Here’s the thing: you don’t realize the magic of moments until much later, when you look back through the haze of your past, and suddenly, those little, weird, wild things—those are the memories that stand out. That’s when you realize how rare and precious those moments were. Because everything else? The Disneyland trips, the perfectly baked cakes, the presents under the tree—all that plastic crap fades into nothing. But those nights with my dad? Those were the ones I carry with me.
I was around ten, maybe eleven, and my dad was fresh off a divorce, deep into his own brand of self-destructive male bonding. You know the kind—hanging out with the weirdos, the drunks, the outcasts. My dad had a few friends like that. Chris, who lived up in Whittier Hills, and Tim, the hermit who was always at home with his brother, holed up in a house filled with records. You could tell Tim was a strange one. Fat, disheveled, with a record collection that stretched the whole length of the wall. He had some high-tech recording equipment too, all the gear, like he was trying to make something great—but what came out of him was more an odd genius than anything else. He was the first real nerd I ever met. I’ll give him that.
The thing is, they all worked at the post office, but they had time to drink, shoot the shit, and laugh at the world while it passed them by. And there I was, tagging along. My brother and I were stuck in the back of my dad’s brown Dodge truck with a few Mad Magazines, some stale chips, and no real understanding of what was going on but loving every minute of it. That was the life—my life.
We went to a Dodgers game one night, and Chris couldn’t make it because of his wife or something—typical. It was just my dad, Tim, me, and my little brother in that old truck, heading to Dodger Stadium. And let me tell you, back then, it wasn’t about the game—it was about what came after. When you’re young, you don’t care about much else but the chaos of it all. So there we were, after the game, the parking lot emptying out, and my dad, drunk as hell, decides it’s time for some fun. He cranks the truck up, and with Tim beside him, they start doing burnouts, spinning circles in the lot. I remember the truck rocking back and forth, my brother and I being thrown around in the back like rag dolls, laughing and screaming, our stomachs flipping from the wild ride.
I can’t tell you how many times that moment comes back to me—just the feeling of being in that truck, the sound of the tires screeching, the scent of beer and burnt rubber in the air, the smell of my dad’s whiskey breath, and Tim, laughing like an idiot in the front seat. That was freedom. That was being alive. You can’t get that anymore, not in this world of rules and reason. It was pure, unfiltered chaos, and it felt real.
We didn’t stop there. No, no. We rolled up to Chris’s place, and my dad, in his typical drunk and rebellious fashion, steers the truck right over the curb and onto his neatly manicured lawn. He honks the horn, and you can see Chris and his wife peeking through the window, confused as hell. My dad, of course, decides to floor it, burning rubber in the middle of their yard, kicking up dirt and grass. Chris comes running out, yelling and flipping us off, and my dad and Tim are laughing their asses off, completely out of their minds. That was my dad—he didn’t give a damn about the rules. He wasn’t playing by anyone’s game but his own.
After the chaos at Chris’s, we ended up in Hollywood, and this is where the real magic happened. My dad, being the wild card he was, somehow managed to sneak us—two kids with baseball bats in our hands—into the premiere of The Blues Brothers. I remember it clearly: the neon lights lighting up the night, people in tuxedos, and there we were, in our ratty jeans and shirts, just trying to blend in. We got in, and I saw Dan Aykroyd. I shook his hand, completely unaware of who the hell he was at the time, but I’ll never forget that feeling of walking through the crowd, the rush of it all. We watched the movie, stayed up until 1 a.m., and it was one of those nights where everything felt real. It wasn’t perfect, but it was authentic. There were no pretensions. No “good behavior” for the public. Just the raw, dirty side of life that made it worth living.
Now, years later, when I think about the perfect childhood memories, I don’t think about the picture-perfect birthdays, or the vacations to Disneyland where everything was smooth, predictable, and boring. No, the real memories—the ones that matter—are the ones that were full of imperfections, the ones where things got out of hand and people didn’t know what the hell they were doing. It was those moments with my dad that shaped who I am today. It wasn’t about the structure. It was about the chaos, the unpredictability. The fact that we were just there, and life happened in real time, unfiltered.
I tried to pass on that same philosophy to my kids. My daughters, for instance, we’d take them to East Moreland in Portland, walk around the pond, and do weird, offbeat things like tasting sap from flowers and watching bees. We never took them to some fancy play center. Why? Because I wanted them to see the world differently. I didn’t want them to live inside a bubble of pretentiousness and fake memories. I wanted them to experience the real world—the world that was messy, that didn’t always fit in the box. That was the lesson my dad taught me, and I passed it on to them: it’s not about following the rules. It’s about making your own.
And looking back, it’s clear to me now—my dad, despite all the flaws, despite all the chaos, was a man who lived without apologies. He didn’t care if the world judged him or if things didn’t turn out perfect. What mattered was the experience, the moment, the rawness of being alive. And I wouldn’t trade that for anything. Because, honestly, that’s the stuff that sticks with you. That’s the stuff that stays long after the memories of perfect family vacations and perfect holidays fade away.
So, yeah. Maybe I wasn’t the kid who had the perfect, structured childhood. Maybe I didn’t have the best, most well-behaved parents, but I had something better. I had authenticity. I had real moments. And those are the memories that last a lifetime.
It’s funny—now that I’m older, I get why my dad did the things he did. It wasn’t about teaching us how to behave or how to be good little boys. It was about teaching us how to live. How to be real. How to make something out of nothing. And maybe that’s the best gift he ever gave me.
