Bacon and Eggs Frying in a Pan
July 12 would have been my dad’s 80th birthday had he not checked out seven and a half years ago. One of the things he frequently said in his later years was “Do stuff for me while I’m alive, don’t bother visiting me when I’m dead because I won’t care.” In his honor, I will not go to the cemetery tomorrow and weed the small garden plot we have there. Instead, I will talk about him here since he was never really “into” the World Wide Webs much so he probably won’t notice this. And even if he did, he’s dead so what the hell is he gonna do about it? Haunt me? Too much work. He probably couldn’t be bothered to put down the pulp sci-fi paperback and get off the Heavenly Couch.
“Dad”, “Pop”, or “The Old Pain in the Ass” as his kids knew him, “Tex” as my mom knew him was born on July 12, 1928 in Lufkin Texas. Find that on a map without using Google, I dare you. From what I was told growing up, he bounced around the Midwest with his stepfather as he moved from job to job. We even have an elementary school picture from Chicago which may explain my affinity for that town. Eventually he wound up in NY where I’m told he met my mother while delivering groceries. After that a bunch of stuff that’s not very significant happened until he smashed up his ankle on an iron gate at the Manor Road Armory on Staten Island which led to him being home for six weeks with nothing much to do but participate in my conception.
(Hey, my blog, it’s all about me. If my old siblings want to cover the period from the late 1940s to the late 1960s the comments section is thataway.)
As a child of the Depression and a mechanic by trade dad was an avid do-it-yourselfer. Unfortunately for me the gene for that particular talent got kicked out of my DNA so when helping around the house two things would happen, dad would tell me to “help by not helping” or I would be given the lowest or semi-skilled job to do which typically was the most tedious and boring. This explains why today other than painting and doing some very basic home maintenance I pay people to do stuff. Still, I got my revenge before he left us. Back when the Mrs. and I still lived in an apartment we decided it needed painting. So we got good old Mom and Dad to come on down and help. I might mention here that at this point in his life Dad only had one leg so he only walked short distances and mom was on her way to a bilateral hip replacement due to severe arthritis so they both got around in wheelchairs while indoors. So of course I handed them rollers and assigned them the bottom halves of all the walls. They spent an entire hot summer afternoon slowly maneuvering their wheelchairs and painting walls in our apartment. It was a lot of fun, actually. Probably more for me than them, though. It was the least he could do after I painted the camouflage patterns on a lot of the vehicles in the maintenance shop he ran in the National Guard when they switched from OD (Olive Drab for the uninitiated) to camo in the late 70s. Dad would take me to work during the summers and set me loose on a truck or APC or if I was really lucky a tank that had chalk outlines drawn showing where the various shades of green and black needed to be hand painted. I like to think that somewhere in a museum maybe there’s a vehicle that I painted since I’m sure they’ve all long since been retired from service.
What I did inherit from dad was an affection for cheesy sci-fi movies and books. Sometimes it seemed the worse the movie the more he liked it. Old Flash Gordon serials, 1950s and 60s Hercules and other “swords and sandals” movies, space operas and of course my personal favorite: Japanese monster movies. Dad took an odd, head-shaking kind of pleasure in these things and we often watched them together. There were times when I’d ask why someone did something and his answer was invariably “Because it’s in the script.” This was an adage that has taken on a deep and complex meaning to me as I get older. Other gems were “This has a budget of dozens” and “Ruined his whole day” (which he reserved for when a character got killed in a particularly gory fashion).
Dad also passed along his capacity for drink to me, and it has served me well. Though he didn’t drink much in his later years I heard stories of his exploits in the military particularly at the annual “summer camp” training he had to attend for three weeks typically at Fort Drum in lovely Watertown, New York. Dad was known for being the last man standing when the day was done and the first man up in the morning. Well, I can usually do the former though the latter is problematic. As I said in his later years he didn’t drink much but we did have one fine summer afternoon for either his birthday or mine when I was in my early 20s down at the Windjammer which was a bar right next to the marina about a mile from home. We tossed down several beers and had burgers and laughed and talked the way we rarely did when I was a teenager. It was one of those milestones you pass after you're finished shaking off the husk of the teenage/college years and you being to appreciate your parents as walking, talking human beings and not your evil overlords.
He also bequeathed a somewhat strange work ethic that has served me, well, sometimes well and sometimes not so well. He believed in working hard and getting the job done right for whoever’s paying you, but he did not believe in working any harder or making things unpleasant for oneself any more than absolutely necessary. He was known at the aforementioned summer camp for bringing along a cot, a small TV and extra pillows. When told that the maneuvers were supposed to simulate and practice battlefield conditions his response was “I don’t need to practice being uncomfortable.” Classic. And correct, in my mind.
If asked for the one constant in my father’s life in the time I knew him I would have to say it was his breakfast. Bacon and eggs every morning. No matter where he was, bacon and eggs. I would come home from working an overnight at the donut shop and he would be in the kitchen frying his bacon and eggs. In college I would come home from seeing bands during the various college radio conventions I attended and he would be frying bacon and eggs. I’d get up for school or work or anything at any age and he would be in the kitchen frying bacon and eggs. Camping? No problem, he’d either use a camp stove or, later, the propane stove in the trailer. He had an old pan, (not cast-iron unfortunately) that he just reused over and over with minimal cleaning. “Adds flavor” he’d tell me. If the thing got really ratty he’d just boil some soapy water in it, dump out the water and wipe the pan with a towel. Bacon and eggs and a pot of Maxwell House or Chock Full O’ Nuts (whatever was on sale) and he was ready to face the day. If you came down after he was done with breakfast the smell would be hanging in the air and if he wasn’t working he’d be having his second cup in the living room eyeing you disapprovingly as you turned left off the stairs for not being an early riser. Ah well. I never got the early riser gene either, but he loved me just the same.
