Laughter Makes Sh*t Better
My daddy was a friend of mine. We were best buds from the day I drew my first breath until the moment he drew his last, a couple of months ago.
Dad was always fixing something. Some weekends, he cooked up a patch for one of those catastrophic failures endemic to shoddy little vacation shacks thrown up on the Texas coast in the 1960s. There wasn’t a right angle in our house because it wasn’t built to be a permanent home for anyone. Other weekends, Dad performed maintenance on our used car du jour. A brake job here, a timing chain there.
He had the weight of the family abode and transportation on his shoulders, but he didn’t take himself too seriously. If he made a mistake, he laughed at his error and started anew.
I was there for it. As a bookish and shy little girl, I benefited from being Dad’s fix-it helper because, frankly, there weren’t many other ways to get me outdoors.
I loved books, doodle bugs and helping my father.
I took my work seriously, too, learning what each tool was called and what it did. I did the same for everything in the tackle box and each type/calibre of bullet for the firearms we took to our makeshift shooting range in Estes Flats. When Dad was a shrimper, I learned to head shrimp and shuck oysters.
He taught me the practical things I’d never learn in my books, but he also broadened my vocabulary. Curse words flowed from the man as naturally as a can of Lone Star flowed into him. Even Dad’s terms of endearment and pet names were swears, shaded differently than the curses—some of which were of his own invention—used on a seized up bolt or a broken TV antenna.
Despite his perennially foul mouth, Dad was an affectionate father. He always demanded a kiss on the cheek. and we never parted company without an “I love you.” As lucky as I know I am to have had that, I feel somehow luckier that my father taught me the value of ribbing.
To rib and to be ribbed taught me never to take myself too seriously,
and to laugh with the person who points out my foibles. It taught me the difference between remarks borne of familiar recognition of my traits, and those borne of malice.
When my father made fun of me for running my mouth, I’d laugh…and then I’d talk more. When I gave him grief for being a grump on Christmas morning, he’d chuckle, then double down on it and serve up a middle finger. Sometimes two. (Two was the Gold Standard.) Trash talk was a way to show love. Doubling down was a sign of respect.
We were absolute a-holes to each other and we laughed til we cried.
Even after walking down the dark corridors of Alzheimer’s for two years, Dad’s ability to poke at me wasn’t diminished. He continued to give me hell and I gave it right back. To do so meant that things were still kind of okay, even if we were both scared. Minutes before sepsis ended his life, my father was poking fun at the ICU staff who had worked tirelessly to keep him alive for a week. They had earned his respect.
I will always miss my father, my friend. But I know he’s with me when I cuss like a sailor or laugh at myself…things I do on a daily basis. So, while it may seem like the most bizarre tribute imaginable, I invite you all to laugh at me—with me.
Thanks to my time as Dad’s fix-it assistant, I will always try to do things correctly and with precision. And I will always laugh at myself when I screw up.
Beats the hell out of the alternative.
(Note: The coarse language has been bleeped in this video. Dad would’ve given me hell for doing that, so that’s the way we chose to go.)
