Only Remembering the Bad Times

For some reason, lately I've been musing about an incident that happened when I was a boy. The family had gone out jeeping, which was a favorite activity during the summer months for our family. We often went with friends of ours, who also had a jeep, and sometimes we went alone.

On this particular occasion, my father was driving our blue Jeep CJ-5, mom in the passenger seat, with me on the drive's side and my sister next to me in the back seat. We had just gone up a particularly steep, bowl-shaped dune and dad was driving along the ridge. He suddenly decided the drive across the dune's face from left to right. This scared me. Being so light and small at the time, my seat belt didn't fit as snuggly as I would have liked, so I suddenly slid toward my sister, which scared me further. It was during this first pass that I realized I have a a small, specific sense of vertigo that can strike me when I look straight down from a high place.

Needless to say, I yelled out to dad something along the lines of, "Stop dad, I think I'm going to be sick!"

Dad's response was to say, "Nonsense!"

When we reached the far side of the dune's face he turned around and went back, this time with me on the "bottom" side of the dune, so that there was nothing for me to look at but the side of the jeep and the long drop down the very steep dune's face. Being bowl-shaped, this time dad decided to try to do a complete ring around the face of the dune... the entire time with me yelling (well, really, screaming... remember, I was just a boy and most people know that when a boy yells it comes out more like a high-pitched scream).

Needless to say, I started crying, felt really sick, and was very afraid of the way gravity and centripetal force was acting on my small frame. I screamed more. Dad started laughing and kept going faster, thrilling with the rush of Man versus Nature and, I'm still sure to this day, not even realizing there was some Man versus Man going on inside the jeep.

Mom started asking him to stop, as she could see me and see that I was bawling and white as a sheet. However, it took her a couple of tries, until finally a very sharp, crisp, "Dan!" broke through and he eased out of the bowl and up onto the side. I promptly threw up over the side of the jeep and couldn't stop shaking or crying.

I'm not sure why, at 40 years old and probably around 30-33 years later this image and memory has pressed to the fore and been so vividly on my mind the last week or two. Yes, we just had Father's Day, so that may be a factor. But, other than that, I cannot figure out why this has been haunting me of late.

I've always had a fairly complex relationship with my father. My memory of him is primarily of him being away, even though he only spent about a year in Okinawa (but he left when I was between one and two and came back before I turned three or so). He also had a job in Fontana for a few years when I only saw him on weekends (and then not every weekend). He also worked for a few years in Kuwait. But, overall, he was actually present, there in our small town, working for the military.

Overall and objectively he was a good father. He took me hunting and target shooting. He taught me woodworking skills and helped me to build a make-shift tree house and a fort. He taught me how to maintain vehicles, including change the oil and oil filter, check the spark plug gaps, check the timing, replace a dead battery, change a tire. He was the primary parent who taught me how to drive (although, once I had my license, I primarily drove with my mother). He, being a career military man and proud of it, even took me aside during my senior year in high school and said, "John, the military isn't right for you. You should go to college." He later explained that what he meant was that I was too questioning of authority, I gave respect too rarely, and that he thought I would likely get my ass kicked repeatedly in the military... and he's probably right.

Emotionally, however, I consider him absent and always remember the bad things. Why is that?

When I think of my dad and tell stories to my wife about growing up, it is the instances like the one I describe here that I usually tell in detail (or at all). Another one I tell a lot is about the time he flew back from Kuwait and arrived wearing a white Kuwaiti-style robe and had a long, full beard and mustache and when he tried to kiss me and say hello I screamed and hid behind mom because I didn't recognize him at all. Or the time he was spanking me with the paddle and I refused to cry (one of the first times I started really bottling up my emotions, a trait I still have and can't seem to stop to this day) and the paddle actually broke (just a small section came off); I still remember the surprised look on dad's face as he sent me to my room.

Why is it that, even though I consciously and logical know that he was a good and decent father, who did a lot for me and with me and helped me become the man I am today, I still mostly remember and think of the bad things?