Quality time observations of my 84-year old father, part 2 (originally posted 3/15/14)

• I cannot read his writing. It’s very beautiful but as flowery as a meadow in May. It’s sort of like John Hancock after a few steins of grog…or tabs of mescaline. However, as my father does have some Zelig like delusions of grandeur, I wouldn’t put it past him to believe that he actually did sign the Declaration of Independence. I’m sure he believes he was a framer of the Constitution…as well as framed (OK, I’ll leave the court case out of this for now).

• My parents two bedroom apartment has enough furniture in it to fill Xanadu. It seems that whenever my mom would buy more clothes from Ross or Marshalls, he thought they needed another chest of drawers. As they’re mostly empty now (we cleaned out a bunch of stuff as my mother is now in hospice), he wants me to sell some of it on craigslist. Not that he’s ever been to craigslist. He probably assumes I’ll just call up some guy named Craig to pick it all up. There was so much stuff here: two fridges, endless cookbooks, hundreds of towels, 80 bras. I suspect if I look through the closets I’ll find Rosebud.

• He’s lost all sense of appropriate volume. He whispers to my mom, even though she doesn’t have her hearing aids in. The TV is blaring so loud sometimes, I don’t understand why the neighbors don’t complain. When we meet some hospital staffer who is on the effeminate side, he’ll say “I think he’s gay” all of a millisecond after they’ve stepped out of the room, in a voice as loud as Morton Downey. The thing is, he hears fine in conversation. I think he just forgets the difference between when he’s thinking something or saying something. That filter is just worn out. He also may forget that he doesn’t own a seven bedroom home in Rockaway Beach anymore. We had a basement where I could beat on my drums, play my Slade records or canoodle with my girlfriend, and no one would hear a thing at the other end of the house. This may answer the furniture obsessions noted above as well.

I do love him though.

© Curt Weiss 2014