FLORIDA ROAD TRIP WITH MY DAD - November 2005

Joey Votto and Ray Dean James in Florida Ten years before complications from Parkinson’s killed my Dad in 2015, he and I took a road trip to visit his mother, my Granny, in Tampa, Florida. My first marriage was falling apart. Dad was on his third and it was rapidly headed for the shitter. Worst of all the disease and medication made my otherwise unbearably wonderful father merely unbearable. We had a great time together (like always) but the trip was fraught with emotional complications. Even for me there are parts of this that are hard to read but I’m glad I kept a journal on the trip and I wish I’d documented more of my experiences with my father like this. It would be the last time we saw Granny. ~ rh October 2023

Monday November 28, 2005 10:52pm

Byron, GA – just south of Macon

Left home at 8am this morning. Drove to Richmond to pick up Dad. Left Richmond, Indiana at 10am… Well, first Dad insisted we stop at the Powerhouse Coffee Shop to say “Hi” to his friends there. I was a little perturbed by this, because we were getting a late start and already wasting valuable time dicking around in fucking Richmond. Dad knew all the old men sitting around shooting the shit in the coffee shop. 12 guys taking up 6 booths. I went to take a piss and when I came out of the john the whole room was thundering with laughter, laughing at Dad’s jokes. That was pretty cool. Seeing this, I began to lighten up about whatever delay was caused by stopping at the coffee shop. Clearly he had some friends here and it was important to him that we stop and visit them for a bit. Dad went to the can and his friends Denny and Donald wasted no time in telling me how Dad never has any money; (his wife) Christa won’t take him anywhere; and they hate her fucking guts. Seriously. In those words. And some even harsher. All these men were shocked that Dad had some money on him. I gave Denny my number and said, “Please call me if you think there’s anything I need to know about.” Anyway, we finally get back on the road but it’s an Indiana state highway and it seems like it’s taking us fucking forever to get to I-74. We take that to 75 south and 4 hours after leaving home we drive by the fucking Hopple Street exit. Sigh. Already it seems like we’re never gonna fucking get anywhere… Four hours just to make it back to goddamn Clifton. Ugh. However – we finally hit our stride on 75 south, thru Lexington, Knoxville, Chattanooga, and finally Atlanta and then Macon, Georgia. We pulled off the highway and got a room at the Econolodge, arriving just after 9pm. Approximately 13½ hours in the car today.

Dad and I getting a lot of talk time in the car today. Well, Dad’s talkin’ and I’m just listening! He’s telling a lot of hilarious stories, but some I have heard before because he doesn’t realize he’s told me them time and time again. Most of the time he mumbles under his breath and I have to strain to hear what he’s saying. That is incredibly frustrating. Sometimes he perks up and speaks loud and audibly, but most of the time he speaks barely above a whisper. He’s been talking all day and finally just a few minutes ago he fell asleep on the hotel bed, curled up around a tape recorder playing his old songs… Something sad and symbolic about that, for sure. I thought he’d never shut up! Ha ha! Now that he’s asleep I should turn off the lights and sack out myself because he is bound to wake up and start yapping again any minute! I think, truthfully, that his bedtime meds knock him out cold. Tomorrow morning we rise early and make the rest of the drive down to Tampa to visit Granny. Day 1 pretty interesting. A lot of talking in the car on a long stretch of driving.

Day 1 mileage: 635.7 miles (not including Cincinnati to Richmond)

