Ants
Dad wasn't really a kid person, you know the type of father that plays with and interacts comfortably with kids of all ages... I know he loved us very very much but it wasn't until I was an adult that I had a real relationship with him.
He had a couple of ways of spending time with us; one, I think was also designed to give Mom a little break. Sometimes on the weekends, he'd ask if we wanted to go to the office with him; David and I generally did, although there really wasn't anything for us to do there. I'd play with the desk supplies, spin around on the chairs, look in all the offices... These were the days when office smelled of wood and old leather. There was also a stack of soft-core magazines in the men's room, that David found and showed to me...
We'd also go, as a family, to check out some of his drilling sites if they were within easy drive of Ventura. We had an Ant Farm, a horrible contraption where you held captive wild ants, seperated from their ant tribe, imprisoned in a thin clear plastic box so children could watch them tunnel. On one trip to the Santa Maria area, we discovered a different type of ant; easily twice the size of a normal ant, and inky black... On a subsequent trip, Mom brought along some empty pill bottles so we could trap some of these ants and bring them back to live in our Ant Farms. We carefully held the bottle so that the top would not come off (safety tops had not yet been invented) as long as our attention held, which was about 20 minutes... At 30 minutes, David and I started itching from all the ant bites, and Dad realized we'd let loose 10-15 big black ants in his car. As I recall David and I got a stern lecture on responsibility.
He had a couple of ways of spending time with us; one, I think was also designed to give Mom a little break. Sometimes on the weekends, he'd ask if we wanted to go to the office with him; David and I generally did, although there really wasn't anything for us to do there. I'd play with the desk supplies, spin around on the chairs, look in all the offices... These were the days when office smelled of wood and old leather. There was also a stack of soft-core magazines in the men's room, that David found and showed to me...
We'd also go, as a family, to check out some of his drilling sites if they were within easy drive of Ventura. We had an Ant Farm, a horrible contraption where you held captive wild ants, seperated from their ant tribe, imprisoned in a thin clear plastic box so children could watch them tunnel. On one trip to the Santa Maria area, we discovered a different type of ant; easily twice the size of a normal ant, and inky black... On a subsequent trip, Mom brought along some empty pill bottles so we could trap some of these ants and bring them back to live in our Ant Farms. We carefully held the bottle so that the top would not come off (safety tops had not yet been invented) as long as our attention held, which was about 20 minutes... At 30 minutes, David and I started itching from all the ant bites, and Dad realized we'd let loose 10-15 big black ants in his car. As I recall David and I got a stern lecture on responsibility.
They nude magazines were quite the find, and endemic to that industry, even when I started working at THUMS after college. Apparently the only available sex education at that time. LOL. Also, I confess. I sat on the bottle and the lid came off. But I thought they had some red on them!
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