My Main Project. "The Fathers Legicy"

Author’s Note:

         Four-thirty, five o’clock in the mourning, the old man rolls over and gets up. He makes his way to the kitchen and starts a pot of coffee, sits down at the kitchen table and rolls a smoke from the ice cream pail of tobacco he is never without. As he smokes his loose cigarette he heads into the basement to retrieve the stashed bottle from his half office and goes back up to make his coffee. He pours a little whiskey into the cup of steaming black vice and starts feeling better almost instantly, now he can wake up. About twenty minutes, three coffees and six cigarettes later, feeling alert and awake he begins to get ready for work. About half an hour, two more coffees, a shower and another two smokes he’s back in the kitchen, dressed and sipping his sixth coffee, he’s buzzed and looking like a Weirdo Hippy, a title that I feel he created. My dad the weirdo hippie is truly an exocentric fellow. He’s about five-six, five-six and a half maybe, three hundred pounds about, and his style is purely original, his alone forever. His pale green denim pants are tucked into his woolly socks witch are pulled up to just below his knees with his steal from value village, the white rubber clogs. His pants are pulled up to the bellybutton and tied with a fake leather braded belt. His once white pinstriped, now pink pinstriped, collard button up dress shirt is tucked in firmly. Finally he’s got one of those dark brown, swayed, corduroy blazers with the plaid patches on the elbows, come on, you know the kind, and that completes his attire for the day. So now that he’s ready to go he mixes one last coffee for the road, rolls another smoke, packs up his yellow ice-cream pale full of tobacco with his tubes and roller in there somewhere, grabs his “purse”, I’m not kidding and walks out the door to get in his I don’t know how long but very long split-pea green, Ford, four door impala, fires her up and he’s off to work. Now that dad has gone to earn his daily bread, the family rises. Devin, Tara, Mom and myself get up and ready our selves in a more appropriate manner, for our various commitments in our own daily lives. Oblivious to the actions of our dad’s mourning rituals and me at least, content to be normal in the plainest sense of the word.
         This guy was my dad, emphasis on was. My dad brought so many funny moments into the lives of my family over the years. My brother, sister and I still laugh at some of those memories and once in a wile, even mom gets in on it and tells us a funny story and we all take a good laugh. It truly was a good time in our lives, through the eyes of a ten-year-old boy that is. Those days will remain in my heart and mind for ever. I will always respect him for what he accomplished back then and I will never forget the things he was known for. When I was a kid he and his crew were the kings in my world. I’d like to think he was borderline famous as a chef, but the reality is that famous might not be the right word for it. Everyone in the city knew him and admired him for what he stood for. Actually I think he was famous, but in the world of the workingman and long before the T.V. Chef was glorified and praised by viewers, a completely different side of famous for the common chef these days. Appose to the very often social drinking and daily joint smoking, he was an outstanding man and no one ever accused him of not loving his family.
         When I think about him now I almost start getting emotional and have a tough time accepting the reality of everything that has happened. Being a young chef in the same business that was led by my father and his colleague some fifteen years ago in the same city is proving it self to be harder than imagined. Its constantly reminding me of the past and no matter how I present myself or what I do to show my desire, I am always reminded of what was, regardless of how subtle or extreme and I manage to feel it every time. It’s tough to see him now, telling the same stories like it’s the first time. Looking aged beyond his years. Almost bragging to everyone and anyone about how much he has seen or done, only in attempt to come off bad or cooler in some way. Its to bad he didn’t realize being a crazy chef with a drinking problem seems a lot cooler than an unemployed drug addict to most people, or at least the type he seems to long to impress.
         Last year I was in Prince Albert, a few months before my grandfather passed away. On the Dreaver side of the family my auntie Karen had just passed and I found my self in a gathering of family, drinking as usual and mourning the auntie I regretfully seldom visited. I began talking with my uncle Richard. Him and my mother are not brother and sister, however they grew up the way a brother and sister does. As a result of this, when my mother and father first began a life together, Rick was always a close friend to them. Over the years he always asked about my grandparents, checking in to see how they’re doing and such. We started talking about Randy, and being only about five blocks away I invited him to come visit Murray, Marline and Randy, warning him to prepare to meet someone he has never met before and that my grandpa was very sick. After that he prepared himself with a few more morning beers, as I did, and we went for a visit. When we got there it was a little awkward and grandpa didn’t know who he was at first but moments later he recognized him and welcomed him in his own way. Shortly after that a borderline coherent, confused old man appeared and welcomed his old friend to his mother’s house. He’s only fifty but seems at times to be sixty or seventy. Aged much older then he should be at this point in his life. Shocking really. Later Rick thanked me for warning him before he met Randy for the first time in eight or so years. He said I was right, He never met the man before that morning.
         So often I wonder what might have happened had some different choices been taken back then? Where we’d be, if we would still be together as a family? If Devin and I still would have end up in the kitchen? Would I have turned out to be an alcoholic and a drug user? I’ve been depressed for a long time and I didn’t even realize how sad I was until my daughter was born and I struggled in my own mind for months and months, until I began talking to someone and she began to help me drastically in the way I think.
         My mom, the loving and supporting woman that she is has been encouraging me to write a book for a very long time now and I always shrugged it off thinking she was silly or something. She believed in me and as a result of that, writing my thoughts could only benefit me in many different ways, she has always told me so and she is often right in a variety of topics including this one. So as I slowly grow up and change things for the better it eventually begins to make more and more sense to me. I love reading; absolutely love getting lost in a book and even writing from time to time is appealing. So as I sit here and think back to the days of my childhood I’m surprised to find an amazing repertoire of stories forgotten by my own dream of normality. Most of the stories and memories in my mind have music along with them, music implanted in my internal mind bye my hero and father of the 90’s. His taste in music, his job and passion for food service as a well-oiled machine, his incredible love held high above everyone in and around him and most importantly his own self. Just the way he was, exocentric, strange and almost nazi-ish at times, these things are just a small taste of our dad, just barely skimming the surface of that twisted backwards mind, it just doesn’t seem to give him justice. Thinking back to those times always gives me a little laugh in the back of my mind and an unmistakable feeling of pride. If you listen closely you can still hear the Zeppelin pumping from the ancient speakers bolted to the roof of every house we ever lived in, at least I can anyways…
         These are the stories of my family and my self in regards to Chef Randal Q. Kyle. A Hero in his own world and bye his own standards, uncaring for the opinions from outside nobodies, and successfully etching a permanent poem of work ethic in to the minds and soles of his three children. Left there to simmer away for years and years beyond his withdrawal from our lives and continue to influence us even during his re- entrance through the wall of spite put up in his absence.
         Please enjoy my words.