his daughter is 20 years of snow falling

Today marks 20 years since my dad’s death. I think I write something about it almost every year, but I felt like 20 years is the kind of milestone that requires particular attention.

I don’t really know what to say, though.

Last year I wrote this thing about it over on Band Back Together. I have posted this video or the lyrics on more than one occasion.

All I can really think to say is I sometimes consider how different my life would have been if he had survived. Or, you know, if no one even burned down our house in the first place.  I probably would have stayed in Wisconsin, gone to college there, and be about a million times different than I am today. I obviously don’t like that I lost my father, but I like who I am. People say everything happens for a reason, and maybe that’s true. But never without sacrifice.

with Scooter the cat. Also, an amazing beard.

12/13/1988 – his birthday.

March 1992

ni-ni-ni-nineteen

Today marks nineteen years since my dad died.

A couple weeks ago I learned there was more to the story that either I somehow forgot, which is highly unlikely, or was kept from us (us being me and my brother). Definitely likely. Only because it doesn’t necessarily paint our deceased father in a very flattering light.

You may or may not have seen my post over on Band Back Together, which tells the first part of the “I have a dead father” story. My mom read it and commented, and when I saw her the weekend before last we got to talking.

So, when I was in about 6th grade, my grandparents (dad’s parents) were out dancing and my grandpa collapsed. He recovered after a while, but he was clinically dead for a few minutes. I forget how long. After it happened, he said that while he was gone he saw dad, and his parents, and a few pets he’d has as a child.

Well I guess what actually happened was he saw dad and they talked for a while. Dad told grandpa that grandpa couldn’t go anywhere until he heard the “whole story.” Without going into too much detail, it turns out that dad owed these people some money. These dudes out of Milwaukee. his murder wasn’t the first they’d committed, and it wouldn’t be the last. The MO was always the same: arson, and burglary shortly after. I had also forgotten that the day before dad’s funeral, three motorcycles, including his, were stolen from the garage and were never seen again.

So dad told grandpa all this, and then grandpa came to and I supposed he told grandma what had happened, and maybe they told mom, or her parents, or something.

Two weeks later, those guys from Milwaukee we caught and arrested for a string of arson/robberies.

Yup.

I, uh, don’t have much else to say after that. So here’s a music video. This song always reminds me of dad. It was on the radio a lot in the year or so before he died. Rod Stewart has fabulous hair.

Don’t be such a Jerry, Ben.

I don’t know if y’all know of the web site Band Back Together, but it’s basically made of awesome. It’s a group blog where anyone can go and share their stories, whatever the stories may be. They have resource pages for all sorts of subjects and are working on creating more. The categories range from very dark subjects to uplifting, happy ones and the concept really is just as the name suggests – banding together.

So anyway, I didn’t intend to link to it here, but I wrote a post for the site. It’s about my dad. When I first started reading Band Back Together it didn’t even occur to me that I had a story to share. Then it hit me (on the bus, listening to music, as I mention in the post). I’ve told the dad story many times, but I’ve never written it all down. It was weird and cathartic and a little scary putting it out there like that.

Then I linked to it on Twitter and Kyle posted it on Facebook and I figured… well, I don’t know what I figured, but here it is for all the world to see.

Baxter out.

Blog Challenge, Day 3. Plus more.

This is gonna be a long one.

Last night Darren and I joined several friends at First Avenue for Too Much Love, their Saturday night dance party. Our friend Tim is moving to Chicago tomorrow, and he wanted one more night of dancing before he left. Cover is only $3, so why not, right? Well, drinks at First Ave are expensive, so that part sucks a little. Also the music they play isn’t, like, Lady Gaga and other awesome danceable tunes. It’s just DJ-house-music type stuff, which means that you really need some drinks in you before you feel like dancing to it. Well, that’s how I felt anyway. But it was a silly good time. I don’t get to dance with Darren very often and that’s just too bad. We’ll have to make this a more regular event.

We danced until bar time, then several of us went to Mickey’s Diner (the second location, not the dining car) for 3 am breakfast. Got home, walked the dog, and crashed around 4:30. Was very aware of the fact that we spent way more money than we should have, considering our car needs to be taken in again. Oh well.

And now for the blog challenge writing.

Part 1: Write about your day in great detail.

Going to bed so late meant sleeping until after noon. I got up once at about 10 this morning to brush my teeth, drink some water, and walk Enli. Then I went back to bed until almost 1:00.

I got up, put on some clothes, and decided to make a big breakfast even though I’d just had one. I made hashbrowns, bacon, and eggs (scrambled for me, fried for Darren). I washed the dishes, then ate my breakfast while perusing the internet. Drank some milk, washed my plate, then decided it was time to start laundry.

I do laundry like a college student, because we live in an apartment and have to pay to use the machines. A week’s worth of dirty clothes fits in the washing machine perfectly – at least for me. Darren’s clothes sometimes take two loads. Throw ’em in, wash ’em on cold. While my clothes were washing, I started to blog. I just got up to rotate them, and now I’m going to finish blogging.

After this, I’ll probably watch Netflix. Parks and Rec, I suppose. Eventually the laundry will get done and I’ll put my clothes away. The dog will need walking again at some point – she’s asleep right now – but I imagine I’ll make Darren do that.  Dinner time will come, and I have a feeling we’re going to be lazy and have pizza.

I’ll probably shower around 9:30, and make Darren walk Enli one more time before bed. Bedtime will be no later than 11:30, possibly earlier if I want to read before I sleep, and I will not be able to decide whether or not I want to wake up early and go to the gym before work.

Part 2: Your idea of the perfect first date.

I’m never very good at answering these sorts of questions, mostly because I don’t really have a specific answer for them, so I’m just going to write about my first date with Darren.

It was September 30, 2007. We had met for the second time two nights previously, at a mutual friend’s party (that’s another story in itself). He called me either the morning of our date, or the day before. I don’t recall.

Anyway, I met him at the Mall of America and we went to see Rush Hour 3. We laughed and laughed. Then we went to Johnny Rocket’s for a late lunch. We were very disappointed that the little tabletop jukebox was just for show.

After lunch we headed over to IKEA to wander around for a bit, and so I could purchase a frame for a poster.

We drove back to my house to drop off the frame, and we hung out for a little while before Darren had to head home.

We didn’t even kiss. But it was clearly a very nice time, because we kept seeing each other and then three years later we got married. Hooray!