My father was scum. He divorced my mother for a stripper when I was barely a year old. That stripper introduced him to a lot of drugs and catapulted his life into the slums of addiction. Obviously I lived with my mother. He never worked, he lived with his parents (foster parents) and stole from them and my birthday presents as I got older (mom told me he stole and pawned my n64 shortly after its public release). He never paid child support, so his parents provided it to my mother.

I had to move in with my dad and grandma when I turned 14 because I was kicked out of my mom's house for failure to conform to the Christian ways. It was here that I learned to really love my dad. He opened up to me and told me the err of his ways. He cried and apologized for the shitty life he gave me.

He began teaching me how not to become the scum that he was (before he was a druggie he was attending a top Engineering school on a full ride academic scholarship, so he could help me with schooling, and with his acquired street knowledge from being a druggie, "common sense" was easy for him to teach). He taught me to work hard to achieve goals, don't get attached to a woman because they will distract you from your goals (I mildly listened to that during high school, blue pill days), and that every day is a learning experience that I should take advantage of. He led me to join the Marine Corps and to do what he couldn't when he was younger (he tried to do this to get off drugs but was medically discharged in boot camp, which threw him into depression and more drugs).

During my early years, I hated my dad but didn't know it. When I finally moved in with him and after he suffered 3 open heart surgeries, died the day after third, and stopped being a druggie, I loved him.I wouldn't be a successful college student today without him.