I can't remember a time in my life when I actually 'liked' my father. Which is quite odd .... because if you boil it down to it's absolute base .... we are corresponding parts of the same whole. He is a unadulterated lover of all things debauched. He is and was a lover of life and all that it represents. He inhales the world with a vortex of charisma and charm and gusto. That man has never shied away from a good time in all his born days.
However, where he and I consummately diverge is at the point of complete and utter sociopathy .... Essentially .... his behavior is that of one who lacks a complete sense of moral responsibility or social conscience. That man is a human tornado of destruction and wears a toothy grin as he wreaks havoc on the lives of the poor souls trapped in his clutches.
It has taken me a long, long time to appreciate much about this man .... but .... I will freely admit now.... the one absolutely amazing thing I have to give him full credit for is that he taught me how to travel.
No ... not just "travel" .... VOYAGE! (Doesn't that sound exotic???)
My father was NEVER one to book a trip on a commercial airliner, get on a bus, buy a pamphlet and see the sites. Our voyages were tales of legend! He learned how to fly .... worked smart (not hard) ... bought his own small plane and then would gather the 3 kids and my mom and set off for destinations unknown ... tiny islands in the caribbean, jungle mountains in Mexico, weird little po'dunk towns, etc...
One of the few times that I recall being on a commercial airliner as a child was the summer when I was 12 years old and our trip to Hawaii.
Here's that weird little tale:
My mother was beyond in love with Don Ho. For those of you who are too young or too pop culture retarded .... Don Ho was a Hawaiian balladeer. He was Hawaii's answer to Elvis. He had an afternoon television show in 1976 called The Don Ho Show. He was a sun-kissed, puka shell adorned, bronze god who hosted a variety show which featured live shots of him singing alluringly on beaches and leaning seductively against tiki huts. For housewives, at the time .... this, I'm sure, was an absolutely heavenly respite from the duldrums of wifedom. His most famous song of the time was a little ditty called "Tiny Bubbles". When that honey-tongued man sang that song on the television .... the far away look on my mother's face was priceless. It was as if Don Ho peered into that television camera and directed all his erotic charms to her and her alone.
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| Don Ho ... Hawaii's answer to Elvis |
Just in case you'd like to listen to "Tiny Bubbles"
... the song that made my mother swoon!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MXgc8wzfC4&feature=PlayList&p=EBD3D8848A461414&playnext=1&index=12... the song that made my mother swoon!
My mother worked her bewitchery on my father and before you knew it he begrudgingly booked us on a two week summer vacation in the enchanted land of Hawaii. All I remember about the flight is that the airplane was humongous. It was only about half filled so my sisters and I stretched out lazily in the center seats for the long, arduous flight. (I have only been as far as Europe & California since that trip because I was so entirely traumatized by the length of this flight)
Apparently my father had booked us on an island hopping trip because we never stayed in the same hotel longer than a few nights. (Either that or we were continuously on the lam for stiffing the hotels ... who knows!) My poor mother would get us all settled in and then a few days later have to repack our many suitcases and off we'd go again into the wild blue yonder.
At one hotel ... I believe on Maui .... I was playing leisurely on the beach when I noticed a lot of people pointing and staring at a person walking along the surf. I couldn't understand for the life of me what the big whoop was. From what I saw it was just a tiny little man wearing an even tinier red banana hammock. As he got closer .... I realized just what the hoopla was all about.
On television, in the 70's , there was a popular show that most adults my age will remember called The Incredible Hulk. It was a knock-off of shows like The Six Million Dollar Man and The A-Team. The star of that show was Bill Bixby (well ... Lou Ferrigno was technically the star .... but they never gave that poor guy any lines .... SIDEBAR: he's deaf, right??) And .... for you crazy TV buffs ... Bill Bixby was also the star of a hit show called The Courtship of Eddie's Father.
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| That hair and make up certainly didn't do a lot for poor Lou Ferrigno |
Back to the story .....
