First let me say I love my family,  I live about 1,500 miles from them and I love that I live that far away even though I love my family.    My dad has been sick but as my older bother says "Dad is very comfortable on drugs that even a hard core junky might not want to take because they are a bit too strong."   Last time I saw him he was at home, not as comfortable, but in his own house. He went into a really bad nursing home after going to the hospital and then my paramedic/firefighter brother convinced them it was better to transfer my dad than it was to put up with him complaining about how bad the care giving was.   I didn't see the first place but it did sound pretty bad.

One of my friends talked (humiliated ) me into going back to see him while I still could.   I booked the flights using my frequent flier mileage which means that I had to fly sort of a combination flight.  I could leave and return "kind of around" when I wanted to go and  when they wanted me to go.  Of course it was more when they wanted me to go and less when I really wanted to go.    I needed to fly as soon as possible so I could be back to work to help close out our quarter end, and they wanted me to spend as much time on the ground as possible between flights.   

Last time I was in Rochester my son got sick, I mean holding a plastic bag and explosively filling it sick.  My wife had it a couple of days before and she had blown out so many capillaries in her eyes that she looked like the wolfman in some horror film.   She scared the kids and I laid in bed listening to her hug the commode thinking, "God, I feel so helpless, and I hope to hell I don't get what she has.  I did get it a week later while in Salt Lake City but my son got it at lunch 2 hours before our flight back to Fort Worth was going to leave.  

I called the airline and was told that I could rebook the flight for him but that the next flight was 37 days away.   He would have missed a full month of school, which he was willing to do but at a $1,000 a week for the hotel we decided that we would fill all our pockets with plastic barf bags and take the flight.   I am sure that if I would have taken a collection that I could have gotten the other passengers to kick in the needed money.    So anyway I understand that for some reason the airlines want you not to take a quick flight out and back, they want you to spend a lot of time on the ground at wherever is it you want to fly to.  Maybe it is a hotel, rental car, airline conspiracy. 

I was hoping to get bumped to first class which I did on my last flight but when I asked about it at the counter I was told I will never be upgraded.  I'm not sure if he meant never on this flight since it was a "reward" ticket or never again because I drink too much booze sitting in first class.   Either way he was very clear that I was going to be sitting in the back on the four flight segments that made up this flight.   Dallas/Fort Worth to Cincinnati- Cincinnati to Rochester.   Rochester to Atlanta - Atlanta to DFW.

I got up at 5:00 in the morning on Thursday and arrived in Rochester at around 2:00 in the afternoon.  No upgrades, a lot of "hurry up and waiting", no food, no booze or for those of you that fly a lot, a normal day flying.   My mom picked me up at the airport and I am not sure if she was happy to do it or if  it was an imposition since my mom would be canonized expect the Pope feels that it would be too presumptuous for him to preside over the ceremony.   If you told her you were having trouble seeing she would offer to pull out her eyes just on the off chance that they might fit.   If you say, "No mom I don't want your eyes." She would respond, "Are you sure? It's no trouble." 

She meets me at the airport and we decided to go see Dad.  We stopped by and he is better than I thought he would be, which is much worse than I hoped.  He knew I was coming and seemed happy to see me but we only stayed for a few moments since he had things to do and I was happy to just say Hi and then go over to my parents house to drop off my bags.   We went back about an hour later and I got to spend some more time talking about the kids and quizzing him about his life.   He often forgets where he is and why he isn't home but he can remember the type of food he stole from the ship's galley on the way over to Guadalcanal,

My mom and I went out to dinner at some little dive restaurant that had all the ambiance of a Greyhound bus station snack bar but surprisingly good food and service.  Since I normally go to places with great ambiance and surprisingly bad food and service it was a pleasant surprise.   We talked about how supportive everyone in the family was and since I live a couple of thousands miles away I get counted as more extended then real family.    She would tell me how everyone got together at one time or another or how all of dad's sons did this or that.  Since I wasn't at either activity I assumed she meant all of the family that lived in Rochester.   She also couldn't be more thankful for all of the support but wished that we would also just leave her the hell alone sometimes.   I noticed that when she talked about getting left alone by the  family I was welcomed back into the fold.

