The Gloves Are OFF

The Following is an Email Oggy received from his father:



> Hi Oggy,

>

> It was good to talk with you again.  I hope we can

keep in touch as I

missed talking with you.  Once Els and I are in Holland,

there is only a 8

or 9 hour time difference, so I 'll get up at 3 am to

give you a call!

 Actually, we'll get internet access as soon as we can,

so we'll be

using e-mail mostly instead of the telephone.  Regarding

getting MS Word

to work on another account, I set up different accounts

on my laptop and

noticed that when you set up a "guest" account rather than

another

"Administrator" account, Word needs to be reconfigured.  It

worked on my

computer, but apparently it didn't on your computer.  There

was also a

caution that with a Guest account, some software installed

prior to XP

might not work properly.  If you haven't done it already, try

setting up a

second "Administrator" account and see if Word will work for

you..  Also,

check out MS Works on your computer as it should also have

word processing

capabilities.  Let me know if this works for you.  If not,

I can ask

around.  Go Red Sox!  Love, Dad



HERE IS OGGY"S RESPONSE (OGGY REFERS TO A PREVIOUS TELEPHONE

CONVERSATION HE HAD WITH HIS FATHER:

MS word is not a real high priority for me. Sharing my life with people
who don't care one way or the other what I do, people like bank
presidents, beggars on the street, hot dog vendors, you and mom, toll
booth attendants, isn't real high on my list of things to do either. There
are consequences to ones actions. If you want to point out my problems
then get in line. I certainly don't need to call anyone to be judged.

When a conversation runs something like,

"What have you been doing?"

"I've been real sick. Got walking pnemonia. Bronchitus. Car broke down. Bike
broke down. Some wierd rash on my leg. But how are YOU?"

"I'm good. Vacationing in Canada, saving a lot of money, moving to
Ethiopia. Couldn't be better. GOod talking to you."

"Bye."

You can't seriously expect me to volunteer for that conversation. You
can't be that ignorant.

But that is real good advice you gave me "Companies pay for skill." Wow.
I'll write that down right next to mom's advice on how to buy a
house..."You need money to buy a house."

Gee. You two really are clueless. But the worst part is how clueless you
think I am. Companies pay for skill??? I need money to buy a house??
Sagely advice. Groundbreaking stuff.
Compaines pay for obedience. Companies pay for conformity. Those are
things you learn from your parents and from public schools. THose are two
things I happen to have not learned because I basically raised myself. If
that is your advice then do me a favor and write it down on a piece of
paper and look at it first. Then when I ask for your career advice you can
give it to me. But don't hold your breath.

Since having backs turned on me I've done quite a bit of soul searching
about my relationship with my parents and the results are not pretty. Not
pretty at all.

But I'm sure you can find plenty of perfectly adjusted 33 year olds whose
mothers left when they were 9 and moved to south america and whose fathers
dated a 22 year old and whose brothers went into the army and whose
favorite baseball team lost the world series one strike away from winning
it. I'm sure their childhoods were filled with security. I'm sure that I
am the only one who is messed up. It is MY fault I'm not donald trump. IT
is my fault I get sick. It is my fault I have no skills or desire to make
someone else rich. You and mom were perfect parents. Who knows why I'm so
bad? IT must have been all the organic tofu I ate. Rotted my brain. So I
understand that you don't want to give me any money. Why would you want to
contribute to my tofu habit? Or god forbid I might lease a piano. How
could you sleep at night? After all the love and support you gave me
growing up and I just throw it away to feed homeless people in santa Cruz.
Sad. Why encourage that kind of behavior?

I'm a real fuck-up. Worthless. Giving me money would be like throwing
it into the river. I might buy a bicycle or even parts for my car. Who
knows what trouble I'll get into if I have a decent roof over my head.
Every novelist published their first book while moving furniture. Right?
The important thing is to reinforce all the lessons you taught me when I
was growing up. Lessons like...like...wait I'll think of one. Just give
about fifty years.
That's right, you didn't teach me any lessons. That is why all you can
come up with now is "Companies pay for skill." Well shit. Who knew? You
piss on my leg and tell me it is raining. But I'm not that stupid. And if
you think you've had to endure my hunger strikes against the war and my
nights watching the Red Sox and postcards from Alaska then let me pause
here to cry in my beer.
You seem to think that after 18 years of neglect that $500 every march 1st
is going to solve everything.
Well here is some advice for you from the real world. People wipe their
asses with $500 here. They light cigars that are worth more than $500.
I've seen wheel rims that are worth $4000.