So .... my Mom's pretty hot. Well ... maybe "pretty hot" doesn't do her justice. She was incredibly, beyond belief beautiful. She made a small splash in the beauty pageant industry and was Miss Green County, Miss Taylor County & was also a Kentucky Colonel's basketball cheerleader.
As Mr. Hulk (Bill Bixby .... not Ferrigno) strolls by on the beach .... he spots my Mom in her hot little red bikini and sidles right up to her and strikes up a conversation. I'm about 20 feet away ... watching this odd little exchange and then that little horn dog procedes to sit on the edge of her chaise lounge chair and begins to get a little too chummy for my taste. Feeling a bit territorial ... I stand up .... march over and pretty much cock-block old Billy boy. I grab my Mom's hand and tell her it's time to go to lunch while glaring daggers at Bill. My mom makes her apologies for my rudeness to Bill and introduces us. I am by no means star-struck by this Cassanova wannabe one little bit and brush him off harshly. Bill catches on to my annoying game and excuses himself. He and his weanie bikini meander down the beach to lurch on other unsuspecting mommies.
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| Banana hammock - not for public consumption ..... blechhhhhh! |
Later that evening ... we are in our hotel room. My Dad is down at the tiki bar hitting on Pan Am flight attendants left and right (.... and actually takes one to dinner the next night WITH the family ... but that is another story). The phone rings and my Mom picks it up and in her Southern lilt says "hello". She gets into a short conversation then hangs up the phone. I then notice that my mother is a much darker shade of red than she had been just moments ago. She is blushing! MY mother is blushing!! As it turns out .... that skeevy little Bill Bixby's room was in the suite right above ours. He had somehow found out what room we were staying in and concocted some ridiculous excuse of playing his music too loudly then called my Mom to find out if the high volume was bothering her .... but even at the tender age of twelve I could smell a creep a mile away ... that lethario was calling to hit on MY MOM!! Being the lovely and graceful lady that she was .... my mother gently told him that his music wasn't bothering her but to please not call again because she is a married woman. Hmfphfffffffph. Grrrrrrrrrrr .....
To say that I was unaffected by Bill Bixby's cancerous demise years later would be an understatement.
To my horrifying chagrin .... I was to be plagued by banana hammocked men the next day as well. My Dad had this grand idea to take my sister and I scuba diving. We had never scuba dived before (only snorkeled) ... but .... my Dad being my Dad .... found a schlock operation to give us a 20 minute coaching while he went off to check on the boat. So here we were .... my Mom, sister and me left alone with this total stranger ... wearing a black banana hammock. (What is it with this island ... do they hand out these ridiculous bathing suits when you apply for a driver's license???) As he is instructing us and putting on our gear .... I notice he keeps leering at my Mom (who is wearing nothing but a bikini at the time and a pretty sarong). Suddenly ... I look down ... and this dude has a full on raging, bonafide boner!!!!! ..... AND in my estimation it didn't look like that tiny little nylon swatch of fabric was going to hold back that torpedo for long! I stood there in absolute paralyzed shock ... eyebrows raised .... eyes glazed over .... What the hell was going on here????
My Mom's eyes got as big as over-easy eggs. She hussled over to us and gently took us by the hands and while averting her eyes from the "armament" she mumbled some excuse to the instructor and abandoned him and his extra leg on the beach. We quickly grabbed our fins, mask, etc.... and high-tailed it down the boardwalk to the awaiting boat. As soon as the shock began to subside ... my sister and I commenced nervously giggling .... which quickly turned into uproarious and uncontrollable shrieks of laughter ... followed by fat droplets of tears cascading down our faces ..... rolling on the end of the dock .... holding our bellies and gasping for breath. My Mom is hushing us like crazy .... biting her lip which is beginning to break out into an abashed smile .... and finally gets us composed enough to get on the boat. Needless to say ... my first encounter with a full-on erect penis was enduringly and profoundly etched into my mind for all eternity.
