

My Dad's Underwear - rickdale
http://throwww.com/a/6w9

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makeramen
_Since server is having errors, here's full text of post:_

I just want to preface this by saying I don’t have a fb account, or twitter,
but I come here everyday and appreciate all the help and support over the
years and wrote this for this with the hn community in mind, given its meant
to be motivational and not techie.

It’s coming up on a decade from the night my dad died. I was 16 at the time. I
came home from playing tennis and my dads car was replaced by my one of my
moms friends. It wasn’t very long after it happened. Initially I figured my
dad was running late, not an unusual thing and I didn’t think about my moms
friend being there very much. When I walked in my house, I was a little
shocked to see my moms friend there with her husband. I usually only saw the
husband at the synagogue and such, but my mom and his wife were best friends.
I walked by the husband, who was standing there with a look of shock on his
face. My mom on the phone, “My son just walked in I have to go.” She sat me
down and told me, “someone came by the business tonight and shot dad in the
head twice.” My mom didn’t know what to do, she stayed very strong, credit to
her, scrabbled for a hot towel to lay on my forehead. I remember thinking that
I have to remember these last sequence of events vividly because the rest of
my life will never be the same. At this point it was around 7 at night and my
older brother wouldn’t be home from a concert until 11, at which point of
course he would know what happened. He dropped to the floor when he walked in
the house and that moment still hurts me. The eldest sibling, my sister,
turned 21 2 days before and came home around 820 to a house packed with cars
outside and people inside. I am 100% positive she was thinking it was a
surprise birthday party for her. I couldn’t listen when my mom had to tell
her. Shes not all there mentally, my sister, so she doesn’t function like the
rest of us. For sure she wont ever recover from this. Never. It’s still a
mystery if any of us will.

I wanted to share a motivational story about shit. Quite literally poo. I grew
up in an old factory town and my family owned a auto salvage business which my
dad proudly ran for about 20 years. My dad had a super power than enabled him
to work 7 days a week without a break on top of being severely ill with chrons
disease. The guy had a hernia removed once (a year or so) and when the doctor
came back to check on him he realized he removed a different hernia, not the
one the surgery was intended for. My dad endured a lot of pain. He had a cyst
centimeters from his tumor removed in 1999. Longest time he ever took off
work. Still went back early though. Damn I miss my dad.

Every night when my dad would come home from work he would be filthy from
working at the junkyard all day. Immediately he would strip down to his
underwear and throw a bathrobe on and sit for dinner. All of his underwear,
100% of the time had shit on them. The chrons was vicious, and he was working
too hard to let that stop him. I mean come on, this guy went to work every day
despite being sick as shit and would come home beat to hell every single day.
I had more than one person tell me my dad was a hard worker and one of the
sheriffs at the trial commented that he had called my dad the hardest worker
in the county. But thats the point; he had what it takes.

None of this was necessary, but we lived in a beautiful custom built home in a
nice neighborhood. We weren’t rich by rich people standards, but when you grow
up around poorer areas a little bit of money seems like a lot. And that little
bit and some more my dad lost in the stock market before his life was taken
from him. As well the business started to collapse immediately and even with
my brother stepping in and my mom taking out loans the place just wasn’t meant
to run without my dad. Somehow my mom sold it and paid her bills. But I am
left asking myself was it all worth it? From 16 until 26 I felt like my dad
sorta wasted his life torturing himself by working all the time and not
enjoying what life has to offer. It seemed to me like time is now even more
limited and I gotta make the most of things by enjoying myself. But recently
my perspective has changed. I recognized that my dad loved the grind. Everyday
he went out there to stuff his socks with money to bring it home. It was his
duty and he persevered through more shit than anyone can imagine. Literally.

Those of you with dreams of starting a business ask yourself this question:
“Do I want it enough to shit myself everyday?” If you can grind like that, I
think you are on the right track.

~~~
sfard
Hey, I'm the creator of Throwww. Sorry this is totally my bad. It's a result
of a known bug, but recently I took my MBP to Applecare and they accidentally
wiped my entire drive (long story). So before I can fix it, there's a bunch of
dev environment stuff I need to setup. Sorry again. TLDR: my bad.

~~~
rickdale
I tried to email support@throwww and admin@throwww. None of the emails bounced
back, but I wasn't sure if that was the right place to 'contact the
administrator'.

Anyways, great platform, this piece immediately came to my mind when I saw
your site; it inspired me to write. The timing is funny though. Credit to the
hn crowd for posting the cached version immediately after I had posted the
site.

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taylodl
I grew up in a blue collar family. This guy's father is the norm, not the
exception. My grandfather was a lineman for the electric company. He worked
around the clock in all kinds of bad weather and had friends who'd been
electrocuted. My father-in-law worked on an end loader while suffering through
hemorrhoids and hernias. My brother-in-law has a crushed disc and works as an
auto mechanic, oftentimes requiring him to lift things over his head when
working in the pit. When he gets home at night he has one chair that he can
sit in to relieve his pain.

