Happy Fathers Day story
abcde12345
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My coin dealer father says he is laconic, to its opposite effect. Lord of his armchair kingdom, his body is a stifling presence in the den.
He smokes cigars and reads old expired CoinAge magazines. He is a miserable man married to a miserable woman and they spiral downwards together like the kamikaze planes on our television set.
I remember in 1972, and he relived his greatest generations in the lamp-light as he fades into a stupor. My brother and I pretended the world is a forest, but not like those of Laos.
Nowadays before he falls asleep he says, "unto them" and my brother pokes his drunken torso with the end of his wooden sword, just to check that he's really asleep as a yellow faded CoinAge magazine tumbles to the shag carpet.
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As a child, my sad, laconic parents took us to Niagara Falls. The American side. Or maybe it was a class trip and the teachers took us, I can't be sure.
Anyway, it was raining and cold, and they gave us blue raincoats and put us on a rust colored boat. We lined up to pay the captain, and as I dropped the coins (perhaps a shiny 1964 new Kennedy half?!) into his calloused hand his eyes flashed like lightning, and I think I cried.
A sticker on his t-shirt said his name was Karen, and I remember thinking "what a strange name for a strange man." So then the boat headed down towards the Falls.
The noise was deafening, and the gray sky and gray rain and gray water surrounded us. I felt like I was in a cloud, or deep in the river, and I began to laugh. Others began laughing too.
It was a high tinkling noise, like a small bell in a storm, and it has not ceased in all that time from then till now in this gray place.
Where is the "happy"?
Should have been in quotes.
There are chemicals people use to explore these strange thoughts... some are in the form of mushrooms...I think this line would apply to your musings...'It's a strange, strange world we live in, Master Jack' Just substitute 'you' for 'we'....
Cheers, RickO