Like Father, Like Son. . .

This morning while I was driving to work severely disappointed by the lack on entertainment on my favorite sports program. I flipped around the dial looking for something. Anything! The local classic rock channel features John Boy and Billy in the a.m. drive time (sucks) and the rock/metal channel has three local dopes who are seriously not funny at all (sucks even worse than howling rednecks John Boy and Billy), so, in desperation I flipped over to the "best" country music channel for some relief.

I heard this song this morning by Rodney Atkins called Watching You. I don't normally listen to modern country because it all seems contrived and lacks the outlaw panache (never though you'd see those two words used together, did you?) of older country music. In a word, today's country music just seems boring.

No country boy can survive. No tears in my beer. No whiskey rivers. No faded loves. It's a dried lake bed of boredom littered with the carcasses of folks like Billy Ray Cyrus.

Anyway, the lyrical structure of this Rodney Atkins song included multiple pop culture references to chicken nuggets, Happy Meals, orange soda, Scooby Doo and buckaroo, a word that should never be used again except in reference to the great Peter Weller's sci-fi spectacle The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzi Across the 8th Dimension. A phenomenal cult classic if there has ever been one.

Back to the country song. This ditty, although replete with sugary crossover country lyrics, has a fairly deep message relating to father-son relationships and the chorus has a particularly melodic carriage that continues to be stuck on repeat somewhere on the deep recesses of my partially pickled gray matter. Might have to listen to some King Diamond shortly to break the loop.

I appreciated the message once I held back the initial gag reflex to the soapy lyrics and I pondered on my own relationship with my dad. We had lots of good times, bad times and he managed to pull off some great boners which made him look like a totally inept alien creature-idiot. Like the time he tried to set a 55-gallon drum full of brush on fire with unleaded gasoline.

We had been at deer camp during the summer cleaning up around the cabins and getting ready for the next hunting season. We had stuffed the "burn barrel" full with clippings, brambles, braches and various other wastes during our day of work.

Come evening time, Dad, the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful, went in search of the charcoal lighter fluid to start the fire. Unfortunately, we didn't have any. But we did have gallons of unleaded gasoline for the lawn mowers and various other implements. Dad grabbed a jug of gasoline and poured a liberal gallon or so all over the contents of the barrel and reached in his pocket for matches, but they were not there.

This led to a few minutes of mumbling curses as he stalked the matchbook and once found, Dad returned to his post beside the barrel. He removed a match from the box, struck it and tossed it. Dear Fatherly Father was standing about four feet from the barrel and the match made it no further than six inches from his hand when the fumes from the gasoline ignited on that scorching July afternoon.

The explosion was swift, loud, fiery, and spectacular! The concussion was immense, like a mortar bomb, and sent thousands of burning projectiles in all directions. My brother and I stood on the front porch of the cabin in mouth-gaping awe as it rained down fire all over the place. But, it wasn't long before we were laughing as Dad scurried around in random circles smacking his head and face that were smoldering from the blast.

He approached us in a rage, hair singed away, an eyebrow missing, his face black from the flames and red from the blood pressure, but my brother and I could not stop laughing. And of course, once you get started. . .it only get's worse.

Dad fumbled around for words as brother and I hung onto each other gasping for breath between guttural spasms of laughter. Finally, Dad composed himself enough to speak and let it be said, once Dad proclaimed something, write it in stone because it the the Word and the Will, the Light and the Way.

I'll never forget, even 30 years later what my father's prophetic words on that fateful day. He said, "Let that be a goddamn lesson to you boys! Don't ever start a fire with gasoline!"

And so it was written. To this day, I have never started a fire with gasoline.

But maybe a little diesel here or there never hurt. . .

I reflected on that as I appreciated the things my father has done for me. He provided for all of us kids, the grandparents, my Mom, various other sundry characters and the occasional stranger. I learned from him more than I could ever quantify and certainly more than I was able to admit or understand as a child. Sometimes he seemed like a rambling old man. . .

I said all of this because when I got to work this morning I read an article about the son of a porn mogul in California who was recently arrested for beating his girlfriend to death with a baseball bat after his daughter's 1st birthday party. His father was a piece of work also who served half of a six-year sentence for killing his brother and business partner. 3 years for double murder? WUT?

And of course, porn mogul's son has never had a job because he inherited a bundle from the old man's profession and apparently has been a worthless piece of crap ever since. I bet he could have used a Happy Meal or two and a camping trip as a child.

So, thanks Dad, not only for being a dope sometimes, but for being a real man and teaching us the merits and value of hard work and taking care of ourselves. I'm lucky I guess. I could be in prison somewhere with the blood of a loved one on my hands.