From the Projects to the Suburbs

Last week i was down at my favorite watering hole, the one with the great jukebox situated a stones throw from the ghetto, it was a slow night and as i do on many nights when i actually leave the house i sat drinking by myself and gazing out the window while the smoke filled the air around me, it was one of those rare nights when the juke wasn't crammed with tunes and someone kept playing Elvis and the Stones and in particular this song, in fact i think it was played three times in about an hour and then i realized it was being played by these two guys who looked like they missed the turn to the swanky neighborhood a few hoods over and figured they'd stop in the first place they saw, now of course i don't mind when the Country Club set show up in my bar but at least have the fucking courtesy to be a decent human being about shit...

You see it started when this young punk girl played Buzzcocks and Twat A, who had been playing Elvis and the Stones, went off on this loud diatribe how there is no other music than E and the Stones and how this music was shit and fuck everything else and this is all for fucking asshole kids (i had earlier played the Bowie's Five Years, the Replacements - Waitress in the Sky and the Pogues - Fairytale of New York cuz hell it is the holidays now) of course i didn't want to point out that this song was likely out before his dumb ass even fell out of the womb but i kept my mouth shut as his buddy, Twat B, asked the bartender is she knew how to pour a Guinness, now the Guinness in this place is notoriously bad but once again i kept my mouth shut as i threw back bottle after bottle of Newcastle Brown cuz if Twat B had the nerve to ask a question like that i'd figured i'd let him find out on his own, but as i sat there and listened to Twat A pontificate on anything and everything he began to piss me off and when his friend suddenly went to the pisser i found myself glaring at him from a few seats down and he met my gaze and held it for a few uncomfortable (for him) seconds and then turned the other way which was quite disappointing cuz i was looking for any excuse to smash his fucking mug off the bar... and then his friend came back and he whispered something and Twat B tried not to make it obvious but took a good look at me and then turned back as i ordered another beer, then he turned back again and said hello to which i grunted and then i stood and stretched to my full height and went to take a piss myself and low and behold by the time i got back they were gone... which was a shame cuz Twat A had it coming but i think he thought better of it, don't play the hard man if you ain't up for it and though i don't really like to play that way now and then i get myself into trouble, but really the cunt was drinking Miller Lite by choice, he was gonna get that can fed to him but fuck all that what was this post about again? oh yeah, my old man...

You see before i wanted to throttle Twat A i was sitting there and listening to Elvis Aron Presley do his thing and getting all misty-eyed thinking about me Dad, Pops as he's know to those closest to him, see my old man was raised in the projects on the West Side of Cleveland, i never asked why but i can only assume it was til his old man had made some money to move them to a better place and they may have stayed longer cuz grand-dad liked to drink his paycheck sometimes and so i was amazed when i saw these tiny places that he and his older brother and parents lived in for a few years, both my paternal grandparents where from outside Memphis, Tennessee and it was there that my dad would spend his summers when he was a kid, returning to Cleveland for school when the time came, as far as i know they were the only members of their family to leave Western Tennessee, the rest are still there above ground or below...

And you see for the first 7 years of my life i rarely saw my father, he was married at 20, became a father a month before he turned 21, and spent most of his waking hours working or going to school, night school to earn his degree in accounting, for the first few years of my life i'd see him for dinner and a minute or two in the morning and that was it, even weekends he'd be taking a class or two so  the only day i'd really see him was Sunday, to me he was like a visitor in his own house, a house far removed from the projects with nice yard and green grass and a cul-de-sac for his kids to ride bicycles and play baseball....

And so one year when i was a wee boy i decided that i wanted to get my Dad an Elvis album for his birthday, i want to say it was Blue Hawaii but i'm not sure, all i know was that it was on blue vinyl and that i was all happy and smiling when i gave it to him and for all i know he may have already had the damn thing but i was his son and was excited to give it to him and the old man was like "alright" and gave me a big smile and a hug and then i got to sit on the floor in the room i wasn't allowed to go in, the room with the white carpet and dining room set and ugly couch (it was the 70's you know) as my old man put the record on the 8-track/turntable stereo combo... and he sat on the couch and read the paper and i sat on the floor looking out the window or reading the funnies or sometimes just watching my old man, cuz he was my old man and i loved him....

And it was laying on that white carpet on Sunday mornings, my dad reading his paper and walking to the kitchen for his occasional cigarette that i'd be introduced to Creedence, be schooled in Elvis, listen to Jim Croce and learn about how he died in a plane crash, hear the occasional Merle Haggard or Kris Kristofferson, it was here that i began to talk and hang out with my Dad, something that i'd do the rest of my life, that i miss doing sometimes even though me and the old man can have 2 hour conversations on the phone about everything from the state of the Browns to the state of the universe and i love those conversations and i can see him smiling as the boyos go tearing through the house yelling and screaming and shouting "Hi Pops! I love you Pops!" as they play and raise hell... but you know sometimes i miss those Sunday mornings, miss those days when his large wayward son would stumble into town for a few days and spend his morning shooting the shit with his dad after the old man got off the night shift, drinking coffee and having a smoke, watching the sports highlights, and it was there in that bar last week, one song can trigger it, i know the old man used to worry about me in the Wilderness Years and now i worry about him but damn i'm fucking lucky, one of the luckiest sons i know...

(And if anyone gives a shit Tis the Season is over at the Konogulf site)