I don't want to make this a sappy blog, so I'll skip a year or so between mentioning birthdays, but it is my Dad's birthday once again. He is holding up well enough, still has all his organs and limbs attached and gets around with a "chingado" here and a "chingado" there. Sometimes, he can be frustrating in that he'll travel three hours and come to Austin, but won't go another 3-4 miles to go eat at a nice restaurant. He is constantly worried about eating too late and getting a high sugar reading in the morning for his diabetes, but the man will sit there, sermonizing while popping Sneakers and Hershey bars from the candy bowl!!
He is now fully addicted to small time gambling. The feds came to Crystal City, disrupted all the illegal activity and took away the guilty parties, but the assholes left the casinos intact and running. They told the people "stay away, we'll be back." That kind of threat loses its flavor when after a couple weeks nothing happened. As it turns out, Dad socializes there with a good percentage of his family. He mentions he sees two of his surviving brothers there and even some cousins are there daily. He has a need, like a junkie, to go and spend five dollars or so daily. He has that cap out loud, but my mom says he will snag any loose change, other than what his smokes require. That is another vice he will ride into the ground, but a man approaching 70 is not going to change his ways.
The whole family says he is an ornery old man, I only see him about once a month, so I take his complaining as the mumblings of an old man. He did show me some bite a couple weeks ago. I told him I was going to sell the boat at whatever price I could get. We mostly wanted to stop paying the monthly fee of having it in a storage facility. He said he expected his share of the money when I sold it. My first reaction was "what?!" and laughter thinking he was joking. We did buy the boat with a twelve year note and my folks did take over the boat payment for maybe 3 or 4 years, I don't remember more than that, at a certain point when I considered getting rid of it. After a few years, I wanted to try again to get it running and using it. We never have had the time required to justify owning a boat and my Dad is just not strong enough to do many of the things required to use the boat on his own. His logic was he had paid $155 a month for even three years, he was owed something like $5000. I laughed and said I am hoping for $1000, total. My mom just said he's crazy, ignore him. He looked at me with his hand out, like I had already sold the boat and he was in the right. When he realized he wasn't getting anything, he just called me a scammer and a liar. I take it as a little humor on his part, but maybe he is nutty that way.
Oh well, I like a feisty old man. I like that he still sneaks out of the house to go to his casinos and get his human interaction on. As a retired old man, I understand that he needs to get out and see people his age. Just talking to my Mom anytime, day or night, their house is full of grandkids, and that would have me climbing the walls too. I don't agree with gambling even a dollar away in an illegal place, but when the whole city seems involved and participating, what are you going to do? I am happy something keeps him moving on his own two feet and looking forward to something like the great pay out that is around the corner. Happy Birthday Old Fart, love you!
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