H & H, hon--hope you don't mind more dissection of your dad:
I used to think I would be competent and capable if I came across an emergency.......that is until it happened.
In 1982 the house opposite caught fire. A 'socially challenged' family where 3 lost their lives. I had known the family, but when asked by the fireman how many children I stammered 3, when in fact there were 4. Shock makes you almost incapable of thought.
Is he saying that he wa responsible for the death of an extra child because he said 3 instead of 4? I doubt it. It's very dramatic-sounding though. It may be more likely that it was irrelevant...people had already died in the fire and he was just one of people around to be asked various questions by firefighters.
More to the point, in his story everything, as usual, comes back to the magnificence of him. Despite the creepily self-deprecating tone of the first paragraph, takes him no time at all to reach the point where the profound [read: irrelevant] details of his moment of shock shove the death of 3 human beings off center stage.
(And natch, by the end, he's comparing himself to heros in the military and police.) Fascinating. A nebulous man standing on his porch mumbles something to a firefighter, and within just a few lines, you start to realize you're supposed to be thinking you're being addressed by a war hero, a mighty cop, a secret agent...but, wait. Wasn't this supposed to be about...STEVE?
Right! Who remembers Steve? Evidently Steve has just been through some terrible experience...hmm, and he wrote to your Dad for comfort...yes, that's it. Poor Steve, he doesn't know who he's dealing with. He and his tragedy just vanished from Ndad's brain. They were just a trigger for more chest-thumping.
You do get desensitized to it, so you can function in a crisis, as the police, members of the armed forces etc. do. And it's called experience of course, of which there is no substitute.
Sorry, but it's disgusting. A friend writes him about a shock or tragedy, and Ndad turns his response into an operatic opportunity to brag about himself once again. Friend's tragedy, oh and let's throw in the death of children...ANYTHING is fuel for the Dance-Around-MEEEEEEE bonfire.
Great, pithy example of the whole core N thing in all its ugliness, imho.
However, there was clearly a recessive gene buiried in him somewhere...because no matter HOW creepy this man is (and boy is he creepy)...in some biological surprise (nature is full of them, don't worry, it's not that odd)---he begat a wonderful, radiant-spirited, kind and smart daughter.
Whom he of course will never appreciate because....she might as well have been across the street.
It's not so much malevolence, I think, as the absence of good.
Unlike YOU, H & H, who are good through and through.
Hugs,
Hopalong
