My Funny Father

I like seeing people dedicate blogs to their parents. I find it pretty cool that some people's parents actually read their child's blogs. Then I thought I wonder if people on the other side surf the interweb and read blogs? Yes, methinks (and yes, the Hess, one word... ;) ), or at least I hope. So this one goes out to my dad for all the times he made me laugh.

One thing my dad absolutely hated was caffeine. More specifically, he hated that I drank caffeine. He hated this worse than I hate Secondhand Serenade. Being the good son that I am, in order to respect his wishes I dropped the habit completely. And when I say "I dropped the habit completely," I really mean that I willfully rebelled against him and formed an ever-present MD addiction, only pretending not to drink it when he was around. The cover was completely blown one afternoon just before I graduated high school. Preparing for a weekend getaway to Lake Powell, my good friend Brett came over with a cooler full of 8 12-packs of dew (96 cans! And yes, we finished it) we purchased to guzzle during the weekend. When he saw my dad, he said "Check this out, Lynn!" "Do you realize how much caffeine is in that junk?!" Lynn asked. He would do this sort of head bob, not unlike Von Kaiser from Punch Out!, a fantastic NES game. "Do you know how much caffeine is in that cooler?" was the retort. The look of fire in his eyes, as he stared daggers at Brett, gave a more fierce terror than seeing someone wear white after labor day. The irony in this whole thing is that it was he who bought me my first Mt. Dew, and then later got mad about me drinking it! Ha!

Another time, the night after Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me was released (o sea, the night after Brett and I saw it) in theatres, Brett and I were walking past the living room to leave out the front door when my dad stops us. "Guys, I don't want you seeing that new (Kaiser Bob) Austin Powers movie." he says. "Why?" "Apparently, (Kaiser Bob) the word shag is a slang term for fornication!" Knowing the wrath of fire and brimstone we would face had we given the hint of a smile, we forced the smirk to remain level and replied, "Oh really? OK, thanks dad." Sadly, if you were to rifle through my movie collection, you will find all three volumes of the International Man of Mystery series.

One time he walked around the house, waiving a hammer in the air as if he was just stung in the hand by a bee, exclaiming, "I love hammers!" Another time, when he was around 62 years old, (shirtless) he came into my room where my friend Chris and I were playing Nintendo. This five foot tall, half naked man flexed and said, "This is why you go to the gym, boys!" For the record, I'm not looking forward to getting old. Since he never swore, or at least I never heard a swear from his mouth, his favorite exclamation was puke and choke! One day, my sister and I waited in the kitchen for him to get home from work. As he enters the back door, we jumped out. "I'm puke!" "And I'm choke!"

Thanks for listening. I know I'm not a very good story teller, so I'll stop now. Dad, if you can read this, I hope you got a good laugh. Miss and love ya! :)

Peace.