It was really kind of nice and I liked that she could share the light as well as the dark with me.   I did decide to go visit some of the rest of the kids and since my older bother works at a bar I decided he would be the first one I would visit. 

Bob is a bartender, in fact Bob is the worlds best bartender.  I have had to have him come to my rescue a number of times in his bar.  I inevitably get asked, "Do you know Bob?"  To which I reply, " I know him pretty well."  This quickly degenerates into a contest of who knows Bob better.   I bring up that I was the best man at his wedding. That I married the girl he decided was too young for himself so he set me up with.  That I shared a room with him, helped pick out the best playboy centerfolds for the walls, grew up listening to his music and reading his books.  We have been pretty close but even after explaining all of this I still lose to the regulars at his bar.   They don't know Bob, they love Bob.  They will take me out in the parking lot and gladly kill me if I mess with Bob and may do it anyways just because of my impertinence for thinking that I knew Bob.   This goes on until Bob gives them the secret look that tells them I'm OK.

The bar is surprisingly smoky since people keep sneaking cigarettes.  It is illegal to smoke in any business, including a bar, in New York state,  which as a non-smoker I should be happy about but as a business person I can see that this might greatly reduce revenue.   People like to smoke a cigarette while they slam down a drink or two.   I have known people for years that I never knew smoked until I went to a bar with them.   After a few drinks a fresh pack of cigarettes comes out and they drink until the finish the pack.  As a bar owner it is a very symbiotic relationship, drinking equals smoking, smoking equals drinking.

Since Bob is giving me so much attention I am included in every "round of drinks" from the regulars and since a "round of drinks" has to, by some unwritten law, lead to another round of drinks, I end up drinking a lot.    I drink scotch which as an honored guest of Bob's I get bought for me at a surprisingly high rate, but since I am also not a regular I get a lot of strange and some just plain stupid drinks bought for me.   I think Goldschlager, a cinnamon schnapps with real gold flakes in it, was the stupidest but did not even come close to the worst tasting.   The gold is, by the way, suppose to be good for curing arthritis.    I stay until closing but since I have had a lot to drink I can not just hop in my Mom's car and drive home so Bob and I sit around until four in the morning drinking coke until I feel that I can win the argument with the police officer about how much I have had to drink, over what period and what is my weight.    It is not a conversation I am looking forward to so I drive home as if  the car was on rails.  I was so straight, so precise that I am sure any cop watching me he would have pulled me over because nobody drives that well at four in the morning.

My mom offered to sleep on the couch so I could have her room which I explained was never going to happen.  She has a guest room in the attic which is kind of hot in the summer but since it has been a cool day and it is almost five the morning it is fine.  I sleep until 9:00 am which is really sleeping in for me but not a lot of sleep in you start at 5:00 am.  

My mom "grounds" me for coming in so late.  I explain that 4:30 am is not late it is very early.   She doesn't buy it but decides that it is a battle best left un-fought.    We go to see my dad and he looks great.  He is alert, happy and kidding with the nurses.  She tells on me about coming in so "early" and he decided I should be let off because he is in a good mood.   We talk about the kids, about his many jobs and the other meaningless stuff that sons ask their fathers or wished they had.

I drop off my Mom and head back to Bob's bar.  This night I drink a lot of coke and decide that I am his designated driver.  I failed to drop him off the night before since I was kind of nervous about how long you have to not drink before getting pulled over for driving "too well" at 4:00 am.    I show up later and fended off a large number of drinks which considerably lowered my standing in the eyes of Bob's regulars but I was able to leave as soon as Bob finished for the night, which puts us at his house around 4:30 in the morning and gets me to Mom's house around 5:30, a bit later or earlier depending on your point of view then the night before.  I did meet new regulars along with some of my new, "old" friends.  One of the girls who is in love with Bob, but I am assured by her that it is only in the most physical and debase way, is embarrassed when she not so quietly asked if I can be trusted.  Bob says, "Yes." but she seems unconvinced and asked Bob how long he as known me, to which Bob replies, "On and off for 47 years.  He is my brother."  She seems quite upset about this faux pas which makes her buy me a drink and then follow it up by telling me how disappointing it is that Bob loves his wife so much since she has always wanted to steal him away.  

