So when trying to explain my dad I guess the quickest way to do it is....do you remember "going postal" from the early to mid 90's? The description of the the guys going postal; Vietnam vets working at the post office, short temper, pretty violent, loves the sauce...that's my dad.
My brothers and I spent our childhood helping my dad act out his flashbacks, I know how to take a knife from a guy and break his arm at the same time just like my dad did. One Christmas my mom let my dad do all of the shopping, we got boxing gloves and toy guns only. My dad's theory on life has always been if it frighten or confuses you beat it up.......but that will come into play later. First some stories;
My dad has a passion for doing yard work 1-3am in the morning, needless to say this invites all of smart ass comments from teenagers, especially when two of your biggest hobbies are sweeping the sidewalks and hosing them down. We live right next to a main bridge that has a lot of traffic so people are always driving by. So one night my dad is hosing down the side walk and some kids in a truck drive by and yell "Hey Gerard", my dad proceeds to throw a trash can at the truck and then run up to it while they were stopped for the red light and punch the window until the kids just ran the red light.
A few summers ago this guy was driving his motorcycle by our house real late every night and before he would get to the light he would down shift and rev his engine way up. So needless to say it was pretty loud. My dad decided it would be a good idea to wait behind our tree with a 4x4, when the guy drove by my dad stepped out around the tree and humchucked the 4x4 at him. The guy stopped his bike and shouted "hey man you could have killed me", my dad responded "you're god damn right I could have", the guy has never driven by again.
My dad used to coach the baseball all star teams and the first practice of every year he would huddles us up and say "you can all play baseball, now I am going to teach you how to play dirty". He would proceed to teach us how to break up double plays, how to throw at a guys face if he was moving when you trying to turn a dp and basically anyway you could hurt someone during the course of a baseball game.
Okay, so now we have established my dad is not scarred to resort to violence, so here we go. The house my mom grew up was apparently haunted; my mom, her mom, and her sisters all have ghost stories. My dad never believed in the ghost. One day he was doing laundry at my grandmother's house and suddenly he saw an old woman sitting on the arm of the chair. He asked in not so polite words what she doing there, she didn't respond, so he basically listen either talk or I am going to start swinging. The old woman still didn't say anything so he tried to punch right through her face (like he always taught us), but amazingly enough he did punch right throw her face. It turns out he saw Mrs. Peacock the woman who haunted my mom's house. My dad went straight home with his wet laundry.
My dad still claims there is no such thing as ghosts and when you ask him about the time at my mom's he just says he has no idea what that old ladies problem was. The Mrs. Peacock incident was about 30ish years ago. Now my mom and my dad live in the house where my brothers and I grew up. Now everyone in my house has seen this little girl ghost except for me and until recently my dad. The weirdest part is now ever told anyone else about the girl until one day my brother mentioned it and my mom and other brother described what she looked like before my brother finished, so I suppose if you believe in ghosts there is some legitimacy.
My dad is losing his mind more then ever before, pretty much it takes him 5 tries before he gets me or any of my brother's names right and there is only 3 of us. He is convinced that the Japanese have "robucks" (how he says robot with his teeth out), that walk and talk twice as fast as humans and they will take over the world. He has lots of very strange yet comical theories.
So a few nights he is walking around the house with flashlight at quarter to 3 trying to wake up my dog to get him to search the house with him. His exact words, "Jake wake up, everyone else in the house can see that little girl except for you, you stupid dog". My dog doesn't wake up for anyone especially my dad but as near as we can figure my dad wanted to show my dog the ghost, my dad proceeded to wander around the house with the flashlight until the sun came out.
Well that was a pretty long story but it is late and my stream of consciousness is taking over.
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