Lewis Grizzard - My Daddy Was a Pistol and Im a Son of A Gun

My Daddy Was a Pistol and I'm a Son of a Gun

Lewis Grizzard

NewSouth Books

Montgomery

NewSouth Books

105 S. Court Street

Montgomery, AL 36104

Copyright 2012 by Dedra Grizzard. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by NewSouth Books, a division of NewSouth, Inc., Montgomery, Alabama.

ISBN-13: 978-1-58838-274-0

ebook ISBN: 978-1-60306-154-4

LCCN: 2012016660

Visit www.newsouthbooks.com.

To Jim Minter, a great American,
whom I love

I CANNOT DRINK AND TALK ABOUT MY FATHER, WHO DIED IN 1970, or I will cry. Sometimes, I am able to keep it to a few sniffles, but more often than not, I begin to sob when I attempt to drink and discuss my daddy. Thats what I called him. Daddy.

There are various stages of intoxication of the male, of course. These have been put down by someone more clever than I, Dan Jenkins, and so I do not claim the following, but I do find it to be amusing, as well as on target:

THE TEN STAGES OF INTOXICATION
Dan Jenkins

1. WITTY AND CHARMING: This is after one or two drinks. The tongue is loosened and can yet remain in step with the brain. In the witty and charming state, one is likely to use foreign idioms and phrases such as au contraire in place of No way, Jos or Bull-sheyet.

2. RICH AND POWERFUL: By the third drink, you begin mentioning the little 380 SL youve had your eye on down at the Mercedes place.

3. BENEVOLENT: Youll buy her a Mercedes, too. Its only money.

4. JUST ONE MORE AND THEN WELL EAT: Stall tactic.

5. TO HELL WITH DINNER: Just one more and then well eat.

6. PATRIOTIC: The war stories begin.

7. CRANK UP THE ENOLA GAY: We could have won in Nam, but...

8. INVISIBLE: So this is what a Ladies Room looks like.

9. WITTY AND CHARMING PART II: YOU know, you dont sweat much for a fat girl.

10. BULLETPROOF: Bull-sheyet, gimme them keys, I can drive.

I find only one thing wrong with this listing. It is incomplete. There remains one other stage, and it is a stage that I personally discovered. I likely reach it more often than most other men, but given enough to drink and the right setting, most men will arrive at this same level. I call it cryin-about-your-daddy drunk. I am not certain where it fits in the aforementioned list. I would guess it would fall somewhere between 7. CRANK UP THE ENOLA GAY and 8. INVISIBLE, but that is only a guess and some may reach the level earlier while others reach it later. You dont need to be able to make a lot of sense when you are CAYDD, nor is it necessary to be able to make sounds intelligible to other forms of life.

I first realized this stage of intoxication some years ago after I had played tennis with a friend at his private court. If you play tennis, it always is nice, as well as convenient, to have a friend who has a private court.

We had gone three hard sets and then settled into a few late-in-the-evening cold beers, which my friends wife dutifully delivered to the court from the refrigerator back up at the house.

Youve got a great wife, I said to my friend.

Youve just got to make them learn to appreciate you, he replied. Other night, we were having dinner and this good-looking honey walked over and kissed me.

My wife said, Who was that?

I said, Thats my mistress.

She said, Youve got a mistress?

I said, Sure.

She said, Im getting a divorce.

I said, Fine, but just remember if you do, youre not going to have me around anymore to give you the things I give you. Youll have just one car, and well probably have to get rid of the place at the beach, and I wont be around to pay your credit card bills, either.

About that time, a friend of ours walked by with another young honey. My wife said, Whos that with Bill?

I said, Thats his mistress.

She said, Ours is a lot better looking than his, isnt she?

We laughed together and then his wife showed up with another couple of cold beers and also a cassette player and a Willie Nelson tape. I think it was during Willies spirited rendition of the old hymn Precious Memories that my friend started talking about his father. The beer... Willie... it was only a matter of time.

I remember when my daddy died, my friend began. We were all in the hospital room with him. The doctors had told us he wouldnt last much longer. He had emphysema and God knows what else. He opened his eyes for a moment and asked me to come close to him.

I didnt know what he was going to say, but I knew I would be listening to his final words. I leaned over the bed so I could hear him.

Son, he said to me, why didnt you and your mama tell me I was going to die?

I said, Why would you ask something like that, Daddy?

Because, he said, wheezing all the time, If I had known I was going to die anyway, I never would have given up smoking.

My friend was on a roll. He took another pull on his beer and was off on another remembrance.

My daddy knew everybody in Atlanta, and he was always working on some deal. He ran for every political office in town. He never won anything, but it really didnt matter to him. He just enjoyed hanging around the courthouse and seeing his political ads in the paper.

Anything he needed done or you needed doneif you were his friendhe knew a guy here or a guy there who could help. Ill never forget at his funeral, my ex-wife came over after the services to talk to my mother.

My ex-wife got a bad case of religion after we divorced. She became one of those born-againers, and I found out she was sending about half of my alimony check to Oral Roberts every month.

Anyway, she goes up to my mother and says, Margaret, you know Paw-Pawthats what the kids called my dadisnt going to heaven, dont you?

Mother said, Why not?

My ex-wife said, Because he didnt accept Jesus as his personal Savior before he died.

My mother thought a minute and said, Well, he may not get into heaven at first, but hell meet somebody who can get him in, eventually.

Willie sang on, as we laughed together:

Preeeeecious mem-ries
How they linger....

A few moments later, I countered with a story about another friends father.

His daddy was really old, somewhere in his eighties or nineties, and the family was called into the hospital for his final hours.

The old man was barely alive, and everyone in the room was a little uncomfortable. One by one, they drifted out to the hallway so they could talk and smoke, and my friend found himself alone with his father.

His daddy had been a thrifty old coot all his life, and my buddy figured his father would like to hear about the deal he had just made at the bank. It had been a big financial story. Several banks in Atlanta were competing for money market accounts and all of them were offering an incredible twenty-five percent interest for the first month if customers would open a money market account.

My friend leaned over his father and said, Daddy, you would have been real proud of me this week. I opened up a money market account at the bank thats going to pay me twenty-five percent interest a year.

The old man didnt respond at first and my friend thought he hadnt heard him, so he said it again: Daddy, you would have been real proud of me this week. I opened a money market account at the bank thats going to pay me twenty-five percent a year.

The old man slowly opened his eyes and looked into his sons and said, Its only for a month, you damn fool, and then drifted back on out.