
Dysfunction Junkies
Two high school besties reconnect and commiserate their stories as they navigate the dysfunctions of life from marriage, families, illness, death of childhood families, and creating healthy boundaries. Join them each week as Chrisy and Kerry share their stories and life lessons all with a zest of wit, humor, and love. They may not have seen it all, but they have seen enough!
Dysfunction Junkies
When Dad Got Hooked: Summer Vacation Disasters We Still Laugh About
Summer memories have a way of revealing our deepest family dynamics, don't they? Kerry and Chrisy peel back the layers of their childhood summer traditions to expose the complex family relationships underneath. Their stories—from pool opening rituals to fishing mishaps—are both hilarious and surprisingly poignant.
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Welcome to the Dysfunction Junkies podcast. We may not have seen it all, but we've seen it all. And now here are your hosts, chrisy and Kerry.
Kerry:Hello Junkies, welcome back. I'm Keri
Chrisy:and I'm Chrisy
Kerry:. Summer is finally here. I think we can safely say that.
Chrisy:No, I bet you we're going to get some snow still you know sadly, that could very well be true.
Kerry:It could be, you never know.
Chrisy:Plan for it. I guess Hope it doesn't show up, though. You never know Plan for it. I guess Hope it doesn't show up though.
Kerry:Got any exciting things happening for this summer? No, no. Well, we always go on our big vacation in June, so we got that coming up, but it kind of just brought some nostalgia. This past weekend was Memorial Day weekend and I know that's kind of like a big official kickoff for summer and getting things ready. So we were busy at the farm, as as always. You know, starting to get things out, get things summer, you know, get the patio swing out and the patio tables and stuff kind of made me reminisce about what we used to do as kids for opening up of summer. What was your experience?
Chrisy:with that. Memorial Day is the start, that's like the official start. Yeah, everybody in the world tells you this, and people really do celebrate Memorial Day, which is lovely. Yeah, well, I grew up with a pool. Yeah, again, nothing fancy. It was an above ground pool. We lived in a nice area, though, where we had a lot of property, so I mean, it was nice. We enjoyed it very much and had a great time with it. My father was meticulous about taking care of it, so, but the opening of it yes, like everything else, generally my family it required all of us to participate in something together. Okay, it was a bit of an ordeal.
Kerry:It was a bit of an ordeal.
Chrisy:It was a family bonding experience no, no, it was basically our opportunity to know how much we just can't stand being around each other. Probably the dad could really be a pain in the old ass when it came to this, but because he was very particular about this and we to all fairness to him, we all well, probably more me than any of my- siblings uh, I was the one that was going to be in that pool the most yeah because I stayed.
Chrisy:I lived at home longer than the other two, right, and I of course didn't have kids right away, although if I did, they would have been enjoying it too at that time and just it was important for me. And then, when I was married, to go over and I did have some nice time with my parents, sundays were generally the day you would go over there and we had dinner with everybody usually on Sunday. My siblings would come over later in the day, but my husband and I and I really appreciate that I had this opportunity with my parents was Sunday mornings because we didn't have kids, right, we would make it a point to go over there for breakfast and my other two sisters did not get moving. That early.
Kerry:Well, because my one sister had kids and stuff.
Chrisy:And so we would have the paper and we would all sort of toss the sections of the paper with a sort of alternate around the table Right, and we would eat breakfast together and just talk about some things, and then usually my husband and I would go home for a little bit and then we would come back for dinner later. But I'm, I am glad we had those moments in the morning. That was just me and my husband and my parents. Yeah, I appreciate that. But the pool opening thing was, it was interesting, it was an event, it was a little bit of an event. What made it such an event? Well, you had to get the cover off of it.
Chrisy:That's first and foremost. And my father had, like these, inflatables in it that would keep the cover from being able to sag in the middle right after you've gone through a fall, winter and spring of rain and snow and everything else and leaves falling, yes, so that way it was more manageable. So it didn't scoop down in the middle right because then you'd be worried if the weight of it would all be concentrated in one place, it would break through and you'd have a whole problem so the gucky water would pretty much go to the sides.
