{"id":11102,"date":"2009-05-31T11:05:27","date_gmt":"2009-05-31T16:05:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=11102"},"modified":"2009-05-31T11:05:27","modified_gmt":"2009-05-31T16:05:27","slug":"raised-white-letter-liars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=11102","title":{"rendered":"Raised White Letter Liars"},"content":{"rendered":"

My dad has a little problem with the truth. Always has. Not exactly sure why or what caused this colossal break in basic human interaction, but of all his flaws, I think I’d put this one at the very top…above wearing polyester coaches shorts over the top of sweatpants…above him wearing a “Vietnam Veteran And Proud Of It” hat when during the war he sat his ass behind a desk at Grissom Air Force Base in the middle of Godforsaken Indiana…no, those pale in comparison to the string of lies he has trailing behind him.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

At the risk of sounding bitter, allow me to catalog some of them for you;<\/p>\n

For the past, oh I don’t know, 20 years maybe, the man has perpetually called up on the day of important events…mostly birthdays…and claimed to have sent appropriate cards. I swear, the mail service from Aiken SC must still be using some 175 year old dude and his half dead fucking horse, because them lazy bastards have been losing birthday and other holiday greetings (no doubt stuffed with the treasures of Solomon’s mines) like clockwork. Invariably, I’d get a phone call on my birthday or my son’s birthday asking the same question, “Did you get my card?” knowing full well that he hadn’t sent one. Rather than start any shit, I’d say “No dad, not yet.”. At this stage in our little game, he usually replies that he sent one and that the mail is so slow. Yeah. It’s slow.<\/p>\n

Then there were the whoppers about his work schedule long ago when he was still married to my mom. It took me actually getting a job at the same facility before I realized that he only worked about 14 days a month. As a shift worker, he had an entire week off every month…allow that fact to soak in for a second as I offer up another…when growing up, I never recall seeing the man except for the rare occasions when he’d be getting ready to go to work…or as I now call it “work”…which is to say, hooking up with his girlfriend and spending the week at her house with her 2 kids. Yeah, that’s my dad…he’s got so much love in his body, he has to share it with an entirely different family! What a guy! If that’s not giving, I’m not sure how you can properly define the word. I wonder if they get birthday cards on time?<\/p>\n

Oh, then there’s the one that is the subject of the title of this post. We had many different cars when I was growing up. One that stands out for me was an 1976 Ford LTD. It was a two door (always a good option when you have 3 pre-teen boys piled up in the back), it was stark white with a burgundy landau top and burgundy interior. More or less, standard suburban fare for the time. But it didn’t stay that way long. My dad fancied himself a hot rodder at heart, I suppose…he longed for the straightaways of Talladega or those massive high-banking turns at Daytona. As a result of his unfulfilled career in NASCAR, dad decided that the LTD would be his Walter Mitty escape-mobile. Ever heard an LTD with glasspacks? I have. So did our neighbors. The sound was likened to a garbage truck with rusted out exhaust. The LTD came with a relatively mild 351 Windsor V-8 engine, but the window rattling Cherry Bomb mufflers were pure custom. Then, to further confuse the masses, the hub caps suddenly came off and the rims were painted a high gloss black. Hmm. White trash mag wheels? Oh, but it gets better…I recall one afternoon, dad comes rolling in from work. My brothers and I were playing outside when we hear the dulcet tones of pure Ford power wafting up from Washington Road. We figured we had another 10 minutes before he actually arrived, so we continued on. Moments later, dad pulls up to the car port in the LTD, but there’s something different about the car. Shod on the shiny black rims were a set of raised white letter tires. I forget the actual brand, that part is unimportant, but there they were in all their series 60 glory. At some point, my mother exited the house and noticed the totally bitchin’ tires, asking my dad where he got them. In a display of lying not seen since the Grinch vs. Cindy Lou Who, this is what my dad told her, “I painted the letters on. They’ve always been there, I just used some paint and then shined them with tire dressing…what’s for supper?” Did my mom buy it? Yup. It wasn’t until later, when the money came up short to pay the bills, and the power was off when my brothers and I came home from school, that the truth finally came out on that one. Good times.<\/p>\n

The chances of my dad actually reading this are pretty slim, so to those of you who are aghast that I’d throw something of this nature out on a public blog can relax. Do I hate my dad? Hardly. Do I hate what my dad does? With a passion. And if you do read this dad, your grandson would have appreciated a phone call on his birthday<\/p>\n

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My dad has a little problem with the truth. Always has. Not exactly sure why or … Raised White Letter Liars<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":438,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[67,78],"class_list":["post-11102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blather","tag-claymore","tag-wtf-dad"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/438"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11102\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}