Dear Ol' Dad!

I often mention my mother on this here blog. Maybe it's because she passed away and I miss her.But this week I am going to change the pace a little and talk about my dad.
Dear Old Dad.
Alot of you reading here know of him and his antics over the years.
He's quite the character.
This is a man who most of my friends feared. He "asked" more than a few of my friends to leave the house when I would manage to get myself into trouble growing up. Which was quite often, unfortunately. Just ask my friend Mary. She'll tell you.
He knows half of Pittsburgh from his basketball playing days at Cenral and the other half he coached at one time or another.
That's a whole other post.
Kids I grew up with who are now in their 50's still say that they would still be afraid to ever smoke a cigarette in front of him.
Having said that, this is the same man that would yell at the top of his lungs when I did something wrong. But would never, ever go to bed without apologizing to me. Which got me every time. The yelling never did much good. The talk after the fight made me feel like shit for being such an ass.
One time he smacked me, then he cried and said he was sorry. (I deserved much more than a little smack, by the way)
His bark is far worse than his bite.
When Devin was born premature and had to stay in the hospital, he watched over him, and cried and cried.

The one thing I am grateful to him for is the gift for speaking my mind. Or as Richard calls it "Sitting on her right" Over the years he makes me look tame.

My dad now lives most of his time up north in Conneaut Lake. At first I couldn't imagine him being up there in the middle of nowhere, out of Lawrenceville where he spent all of his 80 plus years.It helps that a few nephews play basketball for Allegheny and Tiel. That keeps him busy.

Anyway, the reason I'm writing this is because tonight when he called to say hello, he started telling me about the headline in the Meadville Tribune. Gun sales up in Crawford county since election day. What. The. Fuck???
Unbelievable. Really.
Ya know, you really, really need that assault rifle in Conneaut Lake. Geeze-oh-man.
It's not like they cling to their guns or religion or anything!

So we started talking about the election. Again.

Every morning he has his coffee and rye toast at this little diner. It's sort of a Mayberry-like place. The same 5 or six guys eat there daily. My dad probably being the oldest.
Naturally, they were all rooting for McCain. Wednesday morning the place was buzzing with opinions. One guy walked in and threw watermelon seeds on the counter and said "You all better start planting watermelons, they are going to be the national fruit" Can you believe it?
My father couldn't either.
He looked at all of them, stood up and told them all "Say what you want, but in all of my 85 years, I have seen alot of elections. I have never seen ANYONE dancing in the streets after the results were announced. The whole world is celebrating.And you guys are just missing it."
That's my dad!!!!!

Things I'm working on----A test to see who's smarter than a former vice-presidential candidate.
Any ideas???