Chrisy:And the one thing during those time periods when we would get a lot of rain or snow, that my father was so nice to ask of you but he did it himself too, but he expected you to do it as well. He had like a hose himself to, but he expected you to do it as well. He had like a hose. It was like this clear hose that he stuck on the cover with like this brick to hold it down. Okay, so basically now he was going to siphon the water off. It basically sat in the middle of that gook and he would go out, or he would ask you to go out and you would take the hose that was running out of the top of the pool onto the ground and he would tell you to put it in your mouth.
Kerry:Oh, you had to start the siphon. You had to start it.
Chrisy:And so you didn't question it. Dad said to do it your butt's going to be in that pool this summer. You're going to do that, so you'd go out there and you'd pull the water through and you'd spit it all out and be like, oh good, I guess I can't believe I just did that. That's what we would do. So usually you could come over to my parents house at some point and see somebody out there. You'd be like what the hell are they doing back there?
Chrisy:it don't look good we don't talk about that so, yeah, you had to get the stuff off the top of the pool, and when we were taking the cover off, the whole goal was to be able to take the cover off in a way where nothing got in the pool.
Kerry:My father you didn't want that gook in the pool.
Chrisy:No, and even when you get the liquid off of it, it still had dried crap all over it. And my father prided himself on having crystal clear water from the word go. And I don't remember ever having that pool opened up where it was cloudy or anything and there was a lot of yelling and a lot of you know.
Kerry:don't let that fall in there it was a lot of stress.
Chrisy:Yeah, in fact, one year, I do remember, my husband came to the rescue because the cover was going and nobody had the one end and it was going to go down and a bunch of damn yucky stuff was about to pour into that crystal blue water and god love him, he jumped nick saved the day that water was probably only about 50 degrees. If you're lucky because it was.
Kerry:You jumped all the way in the pool.
Chrisy:Oh yeah, he had to jump in to hold it up and it stopped it. He, he and my father really appreciated that and my father would bring it up. Yeah, I definitely got my gold star for that summer.
Kerry:You got brawny points that day.
Chrisy:Well, that was the whole summer he would refer to yeah. Nick got in there and got them leaves out of there. I was in good after that, yeah, probably. Well, you always were kind of a little bit better than me, yeah, probably favorite child. So yeah, so the pool would come off and then it would be all. It would be. Go time for us to get the.
Kerry:Never had a heater on the yeah, cool, that might have been hard, though, in ohio though well, believe it or not, because most pools in Ohio, probably especially nowadays, do have heaters Right.
Chrisy:Because how are you going to get your monies?
Kerry:That's what I'm saying, so it might have. It was hard, for how did he keep it so you could use it? So much, did you have a solar cover.
Chrisy:We did have that for a little while when they first came out. My father of father, of course, always liked to get the brand new toys that were out and I remember we had it, but those things were a pain in the butt because you had to put it on and then you had to take it off. But we did have it and but I think he actually stored it one year in a shed and I think some rats or mice must have gone into the shed and they basically ripped holes all through it so he threw it away.
Chrisy:He never replaced it. We were fortunate enough to where the pool was located in the yard.
Kerry:Yeah.
Chrisy:It pretty much got sun all day. That's good, so it would get warm. When I was a kid I didn't care what the temperature of the water was Right exactly. I could get now if the water's not like covering near 90, it's like I just really don't want to be in it.
Chrisy:That's being old, but being younger if it was in the seventies you suffer through, oh, I'll get used to it, I'll get used to it. Yeah, I mean, my lips are blue and, yes, I'm freezing to death, but it just, it takes time. You get used to it. So, so, yeah, that that was generally a stressful day. Yeah, it was usually held on our Sunday when he knew everybody was going to at least come around, so you had more hands.
Kerry:Well then they'd have a meal afterwards.
Chrisy:I mean there was incentive, I guess. Right so yeah, so the pool opening, it was the start of summer and it was a big deal and it was generally unpleasant while it happened.
