Word up: control your anger or get a stroke. My dad suffered 12 years as a stroke victim. What a winer!
What I learned from observations of my father over the years:
If alcoholism leads you to be anxious in crowds, then it's in your best interest to discuss it with your doctor and find ways of getting backbone other than through the bottle.
Never think retirement means sitting in front of the TV watching sports drinking beer and beating on the wife. It also means that you have to do better than just help your friends. I mean, your wife is your first friend, aint she?
Don't ever make fun of any of your kids, especially the odd one out.
If one of your kid wants to run away from home and be a monk, then you should be honored by his hidden compassion and bizarre wisdom. It really isn't a shame when someone actually cares about the world than what he or she can get out of it.
If you do the "dumb farmer" routine too much, then all those elementary school successes will be forgotten.
If you're pissing against a building in what used to be Japtown, it really impresses the factory worker to turn around and say, "Wanna a piece of me?"
So the WW1 veteran was the only guy in Vernon who 'd take Gramma's money for the new digs after the war? And you guys had to wait until 1949 before they'd let you near the coast? Maybe this explains Clubvibes.
After 30 years of living with my folks, I've learned that whatever the Western world sees as bizarre behavior in the Japanese diasphora is actually the BS of shame, and Japan itself today is living in interesting times, indeed.
My best memory is bawling my head until my mom came out to scold me for waking her up. My dad and I bonded just before he went off to the sawmill to work. That is the ideal memory I have of him. Everything else basically shows how much of a sense of humor God has with the Japanese.
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Update:
My father never hit my mother once.
He did say negative things about her side of the family, but that may have been because of negative things she said in retaliation to the way he treated her.
One thing I did learn from all this was never to disclose anything about my personal life with my mother, because of emotional abuse she suffered.
A human being craves the positive, so anything negative casts a shadow over anything positive that you try to do.
That shadow colors my mother's present life, and I don't let that color my life today.
However, when I write that I suffered emotional neglect at my mother's hand as a child, I also enjoyed her benevolence too.
So in order to let her off the hook, I'm going to remember the good she has done for me by taking care of me as a child.
Update February 8, 2013 1408H
Wow, what I wrote over 5 years ago sounds like I was using humor to get over my father's death.
While I admit that it showed a flippant disrespect for my father's memory, it also shows a fear of death that is hidden behind sarcasm at that time.
Do I fear death today? Only a little bit, because of renewed faith in the Primal Vow of Amida Buddha. It is my belief that my father is reborn in the Pure Land of Bliss.
When I visited my mother recently, she reminded me that May 4 will be when our family, my brother and I will be with her at his grave site to honor his memory. This year she wants the Buddhist memorial service to be done for him.
Why isn't the memorial service on May 2? It's the most convenient time for my brother and the Buddhist minister who will be performing the service.
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