Three months ago today, my father died.  I know this not because the date is burned in my brain, but because I double checked the date on his obituaries.  That sounds harsh, I know.  But if you knew my father like I knew him (or didn’t know him), you’d understand…  Aren’t you lucky?  This four-part series aims to do just that!  Happy reading.

Once upon a time, there was a man whose childhood broke him.  Abandoned early in life by parents whose 5 children were more than they could handle, he grew up largely in the care of strangers. He spent his teenage years with his father, who was lost himself, but the damage was already done. He married his high school sweetheart while in his teens, had two daughters, and joined the army as WWII was ending.  And that was all in his first 20 years…

In the nearly four decades that followed, he kept himself busy by:

• cheating on most of his wives and significant others;
• molesting one daughter and abandoning the rest;
• being active in community theater;
• adopting a son;
• drinking alcohol like it was water;
• renouncing then un-renouncing the son; and
• opting not to hold a job whenever humanly possible.

Not all in that order necessarily, and many simultaneously. He was the master, pretty much managing to stay out of jail for public drunkenness (for any length of time anyway) and not taking accountability for any of his actions. For nearly two of those decades, he settled down with his fifth wife (by their count) and their two daughters.  While it wasn’t perfect, they had seemingly built a good life. Of course, the alcohol, cheating, and abuse ended that chapter and, true to form, he left most of that family behind.

In his final phase of life, he:

• married again;
• moved to a quiet mountain town where no one knew him and that was hundreds of miles away from those who did;
• adopted another son;
• wrote, directed, and acted in community theater, mostly melodrama;
• renounced his daughters;
• purportedly stopped the drinking, cheating, molesting, son-renouncing, and other bad stuff;
• became a community and family hero, a wise sage; and
• was beloved by all.

He shared very little about the old days with his new family and friends, including the existence of his two eldest daughters, and much of what he did share was on a need-to-know basis. This worked well for him.  He seemingly eluded all remnants of the past he no longer claimed, and glorified those that did. Ever the mastermind, he even shared things that didn’t happen and refuted things that did. Little did he know that a little something called the information superhighway would undo all of his efforts to hide.

Damn technology!

Stay Tuned for Part Two: Small World.

(Many thanks to Daughter #2 for the 1st photo & his obituary for the last.)