Kerry:But you got through it. It was worth it yeah.
Chrisy:Yeah.
Kerry:So what did you guys do? Well, we didn't have. The. One of the things that my dad had when I was growing up was he did have a boat. So he had gotten this boat. Who knows how he got it To this day. I'm not really sure how he afforded it because, again, we didn't have a lot of money. He probably had a scratch-off ticket or something that hit. So he got some money. So he got this little metal fishing boat type of thing and it was nothing fancy, trust me, it was nothing fancy. Trust me, it was nothing fancy.
Kerry:But so we had this boat that we would take out. So I remember the beginning of the summer we would, you know, had to get the boat ready to get it all cleaned up and again getting all the from the critters over the winter that found safe haven in there and you'd be finding, like you know, nuts and you know these walnuts and stuff the shells were all in there from some critter that got their way in there. So we're digging all that out, cleaning that out, but I'll never forget one of the first outings, when we got the boat ready. So we go out to the lake and we're going to go fishing because my dad wanted to. He liked to fish and we fished a lot growing up and we were on the boat and I had one of those fishing pools that was for kids that had the little like button. So so when you went to cast it, would you just the button and then you would let go and it would cast out instead of the reel.
Kerry:Oh, because my dad was in the back of the boat. I was in the front of the boat and we get, you know, spent the whole previous day getting the boat ready, getting ready for the summer, our first summer outing. And we go out to the lake, we get in, we get out to the middle of the lake okay, we're gonna start fishing. He's casting out the back. I went to cast out the front. I hit the button and threw it out there. Well, the button got stuck and so the line didn't keep going. It stopped and so it swung, and the line swung all the way around behind and it hooked my dad and oh, oh, it's better.
Kerry:It only hooked them, but it literally hooked him right on the mouth.
Kerry:Oh my gosh and it had a little minnow on it and the little minnow was hanging out the side of his mouth. And I just remember turning around like we both turned around to look at each other and I thought, oh, I'm gonna die, this is gonna be the last day I live. And he just reached up, took the little fishing hook with the minnow on from his mouth. We're going in. And that's all he said. And we very quietly drove back to shore, seven, 10 miles into town. Get home. I'm the whole time like, oh, I'm going to get a beating, I'm going to get a beating, this is going to be bad. Never said a word Now to this day. He will.
Kerry:Well, obviously not now because he's passed away, but up until he died he would tell that story and laugh and laugh and laugh. But not when it happened, oh, not that day, not that weekend. It probably took a couple months. And I think when we first walked into the house, I walked in first and mom's like what are you doing back at home? And I'm like I hooked dad in the mouth and he's going to beat me. I'm like hysterical. Dad comes in, he was quiet, he didn't say a word. I'm telling you. For like two days he didn't say a word, and then afterwards, then he finally laughed about it.
Chrisy:But I mean it's totally an accident.
Kerry:Oh, it was totally an accident. But the irony of it all to be to land, not only just get stuck and to hit him, but to hit him and land in the like right there in the corner of the mouth, and to this day I can see that little minnow. Oh my gosh, yeah, I never went out on the boat. I don't really remember much going on the boat after that fishing.
Chrisy:Aw, that's a bummer. I'm kind of bummed out for you. I did go not with my. My father was that would not be something he would do, he wasn't ever into fishing or anything. I had neighbors that were really into it and they would sometimes take me for a weekend, gentleman and his wife we were really close with and they had a place it was called lake tomahawk. And uh, what county was that? I was gonna say, where's that up?
Kerry:that's in Columbiana. It was in Columbiana, so they had like a cabin there.
Chrisy:Yeah, and he was a big time fisher. Yeah, and he that was. He loved fishing, and so it was fun to learn to do that from him.
Kerry:Yeah, my dad wasn't into it.
