The Story of Me and My Dad (Part 1)

I've started this blog essentially by throwing people into my world with current snapshots of my immediate past situations and my current progressions. I'm sure this has given people an image of me, but if my blog is to be all about me, I have to flesh out the components of myself that comprise who I am.

There are many avenues to take with this (and I plan to do periodically for edification and entertainment), but I figure starting with the relationship between my father and I is a good place to begin to reveal more of myself in true context, so here we go...

I cannot tell you the first memories I had of my dad really, but from childhood, my father and I have had a relationship to one another that clearly reflects a friendship between willful human beings in addition to our familial connection. This bond has proven over time to be one of great importance for both of us, and one that has endured its fair share of tribulation into adulthood.

One of those tribulations was my father's battle with alcohol. Before I came on the scene, my parents partied and drank as social adults do, but while my mother seemed to have a firm control on her intake, my father lost his ability to control his drinking and alcohol slowly began to control him. By the time I was born in 1976, my father was an alcoholic well into his downward spiral. Roughly around 6 or 7 years old, my mom decided my dad had to move out of the house because his problem became too big for us to deal with any longer. Nevertheless, my mother wasn't cold and she allowed me to be with my father (provided he came to get me sober) and this is where my father and I got close.

With an alcohol problem, my dad pieced jobs together to make a living, so he didn't have a great deal of money. But that didn't stand in the way of me wanting to be with my father. Oftentimes, my father would pick me up and guiltily apologize for not having enough money to entertain me or buy me toys, and I would tell him that all we had to do was go to the park, watch TV, or ride on the subway because I got a kick out of sitting with my knees in the seat as I watched the trains 'race' in the tunnels. As long as I was with my father it was okay--even when he got drunk shortly after picking me up.

(BTW, the subway experience is a major reason why I still have a unusually high fondness and knowledge of New York City Subways)

It took a while for my father to rebuild his life onto a steady path, so that meant he lived in a number of places before he got his own. With roommates in a makeshift boarding house...on a friend's living room floor...the Y on 135th Street in Harlem. Regardless, wherever my father was, on the weekends, so was I. That's the extent of a child's innocent interpretation and real love. To this day and for the rest of his life, my father will always remember with heartfelt emotion "his buddy" hanging tough with him during those times with few complaints.

Eventually, Melvin Sr., with the help of AA, regained control of himself over alcohol. When things started to get better for him, we got into a habit of going to the movies (or renting movies) almost every weekend--another beginning of one of my life-long passions. After our usual weekend movie outings (which also included my father giving heavily into my own video game addiction at the old arcade Playland or any place with some video game machines in it), I would accompany him to AA meetings; eating cookies and drinking tea while strangers opened their souls to other strangers in a similiar boat in the hope of finding another reason to stay sober.

I was there for my father during times when others turned their backs on him, writing him off as a loser. I believe that this a huge reason my father has sacrificed so much for me over the years. I am convinced his efforts have, and continue to, exceed the duties of a father to his son. Long ago, it entered the place where people do extraordinary things for others because they respect what was done for them at some point.

Then I became a teenager.

To be continued...