I never saw this part of him as I was growing up. He told us about a couple of fights he had been in or some other stories but I never learned how cool he really was until after I got sick. He saved my as* a few times over the years. But after I got sick we used to talk a lot and I got to hear a lot about his life when he was a kid growing up and his time in the Navy and all his adventures before he married my mom.
Unfortunately my parents divorced when I was 27 or 28. Then he re-married and moved away to Sacramento. But I remember a story he told me that happened when he was in his late 50’s. My step-sister threw a graduation party when she graduated high school at my step-moms house.
She had about 15 guests and my step-mom and dad stayed in the back bedroom to stay out of the way The party was going fine but then a bunch of drunk people in their late teens and twenties crashed the party. Then things got chaotic and pretty soon the uninvited guests lost control and were running amuck and breaking things and trampling the landscaping and getting aggressive and picking fights.
So my dad heard all this and came out by himself and went outside where there were 9 or 10 drunk teenagers causing all the problems. he grabbed a beer bottle and ran into the middle and ran up to some big kid who looked like the leader. He grabbed the guy by his collar and yelled loudly, “If you as*holes don’t stop what you are doing and get the hell out of here I’m going to smash this guys head”
It was a bold, brave, gutsy move. It was just him against 9 big strapping kids but it worked. The kids got sobered up by the threat to their friend and they ceased what they were doing and left. That was my dad for you.