Chrisy:So I did get some time fishing with him. We used to. I always wanted one of those poles. Yeah, that would be like even the casting. Yeah, because to me in my mind, that's what fishing is supposed to look like casting. He's not sitting. The gentleman didn't have those. His name was george. George didn't have those kind of poles for me, right, and I'm sure he probably used them because he was fairly schooled with doing this. Yeah, but he used this kind too. It was a. To my mind it seemed like it was as high as a building. It was a bamboo, oh, and on this bamboo pole that to me seemed to be 20 feet long yeah, yeah, yeah had different areas yes of hooks, yes, and you would take it and then being a kid again.
Chrisy:That I was able to do this is probably a testament to his patience. He was fairly patient man. I had to be the one that put the worm on it. Oh yeah, I was required to do this. If I wanted to participate in this activity and he, you didn't just put a whole worm right, he in the saving. You would like quarter it right, or with your finger pieces, yeah, and slide it on.
Kerry:I can't believe I did this stuff. I did it though. I could do it as a kid all day long. But now, if we go fishing, I'm like to Jim, I'm like, okay, you need to bait my hook for me.
Chrisy:Well, you're better than me, because there's just no way in hell I'm going fishing at all, yeah, and then you would catch we do blue there's perch and rainbow trouts and bluegill. I mean the lake was fairly well stocked. The only thing I could never do was I could never, ever, take the fish off the hook.
Kerry:He always had to do that for me.
Chrisy:I think I tried one time and I totally panicked. I couldn't get the hook off of it and I was afraid that the scales were going to, because I know you had to like reach and push the scales or the fin or whatever the hell you were touching on there.
Kerry:And hell, you were touching on there and slimy and wet, and I mean think, okay, well, you did the worm, what's wrong with this? But, and you know, and you feel like you're hurting it, we never kept the fit.
Chrisy:Well, I did, we would throw them back, which is really actually horrible because you're like damaging something and then hopefully it's going to survive after you've did what you did to it. Yeah, I could never, ever do the taking the fish off. Yeah, but I do remember that time, him and his wife, betty. George passed away quite a while ago. Betty probably within the last eight years maybe, I think she's probably passed away. Yeah, we always stayed very close with them. Like I said, they were neighbors of mine growing up and just great people. So, yeah. So the fishing thing you're talking about, the fact that you did this to your father, yeah, and he didn't say anything. Yeah, total silence.
Chrisy:This, going along with my swimming pool summer story, is my father was fairly meticulous in his appearance. Okay, which is a nice thing. I appreciate the fact that my father but most people I'm sure your dad was he took care of. Everybody takes care of themselves. Yeah, my father, I just feel like took it another level. Like his time in the morning to get ready for the day was actually longer than my mother. Oh, I mean, he had to. He had a ritual. He had a ritual. His hair had to be styled and my father had beautiful hair.
Kerry:Yeah, he did.
Chrisy:And you probably looked at it and thought it wasn't even real because it was that nice? Yeah, but it was, and he would style his hair and hairspray it and he was very well cologned.
Kerry:I was just going to say didn't your dad have a whole bunch of colognes?
Chrisy:Yes, I remember something about a whole bunch of bottles. Yeah, he liked to have his fragrances. So we were in the pool and my father was a very good swimmer and he actually used to sort of do some competitive diving nothing real serious, but I think just with like the one of the watering holes they used to frequent.
Chrisy:he would compete with diving and stuff with other boys and people remember him being able to do it fairly well. We were in the pool. Now you didn't know for sure. There were days, most of the time dad did not get his hair wet.
Chrisy:Right he was in the pool with you and he would like to enjoy. But there were times when he would full-on swim right and get his hair wet and everything and he liked to sort of pick at you a little bit in the pool. And so he would do this thing where he would cup his hands and he would pound right down with his hands real hard and it would shoot the water up very yes well, he would do this so many times at you where it just would be like almost like water, torture, waterboarded.
Chrisy:Yes, I mean he would sit there and just continually do it at you and you're just getting hit constantly in the face. Well, the one time I finally just had had enough, and maybe the rules weren't completely explained to me until after this incident, so I went back at him and I splashed him to try and get him to stop splashing me, and I got his hair all wet. He stopped, he got out of the pool and he walked away and never said a word to me See, isn't that like the worst?
