I Am the Water Bucket: A Story of Fathers and Sons

By Grady Jim Robinson

After reading the latest biography of baseball legend Mickey Mantle, the authors hero, he was stunned to realize that his own life had, in his later years turned out much like Hall of Famer Mantle; a life of deep regret, guilt, depression and alcoholism. Robinson immediately recognized a series of similarities in their childhood experiences, especially with their respective relationships with their fathers. Robinson decided to journey to Commerce, Oklahoma on a kind of pilgrimage to the childhood home of the baseball legend and see if he could find some insights about his own life. The journey opened up painful questions about his relationship with his football coach father and led him to further investigation of the father/son issues of some of his favorite authors such as Hemingway, Faulkner, McMurtry, Salinger and James Joyce. The pilgrimage ended in a visit to the grave of his father and served to reset his life back on course. He has written with pain, humor, honesty and insight about his "Salvation Through Mickey Mantle."

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Oct 9, 2013
• ISBN: 9781481751964

Grady Jim Robinson

Grady Jim Robinson is a former minister, humorist, storyteller, columnist and author. Over two dozen of his entertaining stories about growing up in Arkansas as the second son of a football coach have appeared in Sports Illustrated, Readers Digest and dozens of other magazines. He has written two books, "Did I Ever Tell You About The Time" (McGraw-Hill) and a collection of his best stories in "Where Have You Gone Lance Alworth". He writes a popular column called "Table For One" aimed at semi-happy, senior, singles. In 1994 he was inducted into the National Speakers Association's Hall of Fame along with platform giants Ronald Reagan, Norman Vincent Peale, Paul Harvey and Zig Ziglar. He lives in Arkansas and roots for his beloved Arkansas Razorbacks.

Book preview

I Am The

Water Bucket

A Story of Fathers and Sons

Grady Jim Robinson

28485.png

AuthorHouse™ LLC

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.authorhouse.com

Phone: [phone]

© 2013 by Grady Jim Robinson. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 10/01/2013

ISBN: 978-1-4817-5196-4 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Dedication

Preface

About the Author

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Dedication

To

Gail Stoops

Loving mother, brilliant teacher, hilarious companion.

And

Her father

Fred Ferguson

Who read to her every day as she battled scarlet fever.

And whispered to her every night

That she would grow up to be anything

She wanted to be.

And she did.

Preface

According to the research and writings of psychologist Kaye Redfield Jamison, many artists/writers have been plagued by varying levels of bipolar behavior, mood swings and depression often leading to alcohol abuse especially in later life. Hey, me too, all of the above. Another thing many of our greatest writers—many whichI have admired—had in common was the life shaping role their fathers played in their lives. Hey, me too!

But not just artist/writers have lived with regret, depression and alcoholism in their later years. I am reminded of my childhood baseball hero Mickey Mantle. The Mick, as he was known in those days, after a legendary career as one of baseball’s greatest icons, spent the rest of his life in regret, depression and alcoholism. Then, one day, out of the blue, I realized that Mickey Mantle’s father was a dominant/demanding father who drove Mantle to baseball greatness.

I pondered this connection to the father relationships of the writers I admired, (Hemingway, Faulkner, Joyce and McMurtry) the relationship I had with my father, Mantle’s relationship with his father and our later-life bouts with depression and alcoholism. I began to wonder what else we might have in common.

I have spent forty years telling stories about my football coach father. After a life time of trying to understand my life journey, especially my relationship with my father and my later life challenges with depression and alcohol, I decided to write this book. It was not easy. A pilgrimage to the childhood home of Mickey Mantle in search of answers unearthed long buried memories about my limitations and failures. Healing eventually did come. But the immediate result was a much deeper depression than I’d ever experienced before and a serious, life-threatening bout with alcohol.

The journey had to be taken. I had to face the darkest issues of my life, or as my phrasing of the Hero’s Journey states it; Take the journey, face the monsters and find a victory. My journey ended at my father’s grave in Milltown, Arkansas where I told him—35 years after he died—that I understood why he viewed me as he did. I offer this book for every father and son. I call it, I Am The Water Bucket; A Story of Fathers and Sons.