Bob has this effect on women, I'm not sure why but they always want to bed him or mother him.  She still seems to suspect that Bob and I are not really related since I never have that effect on women, until she finally makes me stand and checks out my butt. I am pleasantly surprised to discover that although I am an overweight, balding, grey hair man who is almost fifty, I still have a cute butt, or at least my butt provides enough resemblance to Bob's who I am told has a cute butt, to confirm that I am indeed related to Bob. 

Mom is asleep when I get home so I don't have to explain much until 9:30 when I wake up and she asks.  I have made it a habit not to lie to my Mother or my wife, except if they ask if they look like they are gaining weight, since all men are expected to lie when asked that question.   She decided after looking at me that I can not make another night so decides to let me off with the warning that I look very tired, too tired to go out drinking again tonight.

One of my other brothers is also a Bartender, really he is a Fire Fighter but if you fight fires you have to have at least one more job.  He is an ex-sniper, Army scout, Gulf  War veteran, paramedic, firefighter so of course he has to do something macho. Nothing is more macho than tending bar and telling war stories while you still smell a little smoky from pulling a blond haired baby out of a 12 alarm factory fire. "How a blond haired baby makes it into a factory fire is never quite explained."

I call his beautiful but obviously confused wife since no women would marry into this family unless she was confused.   She tells me that Jim is still asleep after working all night at his real job but that we can pick him up in a couple of hours.   I have already made a date with Bob to see Dad and then go out to Lunch or Dinner at his wife's restaurant where she tends bar.   My Mom and I pick up Jim then I decide to drive over to Bob's house since it is nearby, even though his wife has told us not to call on him for at least another couple of hours.   We kidnap a sleepy, unshaved, unshowered Bob, who the women still find more attractive than me, and drag him off to see Dad.   We flood into Dad's room and find my younger sister already there.  The room is too small to hold an 1950's Catholic family so my youngest bother the forementioned Firefighter/Paramedic takes charge.  We believe this is more his domain than ours since he has some limited medical training and can intimidate the nurses, or piss them off,  I can never tell the difference.   He decides that we should take dad out to the patio.  This is a great idea since the day is beautiful and my older sister shows up a few minutes later.   We sit outside and mostly talk over dad as if he is an unnecessary part of this gathering.  He chimes in a few times but mostly flirts with the nurses.  I start to understand were Bob gets it, but I'm still disappointed about not having gotten my fair share of whatever "it" is.

Dad gets tired and after asking, “ Who's house we are at?”, and “Who picked this place?”, we all answer him.  We all provide different answers to his questions which I am sure seems a bit cruel when the guy started off confused.   We tell him; "It is a nice place." "Nobody's house." "A place you have to stay at because the drugs they give you can not be given to you expect by a licensed physician or a very good street junkie and we could not afford the junkie." "You picked the place and isn't it nicer than the first hell hole you were in." or the familiar favorite, "How are you feeling?"  

I am sure people that are dying hate the question "How are you feeling?"  My dad often answers, "I'm dying, how do you think I feel?'  It warms my heart and makes me love him all the more.   We all have to die but it seems more courageous to spit in death's eye and say I'll come when I'm damn good and ready, until then, you can freak'n wait.   Of course my dad never uses the word freak'n but I want my son to read this so I have edited it a bit.   My dad finally kicks us out by telling us , "To get the hell out because he wants to get some sleep. "    My older sister has to get home since she has a teenage daughter who has decided that she no longer wants to be a teenager and maybe not a daughter.   The rest of us head off to the bar, which seems to be a reoccurring theme.  Joette is bartending and seems happy to see us, but as I recall much happier to see us leave.   We sit around the bar and drink really stupid drinks. This is not Joette's fault since most of them she refuses to even acknowledge.  We drink things like a "brain hemorrhage," and a "cement mixer" which has to mixed in the mouth of the drinker since once the ingredients are combined they harden into a solid which can not be removed from the shot glass.    

Bob is in rare form since we have lubricated him. My younger bother insists on speaking at one volume - too loud.  He is, as I mentioned before, married to a lovely young lady who has a rich Roman heritage.  Jim keeps talking about Italians as if we are dining with the "Sopranos"   Rochester has a very rich and large Italian community so some of the patrons who are obviously not in on the inside joke seem to becoming a bit concerned with a rather large shaved headed, Nazi looking guy, with a surprisingly cute butt" who keeps making disparaging remarks about the Italians, which he is pronouncing "Eye-talians"    We get things calmed down, or rather Bob's wining smile and Joette's ability to charm the other guests get us out of an embarrassing situation.

