Back when The Malarkey Bin was a privatized blog whose readership included only a few select friends, most of whom actually knew me in real life, I had a whole lexicon for my folks that began with the prefix “Mealy.” This came from my own code name, MealyMel, a questionably clever play on mealymouthed, which, like malarkey, is a word that appeals to me (as some words do and, if the PhD isn’t enough evidence, I’m kind of a word lover). MealyDad was code for my father, obviously, and a whole character — possibly a legend — was created around him. Those friends that read my blog then still refer to him as “The MealyDad,” such a strong presence was he in my online scribblings.

This is because my father says and does some of the most fucked-up shit ever. And I used to write about said fucked-up shit quite often.

There are things that I cannot explain about my father in a public, online forum because of legality issues. I’m serious. The man is that much of an outlaw.

Let me put it this way: I only dated nice guys in high school because, if I wanted a bad boy, I need look no further than the man sitting at the kitchen table every morning. It was impossible for me to ever rebel because, again, I need look no further than the man sitting at the kitchen table every morning. Had he ever found pot in my room, I’m pretty sure he would’ve smoked it and forgotten he’d gotten it from me (this never happened, by the way. Really.).

A few fun– and semi-less implicating– facts about the MealyDad for the uninitiated:

-After Hurricane Rita wiped out my hometown, the MealyDad slept in his truck for nearly three months. This was partially by circumstance (coming as Rita did on the heels of Katrina, forget finding a motel room anywhere south of Kentucky), but it was also partially by choice. He had this harebrained (or smart?) idea that if he took any money from “The Man,” they would somehow have his ass for the rest of his life (as I type this, I am aware that I have now put myself at risk for being searched before every flight I ever take from here on out). He also had no intention of being carted off hundreds of miles away from his home when he could sleep in his truck and rebuild it himself. His sleep habits were so awful that he regularly fell asleep while driving, which kept me on edge for the entire period. I fully expected to be planning a funeral any day. He took out people’s mailboxes so often that our phone convos usually began with some version of  “there’s a lot of poor fools around here that won’t be gettin’ no mail no more.”

-When ARC first met the MealyDad, MD had a cigarette hanging out his mouth and a cell phone tucked between his cheek and his shoulder. He was on the phone with a bail bondsman, putting up funds for some person or another he was “helping out.”

As I told ARC then: I ask no questions about such things and neither should you.

-I once had to ask the people at Things Remembered to inscribe “Bad Motherfucker” on a Zippo he wanted for Christmas. That was interesting. (They will do such things, by the way, but you gotta locate the youngest, semi-coolest looking associate in the store, which is not always easy.) He loved it.

-After the storm, he also regularly told off FEMA representatives and vocally referred to them as the Fucking Emergency Management Assholes. He was a joy for them to work with, I’m sure.

-He gifted me a motorcycle trip with him and one of his pals as a graduation present when I received my master’s degree. He rides regularly and doesn’t take too kindly to the guys he calls “weekend warriors” (those CEO-types who buy cycles and only ride on the weekends or when the weather is nice).

-He wears doo-rags everywhere, all day long, for any occasion. Even to the aforementioned graduation ceremony. He has a “formal one.” I’m not kidding.

-The MealyDad does not have discriminating tastes when it comes to music. I grew up listening to Black Sabbath, Earth Wind and Fire, and, later, gangsta rap. He still listens to the latter. And he knows and appreciates the difference between “gangsta” and “gangster.”

-The MealyDad, usually a tough, burly and salt-o-the-earth kind of guy, turns into a screaming pile of mush when he sees bees or anything with a stinger involved. (Bad childhood experience involving landing on a bee hive during a bicycle accident).

-I went through my childhood believing Santa Claus had merely died, not that he didn’t exist, because one of MealyDad’s friends told me that on the off-season, “the fat cat” worked offshore and died in a helicopter accident after a 14-day shift on a platform (I’m from an oil field town, and were Santa a real entity, this would have been entirely possible). MealyDad did not have the heart to tell me otherwise until I was old enough to realize there was never a Santa to begin with. Oh, the therapy bills I could rack up.

-Which reminds me: pre-dead Santa, we had to leave a fifth of Crown for the jolly old man with the cookies because “he’ll need to warm up” after being out in the cold all night long. And wouldn’t you know? That stuff would be gone in the morning. Imagine that.

-Although the MealyDad is sort of an old-fashioned guy, this man has more technological gadgets than the most tech-savvy Millennial. He has an obsession with cell / mobile / smart phones, and his favorite place to be is in a phone store, haggling with the associates over pricing. He has lost / washed & dried / run over / dropped / flushed / floated so many that he can’t even get phone insurance anymore.

I mean, I could go on here, but really, all of this alone should give you a pretty clear idea of what I’m dealing with here.

MealyDad is cool, but he wasn’t / isn’t always the easiest person to deal with. There’s always another side to the coin. And, in our case, there’s some serious business on that other side.

But, what I really dig about the MealyDad is that he could give a shit what you think about him. He is never “not himself.” He can also be, very quietly, generous. Cliche as it is, he would literally give you his shirt and not think twice about it. I’ve seen him do it too many times, and I’ve seen him get taken advantage of (usually by his lady friends) way too often because of his generosity.

When he taught me how to drive, he taught me on a stick (although his reasoning at the time was that “if you ever need to steal a car in a hurry, you can’t think about whether it’s an automatic or not,” I think it was really indicative of him wanting me to be able to do something a lot of women he knew couldn’t do). He taught me how to take care of and handle myself so that I wouldn’t get taken advantage of (by mechanics mainly, but by anyone, really). He taught me how to shoot a gun because, while I should never use one if I didn’t have to, if I picked one up, I’d better damn well be ready to actually use it and “not just flop it around like a dumbass.” I can change a tire and change the oil in my car because of him. He never minced words and he never filtered his language around me because that’s “what the real world is, babygirl, and you better get used to it.”

Polite society? He has no concept of it — and, quite frankly, no use for it. Most days, neither do I. I probably get that from him. That and my affinity for, um, “colorful” language.

When I was writing my dissertation, he said what was perhaps the best damn thing a blue-collar dad ever could: “I don’t know what it is you do at all, but I can tell it’s hard, and I’m proud of you for doing it.” Seriously? I cried for days over that one.

And in a phone conversation today when I said I was homesick, even though he hasn’t been working much and I doubt can really afford it, he instantly told me he’d send me money for a ticket home, to be fulfilled sometime in early August.

Problems and personal business aside, I really can’t ask for much better.

Father’s Day might be a Hallmark holiday, but I don’t care. With this year’s coming this Sunday, I’m aware that I’m incredibly lucky. It hasn’t always been an easy relationship, but it’s certainly always been interesting. Have a good one, MealyDad.