Monday Poetry Jam - Fatherhood or honkey tonk

An interesting combination of themes, and, of course, I immediately felt I had to try and do both together.   Fathers are just such good subject matter for honkey tonk blues -- "A Boy Named Sue," etc.   It's been a busy week so my offering is pretty much thrown together from notes on scraps of paper.   And unfortunately there is no music to go with it.   I think the first part has the feel of sad honkey tonk but the last part is more like: "For he's a jolly good fellow which nobody can deny..."   

Also, I need to make a disclaimer.  This is not about my own Dad. 

 My Dad, the Hermit of Dismal Key

Well, sort of not.  Just like it is not about me...sort of not.  Both my Dad and myself were indeed raging alcoholics.  We were both assholes when we were drinking.  And we both eventually went to A.A.   He died sober several years ago and I hope to follow that example -- although preferably not in the too near future.

So the theme of the poem is accurate for both of us.  But to the best of my knowledge nobody named anything after either of us, neither of us had a truck, and we never knew anyone named Big Jim McGrew.  On the other hand,  I did keep a pail by my bed so some of the details fit.  It's all poetic license anyhow.   So, after way too much babble, here is the poem:

Lucky's

(Chorus)

At the back end of town new the old train tracks

there's a place they call Lucky's where nobody looks back.

It was named for my father who went there every day,

in search of some kind of salvation, they say.

Whenever they called that he'd run out of luck,

I'd go bring him home in the back of my truck,

and roll him on the cot with a pail by his head

and spit when he moaned that he wished he was dead.

Now Big Jim McGraw would have granted that wish

'cause Dad dipped his spoon in that married man's dish

just one time too often.  So I knew Dad was dead

when Jim came to the door with a bruiser named Fred.

(Chorus)

At the back end of town new the old train tracks

there's a place they call Lucky's where nobody looks back.
It was named for my father who went there every day,
in search of some kind of salvation, they say.

But instead they announced that they'd given up booze

and they wanted to share with my Dad the good news,

that a day at a time, his life could be freed

and, amazing to all, my old man agreed.

They lived the 12 Steps and then other's came too

and the town came to know then as men who were true.

Then they bought the old bar whose business was fleeting

and turned it into a clubhouse for meetings

Now twenty years later the old man passed away

and the whole town showed up with respects to pay

and every night down by the old railroad line

the A.A. is great and the coffee is fine.

(Chorus)

At the back end of town new the old train tracks
there's a place they call Lucky's where nobody looks back.
It was named for my father who went there every day,
to share his salvation with others, they say.

The Hermit of Panther Key (Part 1): "Fixing to Die"

So you want to know more about E. Foster Atkinson. Thinking about it yesterday, so do I.

I know he suffered from emphysema and he had a Labrador retriever that once caused me to walk on water, but that is another story. Foster was the higher ranking hermit for many years, living in a two-room shack without running water or electricity, on Dismal Key. Dismal Key was one of a few pieces of high ground in Florida’s Ten Thousand Islands, a vast track of brackish mangrove swamp where the West Coast of Florida around Marco Island breaks itself up like a jigsaw puzzle becoming the Gulf of Mexico.

Foster was the “ranking” hermit because, although there were only two hermits living in the Ten Thousand Islands, there was rank based on who was there first. The lower ranking hermit, until Foster’s death, had to live in the one-room shack on Panther Key.

The lower ranking hermit was my father.

By now, anyone who has been reading my blog, knows that I am not shy about admitting that I’m a recovering alcoholic. I’ve also worked long enough in the field to know there is a genetic component to the disease. While I take full responsibility for pouring booze down my own throat years, I also inherited the propensity from my Dad.

There is a tradition in Alcoholics Anonymous about the importance of anonymity which is why they call it anonymous. Duh. So while I can tell people that I’m an alcoholic, I should not tell people about someone else’s alcoholism. But my father passed away quite a while ago and, even if he were alive, I doubt he’d mind. He spoke about it openly to everyone.

Let me get some facts out the way. His name was Albert Seely. My last name was legally changed from Seely to Cowell when my maternal grandparents adopted me after my mother’s death because my father was unable to raise me because he was…well…never sober.

He was also unable to hold a job, moved to Florida, bounced from drunk tank to drunk tank, detox to detox, hospital to hospital until he was finally diagnosed with incurable cirrhosis of the liver and given less than six months to live.

So he decided he was of no use to anyone, pawned what few possessions he had, bought a small open wooden boat with a broken-down motor, filled it with beer, and sputtered away from the little fishing town of Goodland, Florida into the maze of the Ten Thousand Islands. His plan was to disappear, get lost, get drunk, and die.

That was the day he met Foster in the middle of nowhere and began the next twenty-five years of his life.