Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Random Facts About My Father

I have one awfully sick little Munchkin at home:-(. The poor kid is really a mess, and I kept her home from school today. I am going to try and get out of here at lunchtime and work from home this afternoon. She has a fever and a runny nose and she is coughing and she couldn't keep her dinner down last night. Look like more soup for her today:-)

The Boy has already said that he can stay home with her tomorrow if she is still sick...how sweet is he? Best surrogate big brother ever! Hopefully she is feeling better, but I have a feeling she will be home again...she will have to make a pretty big recovery by this afternoon for me to let her go to school. I will know that she feels better if she gets mad at me for not letting her go out this weekend!!!

So...I found out something really interesting yesterday. I called my Aunt (father's sister) to talk about our visit in a couple of weeks. She told me that she had just gotten a really nice phone call from one of my father's friends. It was Veteran's Day, so he was calling some of his army buddies.

Say what?

Um...my father was in the army? You wanna know a good way to tell that you didn't have a real close relationship with your father? When you find out two years after he died that he was in the army. So, I got the whole story from my Aunt.

Not surprisingly, this was related to one of his many brushes with the law. Several years after I was born (she thought it was maybe 1985), he enlisted as a means of diminishing or possibly eliminating some sentence for doing something. My Aunts and Uncles and Grandparents were all, understandably, pretty excited about this. They hoped it would clean him up, instill some discipline and get him onto the right track.

Of course, none of that worked out. He wasn't in the army very long, and in fact got kicked out after like six months for doing something that gets you kicked out of the army. That explains why there were no pictures of him in uniform at his funeral...the whole thing was pretty well forgotten. But, apparently he made at least one friend who wanted to call his baby sister on Veteran's Day to share stories...so I guess it wasn't all bad.

And that, friends, is the story of my father the (not so) Veteran.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I feel your pain...I have a sick one at home too. Coughing, runny nose, low grade fever, and she's on antibotics for a UTI.

Feel better FAST, Munchkin!

Anonymous said...

Wow, that's really amazing about your dad, and nice that his friend called your aunt to discuss old stories!

Get better Munchkin!

Rachel H. said...

Hopefully, Munchkin does feel better tomorrow or really tonight, and that's crazy that you didn't know he was even in the army! Ha-Ha!

Anonymous said...

Poor Munchkin, I hope she gets well soon!!

Interesting that nobody told you that about your father.

Anonymous said...

it's so weird to know nothing about your parents. i just found out a couple of years ago that my father was illigitimate and that my grandparents didn't get married until he was 5!