The Bi-Polar Express
My father was bi-polar. His brother had it. His sister had it and there was a good chance his mother had it. Bi-polar is the current name but growing up, we knew it as manic depression. As I grew up, I worried if I was next in line but thankfully, it skipped my siblings and I.
I’m three years older than my brother and as kids we bugged each other - a lot. As our mother drove us around in her old Ford around with him and I bouncing around in the back (sans seat belts), he developed laser-like timing. He’d smack me on the arm and yell that I hit him. Just as I retaliated, my mother would turn around (while still driving) and see me whack him in retaliation. I’d then get hell for beating up my younger (and smarter) sibling. His timing led him to become a stand-up comic in Canada, opening up for the likes of the Smothers Brothers and Harry Belafonte.
However, we were too young to understand my father’s illness. All we knew was he identified with Archie Bunker and was both a loving father and a racist misogynist who yelled at his kids a lot. Occasionally, he spanked us. His bark was worse than his bite, but as kids, we feared the wrath of Dad.
Our living room consisted of a black and white TV, a couch covered in a fabric as soft as a nylon kitchen scrubber and my father’s easy chair covered in Naugahyde.
