad just took the turn too fast and ended
up in the ditch is all, I think. I
wasn’t with him.’ ‘Where’s your father
now?’ ‘He’s in my car, sir. Shaken up from the accident. He’s elderly and frail,’” which was the most
ridiculous lie yet to have come out of my brother’s mouth, for, though he had
silver hair and a lined face, my father moved with the energy of a high school
quarterback and was built like an ox.
Frail was a perfect antonym.
The cop
wasn’t buying it. Eventually the friend
Dad called to tow him showed up, confirmed that the ditched LeBaron was indeed
John Meister’s (the elder, not the younger’s), and I’m sure, fed up with the
entire situation, the police officer finally just called it a day and ordered the car impounded.
Amazingly, no one got arrested.
But the
story got even better. Adamant that his
chick magnet be returned to him immediately, Dad insisted that Johnny get up at
the crack ass of dawn (well, maybe seven o’clock, but to my partying twenty-one-year-old brother, that was essentially the same thing) in order to chauffer him
to the impound lot so that his LeBaron could be rescued.
“Dad paid
$250 to get that car out that day,”
Johnny continued, an incredulous smile brimming beneath his words, “And that
very same night…” he was shaking his head.
I was
laughing so hard tears were stinging the corners of my eyes. After all his valiant efforts to save the
LeBaron from first the ditch, and then the certain doom of impoundment, his
insistence that this be resolved absolutely immediately….
That very
same night he got this aging convertible home safe and sound, parked lovingly
in the driveway—
“BAM!” Johnny
managed through choking laughter.
“Smashed by a tree!”
Our house,
you see, sits in the middle of an acre of woods, mostly giant, stretching
pines, hundreds of feet tall. The evening that they had driven the Lebaron home, a thunderstorm had rolled in, causing branches to fall and trees to sway. As had periodically happened when we grew up, sometimes the whipping winds would even cause and older tree to crack and fall. On this particular occasion, one such tree had fallen on the LeBaron the same night it had been returned to my
father. So a mere hours after it had
been secured and returned to him, mother nature and/ or fate thwarted my father
once again, smashing his beloved car into smithereens with an unassuming pine
tree.
Maybe some
things just aren’t meant to be. Or maybe
my father was a magnet for irony. All I
know is that despite his most diligent attempts, the LeBaron met a sad, sad
end.
Still, it
makes for a great story.
