[dropcap]M[/dropcap]y daddy loved to tell the story about the a huge scar he had. He got it carrying a bottle-flask of whiskey in his back pocket as a teenager. He fell backward on the pavement and the glass shattered. His hindparts were never the same.

My pals would roll on the floor laughing at that story.

He told good ones. He embellished the hell out of them too. I’m certain his tales were seventy percent horse apples.

Maybe eighty.

One of his classics: the time he sassed his mother. Daddy tore out the screen door before she could swat him. He zipped through the pasture, hopping fences. After a mile or so, he decided he was safe. When he turned to look behind him, she was hurdling fences like a thoroughbred.

She strung him up by his tongue and shaved his head.

Another tale he told: about the time he fell off a building. A true story. He fell while welding, three stories, smack-dab onto his head. They thought the fall paralyzed him, somehow it didn’t. He always finished with the same punchline. “Doctors X-rayed my head, but they never found nothing.”

He had anecdotes for all occasions.

I remember when he found me crying on the porch. I didn’t make the baseball team. He sat beside me and said, “The bad things that happen in life, are great stories in disguise. If you pay attention, you’ll find some good tales to tell.”

He passed two days after that.

This is one of those tales.