-

Tuesday November 29th, 2005 8:19pm

Long weird day, man…

Last night Dad did wake up and keep talking talking talking. It’s crazy. Like he has a constant need to keep talking. It is seriously kinda weird and driving me a little nuts. I mean of course I’m glad to have 5 days to hang out with my Dad! But he mumbles and mutters and repeats a lot of the same stories. He told me some shit today that he just told me yesterday… He was awake and moving around in the hotel room in the middle of the night last night. I heard the shower or bath running and after sleeping very poorly all night even after taking 2 Sominex tablets, I woke up at 5:45am and Dad was gone. He took the room key so there was no way for me to go looking for him without locking myself out of the room.Somehow I knew he had wandered out and across the very busy 4-lane road our hotel was on. He’d gone to the Waffle House across the street for breakfast… Anyway, I was worried sick and I couldn’t go back to sleep… He came back after 6am and until 7am I tried with no luck to go back to sleep. As of this writing (8:30pm) I still haven’t said anything about it to him. But I will. As upset as I was/am, I figured that he’s a grown man and he can do what he wants. He obviously does not sleep very well or very much. If he wakes and he’s restless and bored, he’s gonna do whatever the hell he wants. Nothing I say is gonna make any difference. I’m not gonna bitch at him like Christa does. And even if I did, he would probably wander off anyway. Of course his condition and medication are a huge concern to me. And if he got lost or hit by a car or injured I would never forgive myself. No. I would not be to blame. He would be. So let his dumb ass wander off in the middle of the night… I can’t believe that I am so fucking annoyed with my father right now. He’s a fucking handful. He’s constantly jabbering about goddamn nothing. Tomorrow I will begin steering the fucking conversation. I will ask him about Korea, working for the railroad, (his hometown) Statesville, Tennessee, relatives: interesting shit. Not all these stupid fucking anecdotes and stories that I’ve heard a million times…

Anyway, we left Byron, GA at 8:15am and headed south on I-75. Pretty chilly this morning in Georgia, and we hit some nasty rain this afternoon. Around Ocala, Florida the traffic on the highway froze up completely. We had just gotten back on the expressway and so we were able to get right back off the highway by turning right onto an entrance ramp and exiting thru the grass next to the road. I pulled into a gas station, looked over my maps and spoke briefly with a store clerk to get my bearings. Then took a detour thru Ocala, southbound parallel to the highway a few miles and then got back on the highway and the traffic was moving along just fine. We got to Tampa around 3pm. Drove straight to Regency Cove (retirement community trailer park). Found the gate wide open and drove right up to Uncle Gene & Aunt Ginny’s place. Sat with them for a little while. Parked my car at Granny’s little trailer. Then me and Dad and Gene went to the nursing home to see Granny. She didn’t seem to recognize Dad at first, but when I walked in the room she definitely recognized me. Dad’s entrance was just too weird: Before rounding the corner he was singing some silly song and I’m sure his appearance must have startled Granny when she first saw him. Anyway – we sat and talked to Granny for almost 2 hours. Her hair is thin and all white. She seems, all in all, pretty sharp. But definitely showing small signs of dementia. Back at Regency Cove, Dad was immediately annoying again. I’m worried that his sense of pride and logic and reason are fading. In only a t-shirt and naked from the waist down, he walks thru the room and starts fiddling around with Granny’s little boom box. I’m writing in my journal, watching lame TV, and he cranks up the CD player with one of his CDs in it that I’ve heard a million times… He’s standing right behind my chair, bending over the boom box with his naked ass right next to my head where I was sitting in the chair… I jumped up and bitched him out: “Dad, what are you doing?!” He finally calmed down and shut up and – after putting his pants on! – fell asleep in a chair. I walked down to the beach, called (my now ex-wife) Shawna and talked to her for a while. She’s still sick with the flu. She left work early today, picked up a prescription, then went back to the sofa. Even with all the problems we’ve had lately, I miss Shawna a lot and I pray that she feels better soon. Getting tired. Gonna sack out soon.

Total mileage today: 384.5 miles

-

Wednesday November 30, 2005 9:35pm

Woke up early. Around 8am, I guess. Went for a jog around Regency Cove. Over to the north cove then west to the beach and out on the pier then back to Granny’s house. I’ve been sick and haven’t run for over a week, so I was wiped out pretty fast; only lasted about 15 minutes. Took a shower then me and Dad drove over to the nursing home to visit Granny. We had a nice visit… (First we had lunch at Sonic!) Granny was in good spirits; real talkative. We were there for 90 minutes or so. Afterward, we came back to Regency Cove. Dad went for a walk and I needed to get away from him for a while. I looked up record stores in the phone book and found one real close by. So I went for a drive and found it real easy. Spent 50 bucks on some cool stuff: Tony Joe White, Bobby Bare, Barrence Whitfield, Guy Davis and Phish. Back at the house by 4:30, I went over to Gene’s at 5pm. Sat and talked with Dad, Gene and Ginny for a while then me and Dad and Gene went to visit Granny again. Another couple hours there with her in good spirits. I called mom on my cell phone so she could talk to Granny. Then we left and it was kinda sad of course. But we left quickly so it wouldn’t get too emotional. Dinner at a place called Egg Platter then back home again to Granny’s little trailer in Regency Cove. Called Shawna. Now I’m exhausted so I’m going to bed.

