Daddy Dearest (:

For as long as I can remember, my friends have been under the impression that my dad has a very staid personality. This is, in all honesty, a true misconception of my father's persona. Sure my father seems very serious and unemotional in public, but at home he is a completely different person. Now, my father isn't very aesthetically pleasing (this may be an explanation for why people think he always looks mad). Sure he was handsome as a young person, but the many years he spent as an alcoholic and as a tobacco addict really changed his appearance. My dad is far from contemporary. In fact, he's quite old fashioned. Sure, he's trying to get into today's culture (especially with technology), but he still has the same mindset his parents had. I mean, he is 62 and all, but sometimes I think that he is a little behind of even his own years. I remember that when I was younger, he never allowed my sister or I to wear pants in public because they "weren't modest." The topic of wearing pants in public was completely incontrovertible. He had a set mindset of what he thought was right and what was wrong and arguing with him was completely superfluous. It wasn't until I went into high school that my dad agreed to sanction the usage of pants in public for my sister and I and even then he was very ambivalent to the idea.

My most vivid memory of my father when I was younger was that he was very impartial when it came to dealing with his children. He never picked favorites. He always heard both sides of the story and was fair with everyone. Not. My dad was very biased when it came to his children. Sure, most of that served as an advantage to me, since I received great amounts of gratuitous rewards for doing nothing, but I didn't think this was fair at all. Okay, maybe i'm lying, but still, now I see that that wasn't very nice. I remember that my dad would always surreptitiously bring me a bag of popcorn and M&M's after work every day. He and I planned a clandestine meeting place and as soon as I heard the roar of our Astrovan's motor, I would quitely rush outside to collect my goods. We had an auspicious tradition going, but sadly, my dad's benevolent manner flew away like a hot air balloon and never came back.