About the Author

Grady Jim Robinson is a writer, speaker, comedian, columnist and storyteller. His stories about growing up in Arkansas as the second son of a popular football coach have appeared in Sports Illustrated, Readers Digest, Chicken Soup For The Sports Fan’s Soul and many other magazines. He has written hundreds of amusing and insightful columns in newspapers. In 1994 he was inducted into the National Speaker’s Hall of Fame. This is his third book. He lives in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

Chapter 1

You might assume a pilgrimage of an old broke, depressed alcoholic to the Mickey Mantle statue in Commerce, Oklahoma to be an act of hopeless desperation. Desperation? Yes, I suppose that’s true. I was getting desperate. Hopeless? Not entirely. I had some hope or I would not have gone on this painful journey in the first place. I was looking for answers. How did I end up like this? Where did I lose it?

Old? Just turned sixty-seven years of age. Does that qualify? Well, to a sixteen-year-old whipper-snapper I am an old geezer. But to a ninety-two-year-old geezer I am a young whipper-snapper. Here are some word images that may help you understand I how I feel about my age. With apologies to Walt Whitman:

Song of My Old Self

I am the water bucket

I am the dented dirty dipper

I am blades of floating grass

for the footballin’ sipper.

I am the nickel coke

and that ain’t no joke

the five cent Snickers

and golfers in knickers.

I coast downtown

on a fenderless bike

up hill back a painful hike.

I am Will Rogers and old Jim Thorpe

Bogie and Bacall

Fred and Ethel and Lucille Ball and all

. . . them.

Roy Rogers and his horse Trigger

Palomino you gotta’ figure

Lone Ranger and Ohio Silver

Away.

I am half court girls

basketball, cateye marbles

and a big shootin’ tall.

But that ain’t all.

I am a leather helmet with no face guard

High top shoes

and running hard.

All-American of the whole backyard.

I am the water bucket

I am the dented dirty dipper

I am floating blades of grass

for the football sipper.

Burma Shave

Broke? Broke is a relative term also. In a world where four hundred million people are unemployed and living on a dollar a day I have lived like a king. But last night my debit card was turned down at Harp’s Grocery. I was attempting to buy a roast chicken, milk and cookies. Humiliating. I drove to the bank this morning to check out my account activities for the month and discovered that my rent hadn’t gone through until ten days later than usual so when I last checked my balance I thought I had an extra $600. Oops. The IRS withdrew my $200 back tax payment TWICE last month; Capital One charged me $82 and I haven’t had a credit card in seven years; my car tag four months was past due and they hit me with a $95 fine. I had to pay property tax to get the tag renewed. Broke? Hell yes! Because I am number dyslexic and allergic to math I have not done a good job in my lifetime of making and saving money. It just didn’t seem all that important—until these later years and now it seems very important—but I couldn’t have done it anyway. My brain doesn’t work like that. My fault? My brain won’t do numbers. My brain will do stories and pictures and songs and laughter and emotions and colors and thrills and spills. I don’t do money real good.

Depressed? Yes, but let’s put this aside until we can address it in full.

Alcoholic? Me? Of course not. Mickey Mantle and Hemingway, Falkner, Joyce, Fitzgerald, Exley and about ten jillion other old guys ended up alcoholic in their later years. I’ve never had an alcohol problem. OK! I do admit to sipping a little scotch lately for breakfast at 5:30 a.m. Three strong scotches puts me out for the day, or until afternoon, when I can arise, throw up, brush my teeth, comb my hair and prepare myself for the cocktail hour. I am fine. OK, drinking a little too much due to stress, maybe.

Did I mention regret? I don’t think I mentioned it in the above list. No real need I suppose. Regret, guilt, shame and depression go hand in hand. I am waking up every day around 3 a.m. engulfed in a cloud of deepest regret. Regret about everything, I mean EVERYTHING—childhood events, school failures, some of my strange behavior in school or at home now attributed to everything from brain development to birth order to ADD. Then came junior high and high school years, a nervous, overly emotional and imaginative kid deeply embarrassed about my failed attempts in sports where my father coached football, baseball and basketball. Add failure in academics. They said, Wilma, James just refuses to read when it comes his turn. They put me in the Canary Reading group famous for being