The Days Dad Started Over

A Remembrance And An Explanation Of Why I Write

This is an origin story.

I’m sending it out late at night, after a day of doing something I’m grateful for, writing.

Today marks two years since my Dad passed away.

It’s the reason, you see, that you’re reading this. In the past, I gave in to doubt, fear, concern about what others think - to every handmaiden of regret. These last two years, though, something changed.

It’s not that I changed, I’m still me, it’s that I changed the things I believed in for a long time which covered over my true self. Dad was always true to himself and to others. He didn’t pretend. Real deal. Old school. He was good.

In the week before Thanksgiving 2019, Dad got sick. He bounced back each time it happened in 2017 and 2018, and we looked after him each time but something went wrong. We thought Dad would come home from the hospital fully recovered but that didn’t happen. For 13 months, we took care of him, for everything.

Too many details.

Here’s what I will tell you. The man I knew, his words, his memory, his mind, one of his legs, one of his arms, and one of his hands, slowed and stopped. A switch was set to off, and I couldn’t push it back. I tried and tried. I became Dad’s memory.

I recounted his stories back to him, as many as I could recall. At times, his mind wandered back to moments when he was very very young. I wish he told me those very early stories too, so I could remember everything for him. I wished I listened better when it counted, each time he recalled the past.

Below is what I wrote a year ago. That morning, I dreamed about him, after trying not to think about him too much the day before. I wrote it as quick as I could.

This is how I want to remember him.

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These were the Days Dad Started Over

It wasn't easy was it? Your mother insisted you choose Australia. You obeyed. Tradition, ritual, and honor.

With just a few pound notes in your pocket, you were stripped of your old life and friends. A new life. You were adrift. You managed to keep afloat.

That first week, you saw an old man carrying several bundles to his car, and without thinking, you offered to help him. The man, who had seen so many winters away from home, asked, "Young man, are you a student? Do you need a job?" You got a job.

On a bus, you got up to offer an older lady a seat. This widow, raised in England with servants, was charmed by your manners, and asked you to tea the next day. You had a new place to live, and your new landlady became a tutor on table manners.

A man with a restaurant and casino offered to introduce you to his daughter, so taken he was with your work ethic. You picked fruit. Picking berries on your knees, apples and pears from trees. A grocer had a standing offer for work if you ever needed it, again because of your work ethic.

Word got around you were reliable and trustworthy. You auctioned chickens. You wrote cue cards for a movie crew. In one place, one impressed customer gave you a lead on a cheap room with heat. Some days you were hungry.

You learned how to drive with an old car on a farm. Later, you went on a long road-trip with a friend. Once you crashed into a tree, and a giant with a good heart carried you to a hospital. Later on, you bought a sportscar.

Another time, you caught lobster on a fishing boat, and cooked them in a barrel filled with sea water. Later, you were on a passenger ship riding big waves. You and a friend ate like kings while the other passengers were seasick. Steaks and cakes.

Your college buddies absconded with a lamb from some farm on a lark, which you cooked. Your best friend was hopeless as a waiter. He was an egghead who only knew how to boil eggs. You found him work as a dishwasher. Years later, he worked on top secret defense projects.

The day came and you had to leave, for Canada. Exhausted after your arrival, you slept for 2 days in a hotel room. A long train ride later you arrived in a new city to start over.

You only had a few dollar bills in your pocket in a strange new land, you were stripped of your recent life and friends. A new life. You were adrift, you managed to keep afloat.

Later, you met your future wife, and you had new adventures together. Road trips, one of which led to taking over a business in a western town with one street. After ten months of dawn to dusk work, you had a grubstake to go back east and start a small business. It became a small business chain but it came with a corrupt business partner. And then one day…

You would start over again in America. A new life. Adrift, you managed to keep afloat.

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Post-script:

New pieces for you about the past and the future are coming.

For those who know me, I write daily but I don’t email it all to you.

Almost everything is on this site’s archive, or parked in Medium or Mirror.

After we laid Dad to rest in a good place, beautiful in spring, I began to write. A lot.

Cleaning Dad’s effects, we found papers handwritten in a distinctive style forged by early years with fountain pens and brushes, the crumbling remains of a charcoal sketch, an ancient talent buried by the years. He was never embittered by those years, quite the opposite. I also found some papers among his effects, written by someone else. Mine. I had forgotten about them but he didn’t.

Not long after we laid Dad to rest, and after I began writing a little, a friend who read something of mine sent me a video. It was a message to urge me to write more. It jolted me. A switch was pushed to “on”.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been editing what I’ve written over the past two years.

"Box Of Stars" and "Harvest", were written daily in ten "30 day sprints" - 175,000+ words. It began in March 2021 and concluded in November 2022.

The last of “Book #2” was written before the holidays got going. I had to know “what happened” to these characters I created so I had to write it. It’s in the archive.

A few weeks ago, I printed everything to hand-mark them for rewrites.

I get to hit pause, go back, start over, and “fix” things and make it right, make it true.

Each book is half-history / myth, the past, plus a story about the future. It was posted on twitter daily. Sometimes, I made a new friend, got encouragement and inspiration. Sometimes, a nice line of dialogue from a conversation with that friend hits right.

Can I tell you something? Making new friends out of this was an unexpected gift. If luck is on my side, maybe you’ll tell me your stories.

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Just to show you I wasn’t making it up, below is a kind of proof that these books exist.

Many could be read as standalone pieces in thematic historical series (“2X21”, “1648”, “1961”, “1987”, “1999”, and “1976” were six “30 day” series that make up Book #1.) They have their own Notion or Mirror pages with Spotify playlists.

A Tellie page, a creator service, has the “Book #1” draft, now called “Box Of Stars”.

A Typeshare page has the “Book #2” draft, now called “Harvest”, four “30 day” series.

Most of the chapters have a diptych* format, beginning with history/mythology and then a chapter of the story. (*A friend’s word, not mine. This was not by design, it’s an accident of making things up as I experiment and figure things out.)

I’ve been inspired by, and learning from, other writers in some amazing writing/creating communities, including the Soaring Twenties and Write3, which helps a lot. The books will be packaged for electronic and print formats. I see these and future works as a base layer for other formats. The future is coming and I aim to make the most of whatever time I have left in this world to create it.

I write about about history, mythology, technology, and the future fiction. I owe you stories.

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I expect to write and share with you a long form piece during the weekend.