“Dad”, “Pop”, or “The Old Pain in the Ass” as his kids knew him, “Tex” as my mom knew him was born on July 12, 1928 in Lufkin Texas. Find that on a map without using Google, I dare you. From what I was told growing up, he bounced around the Midwest with his stepfather as he moved from job to job. We even have an elementary school picture from Chicago which may explain my affinity for that town. Eventually he wound up in NY where I’m told he met my mother while delivering groceries. After that a bunch of stuff that’s not very significant happened until he smashed up his ankle on an iron gate at the Manor Road Armory on Staten Island which led to him being home for six weeks with nothing much to do but participate in my conception.
(Hey, my blog, it’s all about me. If my old siblings want to cover the period from the late 1940s to the late 1960s the comments section is thataway.)
As a child of the Depression and a mechanic by trade dad was an avid do-it-yourselfer. Unfortunately for me the gene for that particular talent got kicked out of my DNA so when helping around the house two things would happen, dad would tell me to “help by not helping” or I would be given the lowest or semi-skilled job to do which typically was the most tedious and boring. This explains why today other than painting and doing some very basic home maintenance I pay people to do stuff. Still, I got my revenge before he left us. Back when the Mrs. and I still lived in an apartment we decided it needed painting. So we got good old Mom and Dad to come on down and help. I might mention here that at this point in his life Dad only had one leg so he only walked short distances and mom was on her way to a bilateral hip replacement due to severe arthritis so they both got around in wheelchairs while indoors. So of course I handed them rollers and assigned them the bottom halves of all the walls. They spent an entire hot summer afternoon slowly maneuvering their wheelchairs and painting walls in our apartment. It was a lot of fun, actually. Probably more for me than them, though. It was the least he could do after I painted the camouflage patterns on a lot of the vehicles in the maintenance shop he ran in the National Guard when they switched from OD (Olive Drab for the uninitiated) to camo in the late 70s. Dad would take me to work during the summers and set me loose on a truck or APC or if I was really lucky a tank that had chalk outlines drawn showing where the various shades of green and black needed to be hand painted. I like to think that somewhere in a museum maybe there’s a vehicle that I painted since I’m sure they’ve all long since been retired from service.
What I did inherit from dad was an affection for cheesy sci-fi movies and books. Sometimes it seemed the worse the movie the more he liked it. Old Flash Gordon serials, 1950s and 60s Hercules and other “swords and sandals” movies, space operas and of course my personal favorite: Japanese monster movies. Dad took an odd, head-shaking kind of pleasure in these things and we often watched them together. There were times when I’d ask why someone did something and his answer was invariably “Because it’s in the script.” This was an adage that has taken on a deep and complex meaning to me as I get older. Other gems were “This has a budget of dozens” and “Ruined his whole day” (which he reserved for when a character got killed in a particularly gory fashion).
Dad also passed along his capacity for drink to me, and it has served me well. Though he didn’t drink much in his later years I heard stories of his exploits in the military particularly at the annual “summer camp” training he had to attend for three weeks typically at Fort Drum in lovely Watertown, New York. Dad was known for being the last man standing when the day was done and the first man up in the morning. Well, I can usually do the former though the latter is problematic. As I said in his later years he didn’t drink much but we did have one fine summer afternoon for either his birthday or mine when I was in my early 20s down at the Windjammer which was a bar right next to the marina about a mile from home. We tossed down several beers and had burgers and laughed and talked the way we rarely did when I was a teenager. It was one of those milestones you pass after you're finished shaking off the husk of the teenage/college years and you being to appreciate your parents as walking, talking human beings and not your evil overlords.
He also bequeathed a somewhat strange work ethic that has served me, well, sometimes well and sometimes not so well. He believed in working hard and getting the job done right for whoever’s paying you, but he did not believe in working any harder or making things unpleasant for oneself any more than absolutely necessary. He was known at the aforementioned summer camp for bringing along a cot, a small TV and extra pillows. When told that the maneuvers were supposed to simulate and practice battlefield conditions his response was “I don’t need to practice being uncomfortable.” Classic. And correct, in my mind.
If asked for the one constant in my father’s life in the time I knew him I would have to say it was his breakfast. Bacon and eggs every morning. No matter where he was, bacon and eggs. I would come home from working an overnight at the donut shop and he would be in the kitchen frying his bacon and eggs. In college I would come home from seeing bands during the various college radio conventions I attended and he would be frying bacon and eggs. I’d get up for school or work or anything at any age and he would be in the kitchen frying bacon and eggs. Camping? No problem, he’d either use a camp stove or, later, the propane stove in the trailer. He had an old pan, (not cast-iron unfortunately) that he just reused over and over with minimal cleaning. “Adds flavor” he’d tell me. If the thing got really ratty he’d just boil some soapy water in it, dump out the water and wipe the pan with a towel. Bacon and eggs and a pot of Maxwell House or Chock Full O’ Nuts (whatever was on sale) and he was ready to face the day. If you came down after he was done with breakfast the smell would be hanging in the air and if he wasn’t working he’d be having his second cup in the living room eyeing you disapprovingly as you turned left off the stairs for not being an early riser. Ah well. I never got the early riser gene either, but he loved me just the same.
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