Friday Open Thread

The very, very first Grampa Walton wasn't Will Geer -- it was Edgar Bergen. Really.

So I guess that makes Charlie McCarthy John-Boy's rich uncle and Mortimer Snerd the crazy uncle nobody talks about.

Rod, re your Ti-Jacques post earlier, have you ever thought about giving up the polemics and retiring to your bed with the Big Chief tablet to become the Garrison Keillor of Louisiana/Texas? Seriously! You could spread that gator love around, and become a revered and appreciated figure bringing joy to a messed-up world, instead of dodging brickbats and tomatoes and making your blood pressure go up. You could consort with fiddle players and raconteurs instead of cranky, pompous pundits and wild-eyed ideologues. Art beats politics in the long run, y'know.

Darn, I hit Rod's tickle button thinking it was a birthmark.

I didn't mean it as humor and when Rod took it that way I had to do some thinking. I worked Friday, yesterday, and will be today fifty miles away from the house. I have a friend in need and he is a friend indeed so it's a labor of love. The miles on the road and Friday's nine solid hours at the controls of a trackloader gave me plenty of time to think about Rod and myself's different perspectives on drunks.

In our house the perspective is drunks aren't silly or foolish, they're stupid. My personal attachment to an alcoholic is my mother's dad. Of all the grandkids, mom had six sisters so there is a bunch of us grandkids, it's a given that I'm the one most likely like him. He was an artist in different mediums. We share that talent or he passed it on to me if you will.

When I was nine years old he committed murder suicide. He killed his second wife and then himself. He was an alcoholic even though it's said he never stepped a foot into a bar after he left the military service after WWII. He'd look you in the eye and deny drinking and then go grab another slug from his bottle of vodka hidden in a tool chest, closet, or cuphoard.

My wife's stepdad was a drunk, the kind that got big and mean when he drank, the stereotypical little man who found his balls in a bottle. Her perspective on drunks is the same as my own, they don't act funny, they act stupid.

I don't look at drinkers as bad people. A long time ago I realized they were just trying to find the place I stumbled upon accidently and have never left. I'm comfortable in my own skin. Drunks and addicts are searchers for what I've found. I wish there was a way to pass it on but so far I haven't seen evidence of that being possible. It's a realization and realizations happen at their own pace and in their own place.

I do believe the attitude of drunks act stupid and not silly or funny is a good one though. The funny or silly position infers an us because an appreciation for the situation as part of the human condition. Stupid as a perspective brings with it no such acceptance.

For me the difference in attitude and it's affect is defined by a personal experience. Early 1969 I came home from Viet Nam after my second tour. I had completed my three year commitment to the United States Army. I was twenty years old.

One night I got drunk at a friend's house and we all ended up at a bar. The owner of the bar refused to serve me because I was under age. He appreciated my military service but the law was the law. But he did haul me home to my parents house.

Everyone, my friends, the patrons of the bar, and of course my mother, was sympathetic to my drunken complaint. I was a victim because I was old enough to fight and die for my country but not old enough to drink in a bar.

Everyone but my dad. He's a veteran of WWII and he doesn't believe being a veteran gives you a right to act the fool, even if you're drunk when you do it. Typical of drunks I recall the night like a series of snapshots instead of moving pictures. The one that is the most clear and has made the most difference is the one of my dad and the disgust on his face at my behavior.

That was thirty nine years ago almost to the day. Yesterday I talked about this with my wife over breakfast. She knows she's seen me tipsy once but she can't remember when. My kids have never seen me intoxicated.

Thanks dad, lesson learned.