Thursday, April 05, 2007

heed the safety warning

I had forgot about this incident until i started writing my last post. I worked construction with my uncle During holidays and summer vacation. At one point we had to hire another framing crew, Two American Idian Brothers. I had gone out to the job site the new crew was working on with my uncle to make sure they were up to code. They were in the process of nailing the plywood down on the rafters with pneumatic nailers.

Uncle: You guys making sure you don't space the nails too far apart?

Brother 1: Yah, no more than xxx inches apart.

Brother 2: But we don't have enough plywood to finish everything.

U: I'll go call and get it out here now.

While waiting for my uncle to come back i watched while the brothers were talking, one of the brothers was kind of swinging his nail gun back and forth.

Me: be careful with the safety triggers taped like that.

Brother 2: Ahh, we've never had a problem before with it.

*KLANK*

*Stunned Silence and empty stares*

*Grown man screamin*

Me: Did you just nail a nail through your leg?

B 2: Yup

B 1: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Me: Dumb ass.

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

A light

I wanted to post something positive today. My last few posts have been complete downers and I wanted to change that. I was able to talk to my Aunt Brenda the other night for quite a while. I love talking to her, she's one of the few people that get me and at the same time keeps me in line from all of my bullshit(and everyone knows i'm full of it). My Aunt is married to my Uncle Brad, who is my dad's brother and a huge influence on my life. Well we got on the discussion on how they met and she brought up a lot of things that I had forgotten about over the years, as I was 17 when all this happened. The story of how they met and ended up together is one of the best stories real or not to hear. I've decided to recite it here, just the quick version. don't know if it will be totally accurate, but it'll be close enough.

Both my Aunt Brenda and my Uncle Brad were in marriages with people they had been with since high school. Both divorced in their late twenties, early thirties. After their divorces, My Aunt had moved back into her parent's house soon after and was in the process of finishing school to be an RN. She had pretty much written men off at this point and just worried about raising her two girls on her own. My Uncle, who was the superintendant for his ex father in law's construction company, moved into my grandparents house. My uncle, forever the optimist, was visibly void of optimism for a very long time.

In the summer of that year, his best friend for many years, invited him to a party at their neighbors house. The reason for the Party was partly to introduce my uncle to the neighbors sister, my Aunt. My Uncle went to the neighbor's party and met my Aunt and had small conversations with her, though neither of them thought twice about it. Well, during this party, my Uncle's ex or soon-to-be Ex showed up completely by suprise. My uncle spent pretty much the rest of the party with her, talking and just being the gentleman that he is. He made sure that if she needed anything she got it, and he carried her plate away when she was done. This was noticed by everyone, even my Aunt who took notice. a lot of people came up to the sister and apologized as they didn't know the ex would be there. She told everyone that that was no reason to apologize and that he should spend time with the person that he cares about.

Flash Forward 5 months to halloween of that year. My Uncle and his wife had finally filed for divorce and my uncle was getting on with his life. He had a big party to go to and i helped him get ready for it. It was a great costume. A complete black monks outfit with a large hood. We painted his face up to look like a skeleton. It was guaranteed to keep the women away. My Uncle shows up at the house and who goes to answer the door, yup, my Aunt of course, Does she open it? Nope. She looks out the peep hole and see's a fairly large strange looking man dressed like a creep. She walkes in to her sister and said there is some stranger at the door and she's not going to answer it. They get re-introduced and spend time talking throughout the evening.

I don't know who asked who out but they eventually ended up spending a LOT more time together. Many nights spent sitting in a vehicle talking about what they want out of life and don't want out of life. They seemed to have hit is off from the start and had a lot in common. My Aunt's biggest deal was her kids. She had to have someone that not only got along with her kids and whom her kids got along with, but someone whom her kids had respect for. My Uncle was that guy.

They spent the next 9 - 12 months together, some weekdays, but mostly weekends. My Cousin and I would do a lot with them when able as we were on my uncle's construction crew. One day my Uncle came to her house with a ring and blueprints for a house of their own together and asked her to marry him. She of course said FO SHO, or maybe it was yes, can't remember the story that well.

They've been married now for 16 years(or so) and Though they've had their ups and downs, they have been through it all. They moved from SoCal to Kansas approx 12 years ago to raise their family. They have two kids of their own but they are all four their children. They even have two grand kids(HAHAHA, they're grandparents. didn't hit me until now). They've always been a source of hope for me during the bad times. Knowing that each of them gave up on life in their own way, and yet were able to find each other makes me realize that, somehow, someway, there is hope for me(and others) in this world.

