I am turning into my father, though.
When he was a young man, he had to ride a bicycle to get work; he worked as a janitor at Caterpillar Tractor in Peoria, Illinois. The union went on strike; they picketed the plant. He rode in through the gates with a baseball bat on his handlebars, ready for someone to try to stop him from going to work. They didn't. When he used to tell that story, I never understood what the point of it was; now I do.
When I was a boy, my dad and I were out and about for some reason, and the United Farm Workers were on strike against Gallo wineries. The local unions were in solidarity and blocked access to the local liquor store. My dad was going in to pick up his usual Pabst Blue Ribbon, and some burly construction workers blocked us and said he could not go in if he was going to buy Gallo wine products. I don't recall exactly what my dad said, but he was mad; they let him in. He never drank wine, but he bought his Pabst and a gallon of some cheap Gallo plonk and carried it out of the store out of the bag. He did not say a word; neither did the construction workers. But I understood that things were very, very, tense. In the car, my dad said to me through gritted teeth, "Nobody tells me what I can or cannot buy with my own money." I didn't understand that at the time either, and now I do.
We were in Chicago one summer; my dad was working and he brought me along; we went to a Cubs game at Wrigley Field. Later, we went to some shopping district, I don't know what it was. But my dad accidentally crossed a picket line; I didn't even see the picketers until the signs they were carrying were waved in our faces; it was just crowded and hard to tell where the picket line actually was. Some guy shoved my dad back; then he waved his sign like it was a sword. Another guy tried to swing his sign at my dad's head like a baseball bat. I remember seeing my dad's fist swing into the first guy's face; I remember seeing the teeth scattered on the ground like Chiclets. Then my dad grabbed my hand and hustled me away. I don't remember what the sign said, what they were protesting, nothing. I only remember they attacked my dad for crossing some invisible line that neither of knew was there, and he dealt with it. I didn't even remember that incident for years, and when I did, my dad would not talk about it. I get that, too.
My dad never went looking for trouble. And for the most part, trouble did not come looking for him. But he went where he wanted to go, shopped where he wanted to shop, bought what he felt like buying and he only got angry when people told him what he could and could not do based on their objections to it, or actually threatened him. Then he responded, simply and directly. Yup. I understand the old man a bit better now.
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