We all load onto the boat for our scuba diving trip ... which is uneventful ... but of course that depends on your yard stick. Keep in mind ... I am twelve years old and have ZERO authentic scuba training. After we put all of our gear on and slip nervously into the water ... my father gives my sister and I some terrific pearls of wisdom ... he says ..."girls ... it's dangerous down there ... don't fuck it up or you'll die" .... and with that he dove beneath the surface leaving my sister and I to pray quietly to ourselves to make it out of yet another one of his crazy schemes alive. We put on our masks ... placed the salty regulators in our mouths and hoped for the best. We dived down about 50 feet or so that day. Which I'm told by experts is incredibly deep even for experienced divers. We saw amazing brightly colored fish and multi-colored reef. My father found a weird looking long tentacled starfish and snuck up behind me and laid the starfish over my head and across my mask. Of course, this scared the absolute piss out of me ... literally ... and as I screamed silently into my regulator and calmed my hyperventilation .... all I could see was his evil crooked smile. I secretly hoped that at that moment ... Poseidon would see the injustice and send a giant great white shark to eerily swim up behind him and eat him whole. No such luck.
We make it off the island of Maui with our innocence a bit scorched and end up on the last of our islands called Kauai. One of my mother's favorite movies of her youth was South Pacific. A dreamy 1950's musical that takes place in .... you guessed it .... the South Pacific. Over some beers with the locals at an out of the way pub ... my Dad finds out that on the island is a mountain stream with a man made concrete shoot that drops down over a waterfall and into a lagoon. There was a famous scene shot there from the movie South Pacific and he is bound and determined to trek up the jungle mountain to find it. He gleans the best directions he can from some toothless Hawaiian fishermen and off we go on his quest.
We are in a station wagon (a la' the Griswolds) making our way up unpaved, treacherously narrow roads ..... losing our way .... back tracking and finally after a few weary hours find our way to the top of a deserted lush, treed mountain top. We get out of the car and make our way into the woods. We immediately see a muddy trail and proceed to follow it blindly. After about 10 minutes of walking ... we begin to hear the whoosh of running water.
We finally get to a clearing and behold a 30+ foot wide waterway with giant boulders that were placed eons ago dotting the cascading stream. There was a very sharp incline and the water was rushing down the mountain at a pretty decent click. My father excitedly tells us to stay put and then hikes off for about 10 minutes or so ... returns .... and informs us that at the end of the stream is a waterfall that splashes down into a lagoon about 300 yards or so in the distance.
He claps his hands together and yells .... "okay ... who's the brave one that's going first!" .... Never to be intimidated by my father .... I raise my hand defiantly and say ".... outta my way!" I step undauntedly into the cold, fast moving water and with some doing ... make my way to the center. There, I find a concrete luge with green, lustrous moss covering it. I sit down on it and before I could neither change my mind nor get properly situated .... the water had gathered behind me and shoved me into oblivion!
I began speeding like a bullet around mammoth looking rocks and became immediately convinced that this had better be worth it because I had a pretty good sense I was going to be imminently dead! Then ...without warning, the ground suddenly disappeared beneath me and I was airborne ..... free falling over a waterfall into a crystalline pool of water. I was instantly submerged deep in the water .... fighting my way to the top ... but the waterfall had a slight suction effect and I had to kick as hard as I could to make it to the top ... I burst thru the surface of the water and sucked in air. I'm alive! I had made it! Suck it, people .... I am a jungle goddess!!!
I made my way to the swampy edge, trudging thru mud & fauna and realize I am alone and in the middle of nowhere. I start calling out to my parents .... nothing. Holy crap ... how do I get back?? I realize that if I make my way up the side of the waterfall by hanging onto vines and trees I can get to the path that takes me to where the rest of the family are waiting. I get about halfway up the path and see my Dad with the biggest shit-eating grin on his face. I am slightly furious at this point ... as the ramifications and danger has just dawned on me during my return hike. This was no amusement park slide where it is tested and retested by some egg-headed scientist to assure family safety! We are in the middle of a friggin' jungle mountain throwing ourselves down an ice cold, raging water, plunge of death stream!
