Dinner for one.

Work has slowed to a crawl again (normal I hope, ups and downs) and no matter all I've done prior to times like this, when work is slow I begin to fall into my "thinking trap".. This blog was born from that.. Not meant to be a collection of sad-sack stories even though some of it may leave a reader feeling that way but frame of mind is a matter of what you get used to and I've come to fairly decent terms with the life I'm here to live.  

A look around the house tonight I found 4 cans of Dinty Moore stew up in the cabinet that I remember putting there when I bought this place. Not the cans with the pull top thing, these are the ones you have to open the old fashioned way. Buying those cans of stew oddly enough was my way of tricking myself into thinking there would be dinners and plates and knives and glasses and stuff in my future and not the bags from fast food joints that have become my reality. 

Having just come out of a torrid soulful relationship when I got this place I was sure there would be another one down the road at some point and now I had plenty of room for someone else to be here. Room for another smile when I got home, laughs at dumb tv shows watched together, and another hand to hold. This was not to be and mostly by personal choice. It didn't stop me from filling the house with nice things just in case but these things I would never in a million years have bought for myself because fancy things don't do much for me. Which room would be my office and what room would be all hers, am I going to have to re-do the master bath to make it more acceptable to another, stuff like that actually went through my head.

Fifteen years later and the plates are unmoved, silverware all arranged in the drawer, and the expensive dining room table I knew someone else would love, sits having only once had a dinner on it, is now my catch-all for my still cameras and gear ready to grab and go to a shoot I may or may not have. Looking at the "best if used by" date on the cans of that stew, it reads, July 1999 (it's now 2012...)  

Dinner for one is an ironic title referencing memories I have from when my girl and I would go to Lubys and the old Colonial cafeteria style places and for whatever the reason I would zero in on someone usually an elderly person sitting at a table eating alone. As often as I could without making it obvious, I would send an employee over to their table and take their ticket and say there was an overcharge or something and they would fix it and bring it back. I don't know what they actually said, but I would have them add their lunch or dinner to my ticket and not tell them who paid. Not a huge gesture money wise but to me it was leaving them walking out the door knowing someone in that place cared about them and that they weren't in this world all alone. To this day when it's me going in a restaurant alone, it still bothers the hell out of me to see someone else especially an elderly person sitting at a table eating alone. I often wonder now if what seems like a nice gesture isn't in some way just a selfish act on my part by looking at them and seeing myself in the coming years and hoping someone will notice and care about me. 

In the image of my father that I have in my head, I hope Harry never had to eat alone..

Collections

Where I have been-

From the time I learned that a formal education wasn't in the cards for me, I struck out on my own with people nipping at my heels and thinking it was pointless. "What are you going to do with your life son.. You'll never be able to do this or that.." My cousin who was the only male role model ever around my life told me one time when he was helping me put new wide fenders on my 68 VW bug, (god how I loved that car-) he said "I need to talk to you Mike.. Your mom is worried about you." Then the long list of wrong decisions I was making came, then the words he said to me some four decades ago that has stuck with me to this very day. He told me he thought I would never do anything, or make anything of my life and I would most likely end up either in jail or dead..

We were a pretty tight family in those days. Not so much now. Thanksgiving, Christmas, other times of the year the family from Waco would come down and stay at Gran's and we would all go down and visit and eat. I can still see Gran cooking at her stove..  She worked at Pangburns candy store and would always have a big bag of candy that didn't pass the shape test at the plant and I'd sneak in the fridge and get me big ole handfuls and spoil my dinner as she would say.. Gran used one saccharine in her tea not two, and she always had a roll of peppermint life savors and she would give me one and put the roll away. I didn't spend enough real time with my Gran and I miss her. She lived right next door to my cousin who had said those tough things to me and my relationship with him was never the same again. 

Not mine but close.

I had an apartment at 15, full-time job with car and insurance payments that I paid for myself working for a dollar an hour at the movie house as an usher. Married with a son at 17. Got a new job at Musicland just before Jason was born and I went from salesman to asst. mgr, to managing my own store all in 9 months. It was unheard of at that time and in that company for anyone so young to move that fast. Little did they know they were dealing with someone who really wasn't all that special, just someone who had to grow up fast, knock down barriers, and keep moving. I simply didn't have a choice- It felt good to succeed but I wouldn't say it made me all that proud as the whole time the words of my cousin would roll through my head when things were going well and at night when I would worry his words would keep me awake.. How was I going to take care of a family when I wasn't worth two cents in my mind- 

As time went on and my wife and I began to grow up and apart, I couldn't help but be reminded of those words that were coming true- Divorced at 21 that had me considering ending my life and going down that road Benny warned me about. 

Nothing was quite the same on a personal level after my divorce. Having just barely touched on trying to figure out how to be a husband and a father while I was still a kid myself, then divorced and totally alone in an unfamiliar deep and dark depression. Ended up losing job after job and making all those bad decisions again.  

