ANOTHER LIFE
(Stories About My Father)

Remember, your father was my friend. One of my good friends, Larry was. Merle. Merle! You know who Merle was? One of my best friends. He was a good man, I tell ya right now. I never had to beat him up once in my life. I met him when we were little babies. I wish someone would write my book (Bartender, in the background says: ‘The man, the myth, the legend’). You shoulda seen me 10 years ago. I was in much better shape.

Tom Considine (Bomber)

“I went to school with Lar; they lived just past the tracks on State Street on the right. We used to stop there and play poker all morning. Sometimes we’d go to school, sometimes we wouldn’t. I worked with him at the Phoenix Press. I ran the place. The shit I’ve done & the shit I’ve seen. I should write a book – I know it’d be a best-seller. Nobody would believe the stories of what we used to do. I got a lot of stories, hunny. I got a lot of history. I didn’t know your dad. No, I guess I did. I never beat him up or anything. I was better friends with his brother. You ever been to the West Side on top of the falls? On Saturday night, there’d be a hundred people there. Your dad was a runnin’ buddy of mine for a while. (The bartender explains that ‘running buddy’ means wingman). Merle used to hang out with me – I always called him Merle. I can tell you other stories.

I robbed this place (Bombadils). Now I own it. I’ve had this place 35 years. I got a hell of a story if anyone wanted to make a book. People wouldn’t believe all the shit I’ve done and all the shit I’ve seen. I gotta go to my cancer doctor. I didn’t want to go. I had esophageal cancer. Want to see the scars? Me and Larry used to be good friends. Your dad, yep, good friends. Miss him every day. I can see him in the kids. You never forget him; I don’t. That’s why I have his picture hangin’ up here. Everybody’s gonna die, you know? You better enjoy life as much as you can. That’s the only thing I been sayin’. Retirement? No I don’t want retirement.”

Bob Meeks (Uncle Bob)

It was hard watching him die. We were at the hospital and we were just sort of waiting for it to happen. There was noting anybody could do for him; we were just trying to be there for him and your mom, trying to make sure he went as peacefully as possible. It was gut-wrenching to just see him lying there: skin and bones. He went from being vibrant and healthy to something that wasn’t even him. That's what I kept telling myself to get myself through it: thats not the Larry I knew and loved.”

Rod Altman

Larry, Rich, and Rick started all the fights. And they were all only this tall, maybe 5’7”. Me and Billy were pretty big compared to them. We’d all get into it, and it was fun. So we drank together and had a good time. But then, you know, he came home and settled down, had you guys – times really changed. We all changed right around 25 or 27 years old. We grew up pretty good. When you were born, Larry was super happy to share that he had a baby. We were neighbors then. We lived right down the road.

We always had a good time. We were lucky to be in that age group, from about 1973-1981, we had some good times. We did some crazy things. I remember one night we came home, and we had gone up to the carnival up there on Moyer’s Corners. And Rick started the fight up there – the cops – and the next thing I know, we’re all in it. Your dad literally – this cop had Rick by his feet – your dad come runnin’ – this guy had to be 6’10”, biggest cop ever. He just jumped on the guy sideways and flipped him right over! So then we all joined in – there was like 7 of us and then we all jumped on the big guy… then all the cops came out. They beat us up in round 1, then we went back for round 2. They were ready with clubs and they just wailed on us. Then they just put us in our cars and sent us home all beat up. That was a fun experience (laughs) and we experienced it. We were probably all 16, 17 maybe. You didn’t get sent to jail for stuff like that back then, just got sent home, beat up.

All of us did pretty darn good, I think, for what we had goin’ on when we were younger. You would have never expected it, you know, none of us went to college. We all just went to work hard and play hard.

Me and Larry were pretty tight because we had our birthdays together every year. See Larry, Rick, and Rich, they didn’t play the sports and everything. We played sports and they would come to our parties. But when we went to their parties, and they’d kick us out because we were jocks. We’d wreck every place we went into. I was MVP football player. They’d come to my games and they’d be there sippin’ on a drink or something and I’m out there bangin’ heads.

Everybody would get a 6-pack or two and we’d just go over on the West Side, or ‘across the field’ we called it. We’d all sit there and drink beer all night, then go home, and go to school the next day. At 16 they let you drink at any bar around here.

He had a squeaky voice, Larry did. We used to pick on him about it. High pitched, you know? When he was drunk. We had a lot of fun, I will say. Couldn’t have had more fun as kids. We did shit that people wouldn’t even think of doing now. Well, every weekend we’d go to Nestle’s park and climb around the trees, but… are you taping me? Well, we ate acid Friday night, Saturday night, and Sunday night. Yeah, every weekend, and we played in the trees and did stupid shit.

I remember one time we went over to our friend Billy’s house in Village Green. His mother was takin’ the whole family out to dinner, so he goes home and drops us all off outside on the golf course with a cooler full of beer. So as soon as Billy leaves, he says we can go in the house and I’ll call ya when mom and us are done with dinner. So we instantly go in and take a dozen eggs out of the fridge and put ‘em in the microwave and blow ‘em all up – the whole microwave is just trashed. We’re pickin’ everything out and eatin’ – we were always starvin’ cause we never had no money. And if we did we were buying pot, or beer, and acid; we weren’t gonna buy food. We played hard like that for probably 5 years. That was kinda too much. I can’t imagine now… you know at 23 I quit all drugs but pot. 15 to 23 we had a lot of fun. Good friends and good fun. We’d go down to where the elementary school is now, back then it was all just open field. We’d play tackle football.

I’ll tell ya, he had a hell of a good young life. He did. (Singing) I’ll fix your flat tire, Merle.

Beverly Badore

“I asked your dad to come to therapy with me a couple of times, and he made a statement once about ‘well… I don't want her head to get too big,’ and the therapist was like: ‘what does that mean?’ He's like ‘well, you know, I just don't want her to get like... over-confident.’ She asked, ‘what would be wrong with that?’ You know, so she kind of caught him on that. But I think that's a thing with a lot of couples; they don't want them to get too confident 'cause then they might leave or something.

I was always feeling squished as a kid; anything I said or did, people were like ‘what do you mean,’ ‘shut up,’ ‘you're ugly,’ ‘shut up.’ ‘don't say that!’ All of them were mean. I'd sit there and start crying, and they'd say ‘what are you fucking crying about?’ I don't know how I got to this point with nobody supporting me at all. I just felt like an ugly. worthless nobody. So then I would try to compete with the boys, I'd just do what they did because they seemed cool. I became a tomboy and it still wasn't good enough, because there was a girl who was better at football than me - ‘well why can't you be more like her?’

I know you feel this way too, but when I look at Facebook and I see people posting things about being raised by such a good father, such a great man... I wonder, what does that feel like, to have that? Or even a great mom, or a great woman? I see it about moms too and why don't I feel that way?