Originally Posted by
Kialua 
I was so surprised when he died that so many people, relatives too, liked him. I never thought that they didn't know what he was really like. They do have a good act going on don't they?
You can say that again! I have found out that -- contrary to the erroneous impression I had gotten, over 47 years of living with, and interacting directly with, my Dad, that he was the funnest guy around. Always had something funny to say, very entertaining, smart (that part is true -- and he never let you forget how much Smarter Than You™ he was), and so on and so forth.
No one -- including my sister, she of the rose-colored Norman Rockwell memory of our childhood -- gets how it was for me. Well, not quite no one -- I was visiting with an elderly friend (89, to be exact -- a retired musician I used to play with), and at one point when I was describing some of the interaction I had with my Dad, started nodding. "This sounds very familiar," he said. His own father, although not an alcoholic, showed a lot of the same behavior, with regard to his kids, as did mine.
It's good to get some validation -- even if it's only from 2% of the people, who can see through the curtain....
T