Monday, April 02, 2007

Fond Memories

I lived in Kansas Up until the time I was 12 , when i moved to SoCal with my Grandparents. My mom lived with us until I was maybe 7 when she left for New York with her new guy, the rest of the time was with my Dad. I don't remember much about that time in my life and the few memories I have aren't the greatest. Screaming and fighting and drug abuse were the norm. FIghting(and I mean fighting) were the brunt of it. I do remember a few of the worst fights. Like I can remember the time my mom came home and found dad with a bunch of people drunk off their asses and my mom taking a bat to my dad and breaking his wrist, or maybe the time that she threw the ginormous crystal ashtray at him and it split his arm all the way up from the wrist to his elbow. He of course had to drive himself to the hospital, Blood was everywhere. None of those compare to "The Fight"

This was the time that I remember the most, was easily the worst fight i've ever seen period. I can really remember it clear as day, like a shitty movie or song that gets stuck in your head and you just can't fuckin get rid of it. I've had more than my fair share of nightmares about it. I was 6 years old and my little sis was 4. Being raging alcoholics and drug addicts, infidility ran rampant in our household. If it wasn't my Mom then it was my Dad. They made no attempts to hide it from their children either. One day, not long before my mom left, my dad came home and found my mom with his good, if not best friend "D". Mom and "D" were drunk as all hell of course and i'm pretty sure hopped up on some type of illegal substance(s). My Dad Worked the day shift on the Oil Rigs and had just gotten home from work. My sister and I were asleep in our beds in the basement when I heard it. I remember waking up to a really loud noise, something akin to a house being blown apart by dynamite. I ran up the stairs to see what was going on and as I turned the corner to the main room, I saw my dad(or at least he looked like him) on top of "D" beating the shit out of him. I knew this wasn't my dad at this point. The dad that I knew was now somewhere hidden in the farthest reaches of this guys head that was beating the life out of "D". My mom was on the ground about 10 feet behind where my Dad and "D" where when i saw her get up run up behind my dad, and tried to pull him off, bad move on her part. My dad just hauled off and with the back of his hand knocked her a good 10 feet back. Dad keep beating on "D" until there was nothing left at all to recognize him. Again, it looked like a slaughter house, there was blood everywhere. On clothes, bodies, floor, walls, windows, etc.. My Dad realized "D" wasn't fighting back or even moving at this point. He got up off of "D" and grabbed my mom off of the floor like a rolled up carpet.

Before I finish this, let me give you a layout of our house. We lived in a two story tall house, Though it wasn't really two stories. There was a really large basement(it's the midwest remember), but it actually raised above the ground almost a full story. the stairs to the front porch actually led up past the basement to the main part of the house, where the front room, kitchen, etc. were located. So the main part of the house was a good 10 - 20 feet from ground level. The kitchen had a fairly large garden window in it. The kitchen subsequently was where all of this was going down. I'm pretty sure that you can all can guess where this is headed. so...

After my dad stopped hauling off on "D" he went and grabbed my mom, who was well past innebriated and still stunned from the back hand my dad had given her. Mom was pretty much a rag doll at this point. He was holding her up against the wall with one hand and pummeling her with the other one. Dad(Or what of Dad there was there) with strength no one could possibly knew existed, threw my Mom out of that big garden window into, thank goodness, the bushes below. He stood there for a few minutes and turned to looked at me, who was completely stunned, and my little sister who was screaming and crying hysterically. At that point he turned from the anger induced hulk he was for the past 15 minutes(Though it felt like hours) back to the father that we knew. He got down to our level, which he always did to talk to us, told us that he loved us more than anything and would be back later. We didn't see him for quite a while, i would say a couple of months. When Dad finally came home, mom moved out, i saw her one more time about a month later and after that, well, everyone knows that story.

This is not a "my life was shitty, pity me" post, nor is it a "Fuck the world, it sucks" post. Instead, it is more of a post for those(you know who you are) that feel like life is nothing but shit. No matter how bad it is, there is always someone in the world going through worse. We can't control the paths our lives take sometimes. It's like being in a plane going through some really bad turbulence, you have to realize that you can't force it back to normal. All you can do is just relax, smile and wait it out, life WILL get better. There is no doubt.