My dad was a beautiful guy.He was forty and an alcoholic when I was born.He felt pretty **** ugly by then.He found a silver four leaf clover pendant smashed in the street the night I was born.He gave me an Irish first name.I grew up within the realm of his resentment, for he believed the loss of his youth and being saddled with the responsibility of having a child, had stolen his fire, the life of the party was no more , the limelight he lived for even if vicariously had been extinguished with my first mortal cries.He drank and drank, day after day, watching war movies, cleaning his service pistol.He stayed out later every night, came home smelling of harder booze and that cool clay scent of lipstick. He whistled big band music as he stumbled upstairs, thrummed his hands along the walls in bluegrass time,sang Roger Miller tunes.He also gave up painting...and writing, something I'd never know about til umpteen years later when I'd find the opening page of a war novel and a couple of Kerouac-esque poems typed in heavy,drippy black ink from a bleeding ribbon in a 50's military issue typewriter.My dad was a General's assistant stateside....never the paratrooper or ace flyer he'd dreamed of being.Anyhow.He saw himself as Prometheus, and I was the trickle that dampened the prize from Olympus unril it was put out cold.I have a few pictures of my dad from years before I was born.When he looked more like James Dean than Dean did.From the time he felt capable and rapturous within his own talents, from a time long before addiction told him no and wiped out his hope, long before he placed the blame on a tiny child that sprang from his very passions.Or his boredom, or a night's debauchery at home.Whatever. I have his eyes, and his mouth...he passed on the talent torch whether he liked it or not.I have these pictures, where I can see him shine, before he became the spectre in the dark astrignet smelling room across the hall from my own.I have these pictures. I'm going to colour them, and see what they say to me.I have these pictures in which he glows.It's the real him, who drank grape nehi and believed in Davy Crockett.The boy who had faithful dogs and a blue bicycle, who wore his cap perfectly and never ever had punched me.The boy who would be pilot, or a movie star. A poet, a painter, clown-souled and enraptured by a Norman Rockwell-like world that disappeared and took his good nature with it.We would have been such good friends, I think. Had I not been the seed called rubicon.I have these pictures of a time gone by, framed by apple vlossoms,baseball uniforms, lemonade days, beautiful boxy-cars that shone like a madman polished them, and one had.I have these pictures of a thick-lipped man, sinking his blue eyes into you, pushing up his eyebrows and leaning on one palm.I only have these pictures, maybe seven in number to grasp a whole history with, but I think I can do it.Boy howdy, I think I can.

Awwwwwwwww...He was beautiful.

I heart you Pen...Big Hugs..I can so relate

*hearts Syd*

*heart's Syd's patriot siggys* \o/

Thanks for lookin'

i already posted this on your OD so you'll see it again, rofl but this is what i said:

"I loved reading every word of that. (I don't know why...nor do I know what else to say =\). & you're right about the James Dean thing."

LOL

Tyvm Scribbledibble..you always say the "just right" thing..but you knew that (like.."Idiot-arse!!", that's still a fav with me..LOL)

Scribbledibble sounds like some sort of demented ice cream flavor,roflmao...or like a kids chalk set...ROFL...i dunno...& yay long live Idiot-arse (did you check your PM box yet today)

Scribbledibble,wavygravy all the same...and pm box is full,I guess I'll start wading ,lol...

Thanks for sharing. He was beautiful.

*~wow ur dad does look like him dont he =],thanx 4 sharing pen that was amazing<3~*

(((((( pen ))))))

Thank you for sharing Pen.

Dutch, Teardrop,Heather,Sammy

Thanks for reading and for your comments, I love you guyses. <3333

This is great. I can definitely relate, and I think its great that you really try to see who he was before the alcohol came into play....

Tyvm for reading Eb,I sure appreciate it...I'm far enough removed from the situation now,that I can study and accentuate the positive, thanks for your comment and relating.