On this day, in 1993, I got a phone call that I was unprepared for, it was around 8 AM, and we had Santa’s in the Malls (Jax had more than 3 malls then) and was told my Father was found passed out, well, just a few days before he had gotten me very drunk, and Vickie was still pissed about that (he lived on his boat & the club, near from Vickie & I). I called my Evil step-sister, told her what I was told, I stayed in town on the Fri since we had so much going on with the Santa’s. All day long, I kept calling the boat & my Step-sister, but got no answer, and I kept working. Well, as evening came, I still didn’t know what was going on, and kept trying to reach someone, finally, around 8PM, while at a Porsche Club Christmas party hosted by Hal & Paige Mankin, someone answered the phone at my evil step sisters house, it was her husband at the time, Terry, I asked how Dad was and Terry told me that he “WAS GONE”, I asked where, as my Dad was always crewing on someone’s boat or taking a trip, one of the joys of retirement. Then Terry explained, that he was dead, I wasn’t prepared for that, after all, we had just had a great time at the Club a few nights before, looked fine when I stopped by the boat to check on him & my Old Man was invincible.. Well, I guess he wasn’t, and the fact that Elise, who had all my contact numbers, didn’t even have the curt icy to let me know that Dad was gone.. He made me the Man I am today, while some don’t understand my love for a Man that they perceived as hard, borderline abusive, it wasn’t until much later that I learned that what he was really doing was forging a man and after I figured that out, my opinion had drastically changed about him. Yes, he was very hard on me, but it made me a better man in the long run. So, every Dec. 11th, I feel a bit more empty, alone & sad.