My mom was and is the reason I was able to stay alive and make it past those days and she worked hard at it never once giving up on me. I ended up sinking to levels that today I detest with intense, unyielding passion.. With the help of an unconditional love from my mom that has never wavered, I pulled myself up from the depths of my self-made hell and started going into business for myself. I built custom vans, Western Hauler trucks, and cars in my driveway and I would work sometimes night and day for days in a row by myself. Again it wasn't anything to be proud of in my mind, I simply had no choice but to keep working. Work kept my mind busy and away from the heartache of losing a little family before I figured out what a husband was supposed to do. Being a father was just an all-out guess and my deepest failure regret. 

Not much has changed in all this time. Still, use work to keep my mind busy so I don't think about the life I've missed, and I'm still trying to make my mom proud and thankful she never gave up on me.  If I could, I would work 24 hours a day because that is all I know how to do. Getting into television and still photography was another one of those things that I was told I didn't have the education and experience to do, but I taught myself how to use cameras and went ahead and did it anyway. I faked my way into the TV business till I learned what the hell I was doing and I've been around the world doing it ever since. 

My drive, my need to be there early, be the last to leave, do more, be better, prove I'm worthy, makes me intense, focussed, and driven. Trust me about this, all of those traits are better left to machines, not humans and are most often mistaken by others as something very negative and impersonal. Perhaps that is why I don't get a lot of holiday invites from friends.. 

My circumstances and how I grew up sort of forced me to have to miss learning how to be much more than a hard cold machine on the outside, and running full out- The inside is probably something else entirely but I hide it well.. (I think-) Every day the phone doesn't ring I'm afraid my cousin may end up being right about me.. I'm still trying to prove him wrong and make my mom proud at the same time and maybe, maybe one day I can be proud of me too.  

Beginnings

Hearing someone the other day mention the title of this blog was what made me think to use it..  I'll stay true to the title for my beginning, but this blog will not simply be about "the image of my father.."

I know very little about my father who is now deceased and I remember I didn't show any emotion when I heard about it but truth be known, I was holding back with everything I had- 

Harry Zukerman was a Chief Petty Officer on the USS Coral Sea in the war in Vietnam. I was told he was a fun loving guy, one who played practical jokes and had a good but odd sense of humor. (sounds familiar..) His guys on the ship were known as "Zuke's Gooks," and the only story I ever heard about him during war times was they would buy Dr Peppers when in port and about to head out to sea and once they got out in the middle of the ocean Zuke's Gooks would sell that Dr Pepper to the other sailors for a profit! 

My mom divorced Harry about 6 months after I was born in Coronado California and she brought me to Texas. Once when I was about 8 maybe 9 years old, my mom who was always trying to get me and him together, set up a meeting back in California and off we went. I was nervous as hell. My first flight on a plane, I remember that day like it was yesterday. Here we get off the plane and go to the baggage area and there he was.. I caught a glimpse of him right away standing off in the distance but I made no eye contact with him and looked away as if I didn't know it was him- Not sure why I did that but maybe I was giving him one more chance to walk away.. He didn't. We met, we went to Disneyland, we wrestled a little and all I have from that day is a photograph and that memory..

I have my father's cigarette lighter with the USS Coral Sea logo on it, and a photo of Harry and his dog in California that my mom had. What I don't have is knowing how he lived his life, how others felt about him, his meaning to me that I have difficulty understanding to this day, and the family on the other side that sadly I will never in my life ever know.

To Harry if you're listening-

I never blamed you for not being in my life. How could I when I don't know the story. I never pressured you like my mom wanted me to and I really never felt any hard feelings in any way. I definitely wish I had known you though. What your voice sounded like, your personality, who your parents were and what they were like. Those simple things, the things any kid might have to remember their father. I have none of those things but just in case you want to know, my mom is the best most loving and caring parent I could have ever had so no worries there in case you ever worried about those things like that.. For whatever the reason, I hope you wanted to know she took great care of me and I turned out the best I could. So very far from perfect, flawed in so many many ways, and unfortunately, I turned out to be the same sort of father to my boy that you were to me, absent. I never got to call someone Dad like the other kids did. There are no stories I can tell that involve my Dad getting on my ass about something that I'll never forget. I have your photo on my desk and I look at it from time to time and I wonder if I would have turned out any different if I had you to teach me what it meant to be a man, and a father to a son.. We'll never know will we. I'm sorry if my coming into the world caused you any stress or trouble and I mean that with all my being. I've only teared up a few times over not knowing you and one of those times is right now. If you are up there listening to any of this, I'm so sad that you passed away before we had a chance to know each other. Maybe I would laugh a little more, be proud of myself for a few things and maybe like myself a little more- Who knows. My mom must have known something when she was pressuring me to pressure you and if I had, would that have pushed you further away, I don't know. Now all I have to remember you by is this photograph and a sadness in my soul that we/you/me, let our time run out. One day maybe we will meet again and this time when I see you I will run right up and give you a hug and tell you it's alright, it's OK, and we'll talk and get to know each other..

Till we meet again and for the first time, so long Dad..