My Dad - Part 1

Since I talked about my Mom, it is only fair to cover my Dad’s story too.

As previously stated my mom and dad got divorced when I was around a year old. I personally think that as far as being a kid from a broken home I was pretty lucky. You can’t miss what you never knew. I never knew what it was like to have a mother and father at home. I never even had a stepfather. My grandfather passed away when I was a year old. So I never really had any male influence in my life until about the age of 16.

Even though my mom and dad where divorced. My mom always made sure that I knew his family. I had a pretty close relationship with my paternal grandmother. I also had a decent relationship with my uncles. They weren’t in my life daily but a couple times a year I would see them. My father wasn’t around much in those years.

When I was 5, my mom and I were visiting my grandmother and we heard that my father wanted to see me. This is the first memory of him that I have. I remember that he lived on a ranch with horses; he bought me my first pair of real Levi’s and a set of Lincoln Logs. That is about all I remember about that visit.

My mom had never received the court ordered child support of $60.00 a month. Can you imagine $60.00 a month to support a child? Then one day it started coming when I was 14. It was a check from the DA’s office. We got those checks for about 9 months and then we started getting my dad’s actual check. His check that had his address and phone number. So me being the smart butt teenager that I was decided to call him. It was 2 months before my 16th birthday. He answered the phone and I wasn’t the nicest person. I asked him if he had any clue who I was and he said yes that he knew who I was and had wanted to see me for awhile but wasn’t sure how to go about it. He said that he had a present for me and I very snottily told him that if it wasn’t a car I didn’t want it. Well imagine my surprise when it was a car. He had a 1973 Volvo that he had just put a new engine in and wanted to give it to me for my 16th birthday.

He happened to live in the same town as one of my mom’s best friends. We were going there for the 4th of July. So I told him that if he wanted to see me I would call him when I got to town. He asked me to please call him. He really wanted to see me.

The day came when we were in town so I called him. My girlfriend was with me and she was going to go with me to meet him. He came and picked us up. As we were driving to his house he asked me if I smoked. I said yes cigarettes. He then asked if I smoked anything else and I said yes pot. Then he pulled out a joint and lit it and handed it to me. This was how the first real meeting with my dad went.

I will continue with the rest of the story. It is so weird to see this stuff in writing and know that it is my life. It really is by the Grace of my Heavenly Father that I am still standing, somewhat normal.