-

Thursday December 1, 2005 8:27pm

Woke up real early today like 6am! Dad was out for a walk so I got in the shower right away and I was ready to go by 6:30. Dad came back with a cuppa coffee for me. I loaded the stuff in my car, our luggage and shit. We went down to Gene and Ginny’s to say goodbye. We were on West Shore Boulevard heading towards the highway by 7:30am… I drove fast all day, averaging 80mph. We drove north on 75 thru Florida. Gainesville, Ocala, into Georgia, Valdosta and Atlanta. I told Dad we were not going to stop at (my step sister / Christa’s daughter) Renee’s house for the night… See: this morning, for the first time, I looked at he map to see where Renee’s exit off 75 was at. Turns out it’s like 50 miles outside of Atlanta (northeast). So that’s an hour out of our way – each way – and tomorrow morning we would drive an hour before we even hit Atlanta traffic… Anyway – we got going so early this morning that we were due to arrive in the Atlanta area around 2pm! And I just couldn’t see stopping for the day at 3pm-ish… Plus, as I stated before, I had no idea that Renee’s place was that far away from Atlanta! Anyway, I called Renee and explained that we were not coming. And she took it real well. Renee wasn’t upset or angry with me. I could tell she’d been looking forward to seeing us, but she wasn’t mad. Within a few minutes, Christa was calling and she was pissed. Dad talked to her for a minute and I could hear her screaming at him. He tried to hand the phone to me but we were in the middle of downtown Atlanta, tons of traffic, and I said, “I can’t talk right now because I’m driving” and the immature bitch hung up on us. Pathetic. God bless Renee: she smoothed it out with Christa. I think it’s okay now, but I’m sure Christa is gonna say some shit about it to me. In fact, I made a bet with Dad today that she’ll never let me live it down. She’ll give me shit about it every time I see her from now on. ENOUGH ABOUT THAT SHIT, CUZ I DON’T GIVE A FUCK.

I finally talked to Dad about his mumbling and how he repeats the same stories all the time. We actually had a great long talk about that stuff and it went well. He wasn’t upset or angry or embarrassed. It was fine and in fact we laughed about it. So… We made good time: Burning up the highway and only getting caught in one traffic jam. Right here in fucking Knoxville, actually. But we finally broke free of that clusterfuck and the 640 by-pass, and the 275 loop, and the I-40/I-75 stretch that eventually let out on 75 north and thank God the very first exit we came to had a cheap Econolodge… When we got to the room Dad called his friend Ed Bailey who used to play for the Reds. Ed came to the hotel and took Dad out for late dinner and a couple of beers. While Dad was gone, Shawna called and we had a fucking argument. Well, not really a fight but a heavy emotional conversation. One I could have done without tonight. I hung up the phone thinking, “My marriage is in the shitter.” Great. Well, Dad’s back now and I’m getting tired. I’m gonna watch TV and go to bed. We go home early tomorrow.

Mileage from Tampa to Knoxville: 683 miles

-

Friday December 2nd, 2005 11:29pm

Woke up at 6:40am and got in the shower. Got dressed and went to hotel office for a cup of coffee and found Dad there, talking to the desk clerk and pouring a cup of coffee for me. We got our shit together and hit the road by 7:30am. North on 75, out of Tennessee into Kentucky, Lexington, through Cincinnati into Indiana. We listened to Richard Pryor just like the old days. Dropped Dad off at his house at 2pm, then I drove home through Oxford etc. and walked through my door at 4pm.

Mileage from Knoxville to Richmond, IN then back to Cincy: 389.6 miles

Total mileage for the whole trip: 2115 miles

-

Wednesday December 7, 2005 approx. 10am

Sitting in Starbuck’s reading the New York Times and sipping hot coffee. It’s now been 5 days since we returned from our trip to Florida.

Afterthoughts:

Babysitting Dad for 5 days definitely gave me a deeper appreciation of what Christa’s life with Dad must be like. He can be a handful and sometimes a flat out pain in the ass! I will write Christa a letter soon, just to let her know that I now have a much clearer picture of what it must be like to look after Dad on a full-time basis, 24-7, 365!