I just read my brother's last two entries for his blog. He has posted an original song my dad wrote and John remastered with his friend, Chad Shuping. If you all have time I recommend you take the few minutes and give the song a listen...hilarious. I will try and post it here soon.
I hope everyone's 4th of July went well. My 4th had a very interesting twist. The night before I was working late and came home in the wee hours of the morning. Needless to say I woke up late in the morning, which was too early, and went for a run. So I came home, waited longer than I needed to to shower, and began to prep the day's cookout. By the time I started cooking, it was around 6 or 7pm.
When I had put everything on the grill. Julie, Elijah, and myself were sitting on the back deck. For dramatic effect, I had on jeans and a t-shirt with the sleeves cut out. My hair was wet and had the slicked back look along with my bare feet. We are all sitting outside enjoying the evening when our next door neighbor's teenage friends, who in my opinion are without jobs and on the scope of becoming alcoholics, lit some Blackcat fireworks and threw them off their back deck. Now these respectful and model citizens of Frederick County, Virginia have all or will finish High School. However, without looking or consideration for others proceeded to exemplify a stand up act by lighting and throwing these, illegal fireworks in VA, off their back deck.
When this happened, as you can imagine, it made a very startling and loud noise. And yes, it scared the baby. He did begin to wail and scream and cry. Here comes my 4th twist. I instantly became enraged due to the act that was committed next door. I immediately get up and ask for whoever set off the fireworks that I wanted to talk to them. So as I was saying this, everyone next door went inside. Now it gets cheesy...because in my mind I stated the phrase "aww hell no!" I went inside put on my flip flops a.k.a. thongs. and went next door and knocked on the door. A squirrelly fellow, with his hat sideways and wearing glasses came to the door. I said I want to talk to whoever set off the fireworks. He attempted to calm me down, which again made me even more upset. I wanted to slap his glasses off and push his face in and proceed inside and give the culprit a piece of my mind. What happened was our teenage neighbor's mom, came to the door. I proceeded to explain that I was extremely upset and did not appreciate what had transpired.
So there! I told them. I tried to make my 6'1" frame bigger than it was. Pushed out my chest and added a frown to the equation. Then I went home. I learned that I had embarrassed my wife by her telling me that I wish you didn't just act. The funny thing was I got so mad I began to shake and I could tell my voice was also shaky when I went next door. My inflated persona of my self was beginning to deflate. The more I listened to Julie the more I feel that I overreacted and then began to over analyze my reaction. So I then proceeded outside apologized to some teenage girl, who when she smiled looked like an Amtrak train could ride on her braces, and then later to the mother. All of this came from the fireworks that scared by kid. There was some underlying anger from work but my insanity/anger was quite intense. Then I realized that I do not want to become some crazy father that goes nuts every time my son is picked on or he doesn't get enough playing time in a game. Nor do I want to be the loud mouth dad in the stands that yells "move your butt" or "get the rebound" or any other phrase that pushes the triple digit mark for decibels.
So there you have my July 4th story.