But do I complain? No. Do I want $4000 wheel rims? no. I just want a roof
for my piano so kelly can go to school and I can publish my book. Thank
you for treating these aspirations as though they were criminal. Thank you
for taking a stand after 32 years of neglect to be REALLY neglectful. I
mean, if I thought you were worthless for the last 32 years I had no idea
how worthless you could be. You have reached an alltime new low of
worthless ness. Your worthelss advice, your worthless criticisms, your
worthless judgements, your worthless comments.
You were right about one thing when I was growing up. You weren't the
worst father in the world. It took you a few years to finally reach your
stride. NOW you are the worst father in the world.
Rent the house, move to holland, burn the house down. Do whatever the fuck
you want to do because I have no time for worthless people. I will not
"Write a porposal" if I want to borrow money. That is what banks are for.
If you want to treat me like a bank customer then I will treat you like a
bank employee, I won't deal with you at all. I'll just go to the atm
machine. Or if you really want a proposal then maybe we could go back
in time to 1978 when you and mom couldn't keep your shit together so she left.
Let's go back to that time and you two stay together because that is what
Parents are supposed to do and then you can attempt to teach me something
about how to get by in life other than "COmpaines pay for skill" comments
that come about 25 years too late and aren't even asked for. Is that the
type of proposal you want? Is that a proposal you can deal with? No? Then keep
your comments to yourself. I outgrew you when I was 11 so now we can make
it official.

You have your priorities and I have my priorities. These priorities have not corresponded
for about 30 years. When I say, "I've been sick and I need to go to a doctor"
and you respond, "Sounds like you need to get a job that pays your health insurance"
it should be obvious what our relationship has become.
It was not obvious to me until you finally told me I could not enter the property of
what was once my home because you
were renting it for 2,000 and no I could not sleep on a corner of the garage floor.
But to ask me in the same breath why I couldn't find work that paid for my health insurance

is simply too much.
If I started every conversation with you asking why you have no pride and why you have always made other people rich and why can't you produce one thing of any value in the world and why are you just wasting your life going to your stupid petty worthless job, I don't think you would call me very often. CAll me crazy. Maybe I'll try it next time you call and see what happens. But to suggest I "Get a job" after I spent 18 hours a day for five years in a chair writing everything I could think about the Red Sox is such a fucking slap in my face. It is truly worthless to try to explain it if you have been hearing about my book for nearly ten years and I finally finish it and you say "Now you can start working"
My worst enemy wouldn't say that to me. A stranger on the street wouldn't fuck me like that. No one I know except you would suggest my life up till now has not included work. So you are either blind, or an idiot, or you just plain like to hurt people who do more with their lives then you will ever do. Which is it?

You somehow believe
that nathan and I were once a priority of yours and that you can finally
be free of us. That makes me laugh. Buying tonka toys and star wars cards
for us when we were 12 does not get you off the hook. Sorry. A foster
father would have done the same thing. A peodophile uncle would have
bought me something once in a while. big deal.
IF you have deluded yourself this long into thinking that you have gone
all out for the welfare of your kids then nothing I can say will change
your mind. But I will say that I'm not sure you could have done LESS for
the welfare of your kids. You could not have gotten divorced at a WORSE
time. You could not have dated WORSE women following the divorce. You
could not have had WORSE parents. You could not have spent LESS time with
us. You could not have been a WORSE influence regarding work. You could
not have taught me LESS about how to survive in the world. You believe you
couldn't have done more. Well there are two people in the world, nathan
and me, who think otherwise. Does it matter who is right or wrong? Will
there be any People magazine special or Oprah Winfrey hour on the end
result? Not a chance.
But if you think I'm going to call or write to you to discuss the weather
or computer applications then think again. There are plenty of people who
sit by the post office and ask me for money that will talk about the
weather.
So good luck with the rest of your life. I know how tired you must be
after raising two fine self sufficient kids. Boy, you really did all you
could do.
Too bad I'm so ungrateful. You gave me a whole couch to sleep on for a
winter. How can I not kiss your feet for that? Once in a while there was a
bananna to eat. And here I am being sarcastic. So sad. I met kelly while I
was living on the garage floor. What an asshole I am for calling you
worthless.

I guess I'm just a failure of your master plan to raise perfect kids.
Your perfectly planned and executed plan to bring up two adjusted kids
somehow didn't get through to me. Who to blame?

Or could it be that you had no plan? Could it be that you had no plan and
mom had no plan and that you basically were two blind people trying to
raise kids? IS that possible? IS it possible that you had two kids
without having a plan to make sure you did all that you could do? No. not
you. The divorce was part of the plan right? I mean, you don't make
mistakes so the divorce was part of the plan to make me and nathan
stronger. Good idea. Well done.
Because it would be inconceivable that you had no idea what you were doing
and that mom really had no idea what she was doing. Hell, you bought me a
baseball glove. What more could I ask for? Nathan got some comic books.
Wasn't that enough? What more could you do?

Well, the real test of your parenting doesn't come when the kid is 15 or
20 or 25. It comes when they are 33 and making a move in life. When I fall
down I get up again. Who taught me that? You think you taught me how to
get up but I think you taught me how to fall down. I taught me how to get
up.
So go back to the book and see what your master plan says to do now. I
guess it says to move on like everyone else. You've paid your dues, took
me to a few movies, bought a few dinners. Now it is time to be free.
Congratulation. You've worked hard. All a kid can ask for is that his
parents have a good plan and try to follow it. After that they have to
live it up. You could be dead in ten or fifteen years. You wouldn't want
to look back on that time and think you tried to help your kids. What a
waste that would be. And besides, why start now?

So Oggy let the cat out of the bag.

The latest fallout from this letter was the classic comment

Oggy received via

his brother,

"Dad doesn't know what you want."



What a fucking surpirse.