This isn't macho cult bullshit, trust me they can't wait until they can
retire. They're simply working men who'd go to the ends of the earth to
provide for their families.

I can't speak for the rest of the world but this is the culture of a blue
collar family in the American Midwest.

I am so glad I create software for a living. 40-50 hours work per week on
average, more during a crunch, all in a climate-controlled environment. You
can eat and drink any time you feel like it. You have flexible work schedules.
And if your neck gets sore you're paid well enough you can go get a message
and have it worked out.

We've got it made.

~~~
upquark
> We've got it made.

That's one way to look at it. Another way is to ask yourself whether we
could've been much farther ahead, as a civilization and a species, in terms of
quality of life, human rights, technology and science, and so on, in 2013
given what we had accomplished already in say 1913, or even 13. I think the
answer is a solid yes, we could've been 100 times ahead of where we are now. I
wouldn't congratulate ourselves just because we have some professions where
people don't suffer injuries at work, that's a pretty low bar we should've
crossed ages ago. (I realize this is a tangent and I'm not really arguing
against your main point...)

~~~
drakeandrews
In the years between now and 1913, Europe has risen from literally centuries
of war, China has lifted more people out of poverty than I can fathom, the USA
has made great strides towards equality and we have made the first steps
towards being a spacefairing civilisation. Medical technology has advanced a
hundredfold, or even a thousandfold.

We still have quite a way to go, but we should not kid ourselves into thinking
we have not come a long way already lest we begin to slip back again.

------
arkitaip
“Do I want it enough to shit myself everyday?”

I have no idea how the author reached this conclusion from his macabre story.
Can't even tell if this motivational is satire or not.

What I do know is that working 7 days a week despite serious health issues is
a terrible terrible idea that no one should emulate just because it worked for
Random Guy's Dad. Seriously, we have to stop this macho cult bullshit.

~~~
temp4areason
Crohn's is just bowel problems: bad gut bacteria + autoimmune issues. There's
occasional debilitating flare ups with sometimes serious complications.
Otherwise, just imagine having low grade diarrhea 24 hours a day. Occasionally
there's very minor containment failures. The guy should go to work; it keeps
him going. It keeps his family fed. It's better than going on welfare.

He should have perhaps considered changing the Fruit of the Looms a couple of
times a day, though.

Regardless, many people have health problems that make getting to an doing
work a challenge. Meeting that challenge is way better and sitting at home.

~~~
obviouslygreen
Crohn's either is or can be can be vastly worse than that. I have a friend who
has lost half her digestive tract to it. I don't know how typical that is, but
it is not something to dismiss out of hand like this.

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chaosprophet
Google Cache:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Athrow...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Athrowww.com%2Fa%2F6w9&aq=f&oq=cache%3Athrowww.com%2Fa%2F6w9&aqs=chrome.0.57j58.1249&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8)

~~~
rickdale
Thanks for posting the cached version. Did the server go down because of the
traffic? I tried to post it again, and it failed after just a couple of
minutes.

Anyways, in the piece it says its coming up on a decade, but actually today is
exactly 10 years, so I wont be around most of the day. Thanks for taking the
time to read this.

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itslogic
The article assumes only people that want to start their own will have this
problem but have you heard programmers complaining about the hours and its not
even their own company. It becomes a way of life that you become addicted to
and like anything else being a "hard worker" can become an addiction with all
the praise from your boss or co-workers and in the end family has to pay the
bill.

The article sums this up well where the son is now asking "was it worth it"?

A question for everyone not just those who want to run their own business.

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chuhnk
Thanks for telling us about your dad. I lost my dad a year ago and this story
reminds me a lot of his work ethic and his commitment to providing for his
family.

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magoon
thanks for this post. i found it heartfelt and insightful, much more so than
most of the dribble that crosses my screen daily.

the reality is that your dad knew he had to man-up, and being proud of himself
and his family was his motivation.

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cdvonstinkpot
My Dad died in March 2006 & he would've been 65 tomorrow had he still been
alive. Glad you posted this today. His work ethic was similar & inspires me to
this day.

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MrBra
A server error occurred. Please contact the administrator. First one to
comment, no surprise given my nick. ;)

~~~
denzil_correa
Is it just me or anyone see the funny side that the OP's Dad's underwear
throws a server error! :-)

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lucb1e
I'm compelled to comment "No your mom's". What kind of title is this?
Obviously just meant to attract attention. I would not have clicked if not for
the sake of making this comment have some content, but it's giving an error
and I should contact the administrator. It is a funny thing how I am unable to
view who the administrator is when the page is down, and all other pages
contain no info whatsoever.

