Question of the Day, Sunday the 20th of June, 2021

[aliceneko]

I'm on a search right now to find my father as I last saw him when I was a young child but lost all contact with him, though I was very close to my grandfather until he died in 2007. My mother and I used to live with him when I first moved to the town I currently live in whilst she was looking for a house. My grandfather was conscripted to the British army as part of the then mandatory service in Palestine but he later deflected and joined the early Palestinian resistance just after WWII. He had a photo album from his time there as he was a keen photographer (he also went to Syria and Jordan as well as Palestine), and I visited Palestine in 2017 to retrace his steps.

 

[Willowy]

My dad is. . .weird. On the spectrum, definitely. He doesn't like kids and isn't comfortable around them. So when we were little he didn't interact with us at all. AT ALL; seriously, he'd call my mom over and say "tell them to stop bouncing that ball, it's giving me a headache" instead of actually speaking to his own offspring. He was away on the ship (Navy) most of the time and sometimes even spent the night on the ship when he wasn't on duty just to avoid being around us. He also had his own room where we weren't allowed, and he spent his time building models, reading, and watching TV. But he's not a bad guy, so I guess that's an improvement over a lot of dads. Just a neutral presence I guess you could say. He financially supported us so my mom could stay home and that's nothing to sneeze at.

Dads are kind of a rare sight on Navy bases anyway, and I wasn't allowed to go to my friends' houses when their dads were home (my mom is insanely paranoid about sexual abuse, for good reason unfortunately) so I didn't know that most dads aren't like that until I was older. I mean, I knew some dads in books were different but I figured that was fiction, lol.

Now, if I have something I need fixed that I can't do, but it's not quite something that requires a professional (he was a machinist and can do basic electrical and plumbing work), I can call him and he'll fix it right away, but he won't stick around to chat. But that's probably a good thing because he's recently fallen into the right-wing extremist internet conspiracy hole, and basically thinks all liberals should die, so we probably wouldn't be able to talk about anything anyway. I guess he's willing to be a free handyman for people he thinks should die, which seems a little odd but then he's always been odd so there's no point trying to figure it out. Just sit back and enjoy the free handymanning.