A Little Out There

A collection of humorous recollections and observations of a loquacious raconteur.- CONTENTS- INTRODUCTION- I STARTED OUT AS A CHILD- MONASTIC COLLEGE- ALCOHOL IS MY LIFE- BEING MARRIED, MARRIED & MARRIED- ON HAVING KIDS - OR NOT- CANINE COMPANIONS- BATHROOMS OF AMERICA- HUMOR IN UNIFORM- MEET THE NEIGHBORS- POLITICS AND OTHER FORMS OF INSANITY- COMMUNICATION IS THE PROBLEM TO THE ANSWER- GETTING OLDER SUCKS- RANDOM EVENTS- APPENDIX(I STILL HAVE MINE BUT IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS)THE TITLE of this book originated from a conversation I had with my eldest son a few years back. A widower late in life, I remarried and my two young adult sons acquired a stepmother. Soon I noticed that when they called home, they most often called my wife instead of me. When I asked my oldest son why that was, he responded, "No offense dad, but you can be a little out there." He went on to say his stepmother, Wendy, was more down to earth and more able to answer his more practical and straightforward questions without drifting off topic or launching into a story he had heard countless times before. Thinking about this, I realized he was right.My father, in his older years, had been much the same way. He had a story for every conversation and every call I made to him invariably went back in time, ending often with the mention of his favorite car - a 1949 Dodge with fluid drive. Dad would then pontificate on the reasons the auto industry perfidiously buried that particular transmission design. He too, was a little out there and even though he couldn't remember what he had for breakfast, stories from thirty or forty years ago flowed freely. A ten-minute trip to the supermarket for three items took him at least an hour. He was a gregarious sort whose motto as eventually put on his grave in 2011 was, "Who'd you meet along the way."Two months before the end of his life, his body and mind failing, I had the opportunity during one of his lucid moments to tell him face-to-face what a great dad he was and rattled off a long list of things we had done together. His response was, "How do you remember all that shit?"The apple didn't roll too far from the tree.