Last night I woke up around 1:30am and had to get up. As I put my legs on the floor and started to will my body to get up and start moving, I was reminded of all the times I watched my father wrest himself from our living room couch to...get up and go to bed.
My dad was a milkman, the guy who delivered fresh bottles of milk--and ice cream, orange drink, butter, and various and other dairy-related sundries--to your door. I'm not even sure if they still do that, but back when I was a kid, there was not only a milkman, but a soda man, a bread man, and in the summer, the farmer came. The latter drove up with a dark green pick-up truck with produce in the back, fresh from the farm. They made some kind of noise as they drove down the street, alerting possible customers of their impending arrival. I know this, because my mom would often buy fresh string beans and corn on the cob from them. But I digress...
My dad spent most of his working years getting up at an ungodly hour and going out in the worst weather possible, all to do his appointed rounds. Many days he was out the door at 1:30 or 2:00am, only to return around 3 or so in the afternoon. My childhood was one of constant shushing: "SHHH!!! Your father is sleeping!" He'd come home, head for bed for a nap, get up for dinner, and then promptly fall asleep on the couch in front of the TV each night, until it was time to get up and go to bed. Seriously. One of my not-so-fondest memories of childhood was my mom waking my dad up with this phrase: "Lutes (his name was Luther, believe it or not)...wake up and go to bed."
As a kid, the whole thing was annoying as hell. We couldn't play in the big yard out back or the cool side porch in the front (which had a whole spooky underneath the porch thing going on), because they both were on or near my parents' upstairs bedroom. (In reality, my father could have probably slept through an atomic bomb blast.) And the sleeping on the couch thing? Well, he snored like a buzzsaw, so TV watching was an exercise of what could be louder: the show we were trying to hear or dad snoring.
In retrospect, of course, I appreciate what he had to do to go out and make a living to provide for us. I wouldn't wish those hours on my worst enemy (you know who you are, you rotten bastard). The weather took a toll on him physically, driving around a largely rural route where he had to go to the dairy, load his truck and then deliver everything. He was also the guy who was the "route man," the person who had to know all the other drivers' routes. He filled in for each of them when they were on vacation. And he did all of this for the princely sum of about $125.00 a week.
So last night when I woke up and had to make my nightly trip to the facilities, I caught myself thinking of him when I careened like a drunken sailor through my tiny apartment on my way to and from the bathroom. It wasn't exactly a fond memory, to start off with, but the more I think of it this morning as I type this...it kind of is.
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