We have a wonderful dinner which comes surprisingly quickly although I notice that we have already run off all of the other diners so I assume the owners want us to finish quickly and release the dinning room back to the normal, quieter and significantly less stupid patrons who normally grace his charming Café. The food is wonderful and as soon as we finish, the bill comes.  I discover I am out of cash, I hope in vain that this will get me out of paying my share of the bill but my family who is use to me "running out of cash" throw in their money and tell me to use my credit card.  This has the extra benefit of giving me extra cash so I can buy a round or two of drinks.  I forget how smart my family is but they never underestimate my desire to get out of picking up the check so they have learned how to ensure that I don't escape without paying my share, plus maybe a little "stupid" tax.

It is still pretty early but my Mom decides that she wants to head home.  I try to get my sister to take her since I have my Mom's car and want to keep it. But my mother refuses and takes her car.  I am promised a ride by Jim's wife Julie who is even more accommodating than my mother. While my mother will offer her eyes Julie will offer to have them fitted and deliver them to your house.  She will prove this at midnight by going home with the offer to come back at the moment her drunken husband and his silly brother call and wake her out of a sound sleep.  My mother leaves and we start to settle in for a long night of drinking, something that I don't recommend but have a hard time not foolishly participating in.   Joette seems to the only wife in the family who fails to allow her husband to mindlessly follow a direction that will lead to large fines, embarrassment, or prison.   It is still very early when Bob explains that we must leave.  I ask when does the bar close and he explains that unlike his bar, this bar closes when the people go away and Joette would like us to go away so she can go home and get some sleep since she has another job that requires her to get up in the morning.   I have taken Monday off so failed to remember that Sunday night is not a night normally spent drinking in till all hours.

We leave driven by Julie to Bob's house and she goes to pick up the dogs who also understand the value of routine.  We all end up sitting around one of the smokiest fires  I have ever helped build and getting eaten by ravenous mosquitoes.  On the plus side Bob pulls out a very good single malt scotch which he has saved from his wedding and a fine Kentucky bourbon, on the down side our savage of a brother embarrasses the Rochester Fire Department by slamming it back as if it was a cheap shot of vodka.   Bob and I sip the fine whiskey from Scotland and openly laugh at our brother while mourning the the lost of a truly fine glass of scotch.   Joette comes home and spends a gracious amount of time with us as does Julie since they both have to work the next day and none of the "brothers dim" do.   

The wives are gone so it is just the three boys. We talk about battles won and lost, our childhood, with Bob being almost 17 years older than Jim some of it shared and much of it not.  We talked about Dad and how you change as a father over 17 years.  Dad was Dad  but he did change with the times.  Bob told us stories, some I knew and some I didn't.  He reminded us of the nights that Dad waited to eat just to be sure that the kids had enough to eat, that Mom would sit late at night trying to figure which bill got paid that month and which didn't  but we always had food on the table.  Jim told me that Dad divided the money that our Grandmother gave to our parents out to the kids.  I always thought that we were in her will but we weren't, we got something from our Grandmother because our father believed that you always let the kids eat first.  I loved both my Grandmother and Dad more because of it.  My Dad for what he did and my Grandmother for giving him the opportunity to do it.

It is well after midnight, might even be closer to mid-day (Monday, a work day) when my brother calls his lovely wife. She drags herself out of a warm comfortable bed to come and pick us up.  She has to drive me across town, almost passing their house on the way, drop me off, and then go back home.   I hear the electric windows come down as they pull out of Mom's driveway.  I notice that the aroma coming off me is a very strange combination of "deep wood's Off" bug spray, willow smoke, scotch, and bourbon.   I quietly bang and stumble my way into my Mom's house, she is surprisingly awake.   She looks very good, wide awake and a little hyped up, like I have caught her on her way out to compete in the "Ironman contest."   I am surprised but since I have had about 6 hours sleep in the last four days and my blood alcohol content is hovering right around 7.4  I am not too surprised.

