Parenthood

I didn't know how to be a parent. Nobody touched me with a magic wand and taught me how to be a good Father. As a matter of fact, I don't ever recall anybody telling I was a good Father. Hell, I guess maybe I was a really bad Father. But one thing I know for sure; I didn't raise any weak children. My daughter is tougher than most NFL linebackers, and most of the civilized world probably considers my sons to be downright dangerous.

As a parent, you handle the day-to-day education of your children using little bits of knowledge you have stored away in your brain. If a mean dog comes close to you, you kick it as hard as you possible can. You try to kill it. That is just instinctive. Well, at least for me that is instinctive. So I passed that life lesson on to my kids. Maybe at the time I thought I was teaching them not to ever take a chance with something that could possibly harm them. The lesson they learned was "if someone or something threatens your family - kill it".

OK, they learned. Did I possibly display too much anger, too much hatred, too much violence? Maybe so. But the Brannen children learned, and they learned well.

Just yesterday, I was visiting with one of my sons and his family. His wife came in from town and brought him a Philly cheese steak sandwich. He was very appreciative and immediately opened up the wrapper and started eating the sandwich. I could see the sandwich had no cheese on it. A high dollar sandwich from a high dollar restaurant and they had left the cheese off a cheese steak sandwich. He handled the situation a little differently than I would have. He simply added some cheese.

I commented that I wasn't all that surprised that he had been screwed, told him that I don't eat restaurant food because I got tired of the order always being wrong. He laughed and told me he knew very well that I was highly intolerant. So I asked him what he was talking about.

He told us that as a child growing up he understood that money was tight. I was an enlisted man in the Marine Corps and my wife didn't work. So we ate at home. Kevin said that he remembered a few occasions when I had taken him and his brother hunting or shooting and had a little extra money and stopped to get fast food. A real treat for young boys who never got out. But alas, he never got to eat any of the food. Invariably the order was wrong, and I got mad about some halfwit screwing things up, when it was very difficult for me to treat my sons to a hamburger, and I got UPSET.

He said he could still picture me bouncing sausage biscuits off the MacDonald's manager's forehead because I didn't get the egg and cheese that I had paid for. Said he could remember he and his brother straining to get in position to watch through the "drive thru window" as I disassembled a sandwich that I had not ordered and stuffed it down the shirt front of the manager of a Hardies. He went on to say that the only four times I ever had the money to be able to stop and get my sons something to eat the order was wrong and I made them do without their meal because I went back inside and "fed" it to some employee who had failed to listen.

Wow. I remembered some of those events, but he remembered them vividly.

Was he upset because I had been a bad Father? Not at all. He was extremely proud of me for sticking up for the "American public" and showing people that we wouldn't accept anything less than what we paid for. Now he lives his life by that creed. He is a hard man to deal with. He demands that people work as hard as he does. Boy, that really makes it tough on the slackers in our society.

So, I guess I was a good Father after all. My son just wishes I would have gone to the next restaurant we came to and gotten him a hamburger.

No Burgers

Once upon a time in London, England, a group of US military men went to a steak house to get a little break from the food on board ship.

We were greeted at the door by a well dressed man that asked us what our business was. We replied that we wanted to have a nice meal. He summoned his boss who took a quick look at us, made a small "sweeping away" motion with one hand, and told his hired man to "Tell them we have no burgers."

Needless to say, we weren't able to get any supper. I doubt anyone was able to eat there for a month or so, after we completed the "renovations".

Don't recall what happened to Mr Snob and his assistant. I believe I did see them swimming hard for the far shore of the Thames...

But I'm not sure.