2/6/18 Dad's Birthday?

    Happy Birthday to my Dad, he turns 70 today, not bad for a kid who grew up on the streets of Crystal City, smoking by age thirteen, venturing out of his small world over to the next cities over to get into fights over the womens way yonder.  This is a man, when his friends talked shit about going to Vietnam, he followed through, went and fought for his country and his shithole friends went and got degrees to teach auto mechanics, homemaking, and anything else to avoid fighting for Uncle Sam.
    Coming back, he wasn't done messing around in other towns to the point he tells a story that one night he and his friends were surrounded, probably in his beloved 60's Chevy Chevelle by a group of guys with pickaxes, tire irons, and machetes to get out of town or else (I believe my mom's associates and cousins).  I would not need to be threatened more than once like that, but one way or another he still married a woman from one of those other towns, guess he liked doing things the hard way.
    Upon marriage, my mom wasn't quite done with school, so they moved where she would be closer which took them to Corpus Christi where I was born shortly after, but this is about my Dad.  He promptly got a job delivering ice all around the bay, which is part of the reason we still love going down there during the summers.  Of course, he still had a bit of knucklehead in him, I always get a kick from the one story he has of being locked up.  He wasn't doing nothing but walking home with his shoes tied together and hanging around his shoulders after being out drinking a bit too long.  These were certainly different times because there is absolutely no way I would get myself in this situation, but that's my Dad.
    Considering the role model he had in our grandfather who once tried hanging one of his kids from the tree out back for some odd reason or another and demanded my grandma get on the hospital bed for one more round of loving before he kicked the bucket, Dad has been just a cool Vato.  Sure, he could have been better at this or that, but he stuck around and in this day and age, that is something.  I always like to say that he is more animal than man when he goes on a tangent, but then again, we all need to "go animal" once in a while, it's how we tell the world to kiss our ass.  You keep showing the world cigarettes aren't that bad for you, Chicken Wing!  Love you Old Man.