I ask her why she is up and she tells me that she had a slight problem at dinner.   She must have gotten a hold of some fish because she felt her throat close up and decided that it would be good to drive herself home and get her EpiPen.   She said," I didn't want to bother you since you guys were having a really happy time together."   

Lets fade back about ten years.  My Mom and Dad were visiting us in California when we had the big earthquake. About a week  before the earthquake, we all went out to dinner at Fuddruckers. We get some regular burgers but they also serve Salmon Burgers.  We guess that the cook used the same spatula on the salmon and our burgers.  It doesn't take much just a little bit of fish oil will do it.     Mom starts to feel funny but doesn't want to complain so waits patiently for us to finish and then we calmly head out.   I ask if they want to go out and do something but my Mom begs off saying, "I'm not feeling too good. Lets go home."    I drive another block and notice that she really doesn't look that good.   I talk to her but she is not really responding to my questions.  I pull into the driveway and she walks into the living room.  I call 911 since she looks terrible and I can not get her to talk to me.  

The fireman come and she is much worst.  They pull her down on the floor and say, "Can you hear me?"   She has a far away look in her eyes and then the fireman says, she is not breathing.   They put in an IV and after asking us what it might be? We say, "She is allergic to fish."   They push in some Epinephrine and she almost immediately comes out of it.  She is starting to respond and we know she is going to be OK when the fireman asks, "How much do you weigh?"   She looks at him and then at us and says, "Even my husband doesn't know how much I weigh."   He tells her it would be OK to whisper it to him but he has to know so he can figure out the dosage.

The ambulance comes and they take her to the hospital.  She has to stay overnight but picks up a bug in the hospital so that turns into four days.   She gets out and we get the earthquake which almost shakes the house off the foundation.  I am dropping them off at the airport later that week and my Mom hugs me and says, "I had such a wonderful time." 

So back to the present.  I am standing the living room looking at my Mom and reliving what happened the last time she an anaphylactic reaction to fish and she is telling me, "I didn't want anyone to have to drive me home because you were all having such a nice time."    I tell her the last time this happened she had a firefighter standing over her saying, "Can you hear me?"  and you decide to drive yourself home.    We go around and around and I feel like I am talking to my twelve year old son not my seventy year old mother.  "But you guys looked like you were having a really happy time together."    "You could have driven into a telephone pole." "I didn't want to bother anyone." "How inconvenient do you think a funeral is?"  "You don't get to see your bothers and sisters very often."  "I could have seen them again at the cemetery."   No matter how much I kept trying to explain how concerned everyone would be she kept coming back to how she didn't want to bother us.   "No mom, I don't want your eyes."  "Are you sure? It's no trouble." 

It is hard to not yell at someone you love when they do something for you that is so bad for them.   I got in trouble the next morning when my wife called me and my mom answered the phone and told her that I yelled at her.  In my defense I did not yell at her, my son would love it if that was the way I "yelled" at him.  Of course my wife took my mothers side and as soon as I picked up the phone she said, "You can not yell at your mother."  I told her, "Wait you don't want to tell me this until you hear what she did."  My wife responded, "I don't care. You don't yell at your mother."   I said, "If I was you I would wait and find out what it was all about before I'd say that."  She said, "I don't care.  What was it about?"    I told her and she said, "Put your mother on." 

If you need someone to yell at your mother it has to be another mother.

I got to the Rochester Airport a couple of hours before my flight because they have a bomb sniffing device that looks like a cross between a telephone booth and the teleporter on Star Trek which made me nervous.  I was nervous that the alcohol content in my blood might show up as some sort of Fuel Air Explosive device. I made it through the device OK and now had a few hours to kill so I started on this story.  My flight was delayed for a hour, and then a couple of hours, and then a couple of a couple of hours, so this story is longer than normal.   I made it to Atlanta to change planes and had to run from terminal "T" to terminal "A" because the train was too slow.  The gate screen showed my flight as closed but I kept running.  I got to the gate and the agent told me, "Sorry we are closed."  I was bent over sucking in air like I was trying to restart a stalled jet engine, and pointing to the jet that was still sitting at the gate.  He ignored me until I dropped to one knee still pointing and then said, "Alright they are still doing the checklist I'll get you on."    I assume it was because he didn't want to do the paperwork when I died of a heart attack in front of his station.

I got on the flight and thought, "I had such a wonderful time."