There wasn't much I ever confused about my father. He was straight forward. But one thing I came to realize it wasn't always his actions that were unclear, but his motives.
For instance, he allowed himself to get ripped off a lot. He was the last person ever to ask for help, and the first sucker in line for anyone selling a con job story. Relatives, workers, strangers all seemed to form a line for handouts, and we never seemed to ever have more than we needed, so I never understood this.
As I grow older I think I do now understand. Helping people who were being deceptive was his way of showing humiliating them, showing his moral superiority over them without ever saying a word. He was forced to start working when he was just standing up, and did so until the company he worked for for fifty years fired him when he refused to go along with new policies that ripped off his customers.
He never asked anyone for a damn thing, and it was extremely rare he was treated fairly by anyone. He got what we had by working his ass off. It was all completely fair and square, and he ended up with nothing.
It was all a great education in what honesty and hard work are worth in America.
Not a damn thing.
As a writer I almost never write about my father. Because he's not interesting. He was a dupe. A mark. And a victim of the last vestiges of Puritanical concepts about work.
In my new book Atrocious Poems A To Z there is no mention of this.
Just twenty-six poems to be used as teaching lessons for children. You can also get a copy at Zombie Logic Press
It is the fourth book in the Rock River Literary Series, which I founded to increase exposure for Rockford, Illinois writers. I have received no help whatsoever in this endeavor. I never expected to. In a lot of ways I turn out to be like my father. I find it entertaining and satisfying to expose people for the frauds, liars, and hypocrites they are.
Help or don't help, it doesn't make one fucking of difference to me.
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