Out of the corner of my eye I see whizzing past me my terrified sister who being the more timid of the two of us got cajoled by my Dad into taking a whirl. I run back down the path just in time to see her go over the edge of the waterfall. As she makes it to the edge of the lagoon ... I instruct her on how to climb back to the path. We look warily at each other ... then to my father .... and as I begin to give him a pretty good sassing ... my sister starts to scream. It is one of those blood-curdling, horror movie victim screams and I am utterly and completely stone frozen in place.
She places one hand to her mouth .... muffling another scream while slowly raising her other hand pointing to my legs. I look down in terror and see long slimy, black, shiny mutant creatures attached to me. I then look at my sister's legs, back & arms and realize the aforementioned creatures are attached to her as well. Well ... I was literally raised in a little honky tonk bar ... and learned some pretty awesome, choice cuss words and my brain decided this was as good a time as any to blurt them out for all to hear ... I was swearing and pulling those damn leeches off of me ... ripping off my bathing suit and suddenly realizing they were ALL over me .... YES ... ALL over me ... down there!!
I was in full fledge panic mode at that point and looked up to see my father sitting on the ground HOWLING with laughter! My mother came running down the path .... and to her astonishment .... she sees two completely naked ravingly, petrified girls tearing at themselves like a whore on angel dust.
My Mom rushes over to us and attempts to calm us down while inspecting us bodily. She finally assures us that there are no more leeches on us and I fall whimpering into her arms. She covers us gently with towels as we scowl mercilessly at my father who begins walking us back up the path to the car.
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| Yeah ... gross little blood suckers aren't they? Now imagine about 30 or so of them all over your body! |
That was the longest, most pathetic ride home I have ever experienced. My father, of course, trying to expedite our trauma in his own idiotic way began telling us we were complete wusses (except HE used the "p" version) ... that we just had the ride of a lifetime and to quit our blubbering and get over it already! Yeah .... he's a real smooth talker, my dad.
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| This is the actual waterfall and slide. This picture was taken about 10 years after we were there ... evidentally, these people had irresponsible, insane parents too |
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| Yeah ... it looks like fun ... until the creepy leeches get ya'! |
I'll always remember that trip for it's out and out weirdness .... That trip, in particular, would have to go down in Ripley's Believe it Or Not Index of Vacations as being one of the most absurd yet memorable expeditions into the realm of the bizarro world of all time.
I think back and laugh now at those crazy times .... but more importantly .... I can see .... now .... from a safe distance how my mother was in direct diametric opposition to my father all the time on these voyages. He was the crazy carnival ride operator and she the sweet, soothing voice of sanity. She was constantly cleaning up his messes with us .... smoothing things over and making sure we came away from his maniacal adventures as completely undamaged as possible. Given that he was a tyrranical dictator that ruled with a clumsy yet beguiling iron fist... I think my Mom maneuvered through his mine field of lunacy rather fluidly with a perfect balance of grace, style and mental agility.
Those crazy, unpredictable adventures are long in the past. Hot Geek Boy and I have our own family now and we understand the importance of allowing our children to have amazing, adventurous experiences. I also feel the incredible weight of balancing their adventures with the counterweight of safety & responsibility. I think that's one of the many areas where my father failed me most. I never innately felt entirely safe and secure with him or his cuckoo ideas. By his actions and words, he created an atmosphere of deep mistrust with me of his parental decision making abilities. I'm positive that he lacked an inner parental compass that pointed him in the right direction. That is one lesson that he unintentionally taught me .... to instill in my children a permanent sense that I will always have their back.
I have to admit though .... If I look back honestly .... most of those trips wouldn't be half as much fun had they not been so weird. I learned a gazillion life lessons along the way .... saw amazing corners of the world .... experienced a harrowing water luge barely brushing death's cloak .... saw boners and met creepy celebrities ....
What more could a kid ask for on a summer vacation?
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