Thanksgiving

When I was eleven years old we left Cleveland and my father. My mother and brother are the other two thirds of we. Last week my mother said, "you know Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday."

My father had asked my mother to wire some money to him so he could see the scandalous Oh Calcutta! in New York. I think everyone was naked in Oh Calcutta!. We knew he wasn't attending alone. We were aware that he had other women. My father had relocated us to Cleveland from Detroit, after losing his corporate job in Detroit. He was arrested for writing some ungodly amount of bad checks. I think he did about eight months in the state prison. He says the state prisons are much worse than the federal prison's.

My mother worked about three low paying jobs while my parents pretended that my father was in the Army. He was allegedly in a supply unit in Thailand, that was a support unit for another unit in Vietnam, during the Vietnam war. My brother and I remember letters from my father, read to us by my mother, about life in Thailand, the beautiful jungles, the breathtaking Watts, beatific people and other stuff that could be picked out of a Fodor's travel guide.

My mother says my father never wrote us. My father says he doesn't remember any details. He normally has a good memory.

Tension was building in our unhappy household. I learned later that I get along with my father when I don't expect anything out of him. Maybe I learned this from the Thai people.

After his release my father was reading Playboy religiously, watching Hee Haw and going to the Catholic church almost every day. I wasn't even sure if he believed in God. I think he was baptised. He also became our scout master. My brother was in the Cub Scouts. I was a Webelo, go ahead make the jokes. My father would speak to several troops in the gym of our school. He could probably speak about anything. He would talk a little about scouting. He was so charismatic and funny that people started to show up to hear him speak, people that had nothing to do with scouting.

A few years later my father explained to me that he was doing all of this for the benefit of his probation officer. He quit the scout master gig after about three speaking engagements, he was getting too much attention. He also said he hated being a scout leader.

In Cleveland my father had quit his job as the shop foreman for the rust proofing shop. He was now working at home. One day a kid at school asked me what my dad does for a living. I said. "I don't know." When I got home, I told him that a kid at school asked me what he does for a living. He said. "Tell that kid to mind his own fucking business."

We fled to Ft. Lauderdale, all we had was what we could carry. I had my entire baseball card collection, over 4,000 cards. My mother made sure I had clothes. We stayed at my paternal grandmother's house for six months. The last day of school in Cleveland my brother and I beat up a couple of school bullies during lunch. I guess we were angry. I wouldn't apologize, so I stayed after school for a couple of hours. My brother had given them an obviously insincere, "I'm sorry." He was sent home right after school. He waited for me. He told me that I was stupid for not giving in.

After the divorce was finalized, we were living in Winter Park, FL. My father was doing 15 months for mortgage fraud, in a federal prison.