Daddy Was a Man O' Promise

We wasn't rich by a stretch, in fact I growed up sleepin' in the front room and remember Daddy would come home from the bar and sometimes throw a fit, both, from too many beers and a bad day coal minin' not that they was many good ones.

He'd always promised Mama he'd never hit her and he was a man o' promise because iffen him and her had a screamin' and yellin' conniption he'd run outside and throw our plastic chairs sometimes right over our Doughboy pool 'cept in winter cuz it was put up then so it was just rigid snowy plastic chairs a-flyin' out back.
He swore 'n be damned he was gonna do three things one day and they was takin' Mama 'n me to Disneyland, put his big toe in the Pacific ocean, and drink one of them Falstaff beers at the Dodgers game that Pee Wee Reese and Dizzy Dean was always talkin' about, you know?

I was eight and it was along about June that we'd slept in the car 3 nights before rolling up to the biggest, bluest ocean I ever saw (well the only one) and I saw Daddy un-assin' that car throwin' off his shoes and pullin' up his trousers to the knee and hoopin' 'n hollerin' as he ran for the water and got knocked down by a wave and we was laughin' all the day long.

The ball game happened a'righty but that wasn't such a good idee cuz the man kept yellin' "ICE COLD BEER" and every time Daddy said, "Don't mind if I do," and he did and got sick and Mama wasn't too happy with stale beer and peanut throw-up on her 'goin to California shoes'.

I swear there never was a slower car ride than from where we was to Disneyland, but we arrived and checked into that fancy hotel but wuddn't there long cuz Mama an' Daddy was by the pool 'n got into it about his beer drinkin' and 'fore you know it a plastic chair got hurled clean over their pool and wall and we was in a passel of trouble and got throwed out because I just guess he didn't rightly remember it was a rooftop pool but I still loved him for takin' me.