Chrisy:Well, I mean, I was just like what's the fairness in this, though I wasn't afraid he was going to do anything to me except maybe yell. But the silence sometimes is worse than the yelling, that's what I'm saying.
Kerry:The worst is that silence, that just they walk and they stop talking and they walk away.
Chrisy:Yeah.
Kerry:Now, for me, the worry was what's going to happen when he comes back, and that was just because of the cycle of the situation I was in.
Chrisy:Right, but still I didn't have that.
Kerry:But see, for me that's where it was probably why the silence was scary, because it was like, well, what comes after the silence?
Chrisy:I was more offended that we were not on a playing, an even playing level here Right. But again, my understanding too was, though, that I generally did have a good understanding that I was the kid. Yeah, was though that I generally did have a good understanding that I was the kid yeah, and that you could not retaliate. And he was the dad. Yeah, that's why he always got first dibs on the food and first dibs on what we were watching when we had to share a television. Oh, and you only watched what, dad?
Chrisy:was watching dad's rules until they finally threw me a bone and got me my own tv. Yeah so yeah, but I was always kind of bummed out about that.
Kerry:I was like man, I'm a sore loser did you ever talk about that with your dad later in life? No, oh, that's a hard.
Chrisy:No, no no, I don't remember ever being able to do that with my dad, and I'm not saying it's a personality defect or that it speaks volumes about maybe the dysfunction, but with the uncomfortable situations that maybe occurred, like that, where he, in his way, either disciplined or treated you with silence because he didn't approve of what you did, you didn't bring it up again.
Kerry:No, so even as an adult, you're never able to go back and talk about some of these dysfunctions or whatever. No, that was one. That was kind of one thing where, as dysfunctional as things were as we got older and I and I can't say that maybe my sisters do and maybe it was just me, because I'm just open and I want to talk about things you know but we did talk about, like that that story with the fish would would come up a lot you know and you know, or other things we would talk about in. Yeah, like one time, what you want to talk about being naughty here's, here's something I did all right, here we go.
Kerry:It's not that bad, but still the girl that was bullying me, the one that I talked about in the previous episode about the glockenspiel that she clack, I clack and spilled her. Yeah, nick nick so one. After that happened, she would prank phone, call the house to explain this to people.
Chrisy:I know.
Kerry:This is true. So you know, back in the day, when you had the phone on the wall with the line and people would call, you know your number, and you'd pick up hello, hello, and there'd be nobody there. Or they would say something stupid Say something really stupid or whatever you know and hang up and you didn't have a. What number it is?
Chrisy:There was a little while where you didn't have caller ID. You didn't have caller ID.
Kerry:Once in a while you could at one point do the reverse dial. I got home from school it was that week that she was suspended and the phone kept ringing and kept ringing and it was nobody there. Nobody there, nobody there. I was home by myself. It was right after school and my mom was out of town. I don't know where she was at, but I just remember she was out of town. So it was just me and dad, but dad was not home from work yet. I picked up the phone. I got so irritated it kept being nobody there and I knew. I just knew it had to be this girl. I went off and I did. You know, that's that scene from the Christmas story where the dad's swearing all these words. You know well, that was, that was me. I just said everything. I was like you bleepity, bleep, bleep, bleep, and you effing bleep, bleep, bleep. I just I went off, hung the phone up. Phone rings again. I pick up. It was my dad. Oh, is that who you?
Chrisy:said all those words to yes. Oh timing is bad.
Kerry:Well, here he got stuck at work or something and there was some bad connection. So he could hear me, but I wasn't hearing him. So he kept calling to try to tell me that he was going to be late or whatever. And then he hears me, just this whole string of words. He probably never thought that his daughter knew much about anything. But I remember years later we had a conversation about that story and here he never. He said he was going to tell my mom, but he never did tell my mom. But would she have punished you? Oh, probably, really probably. I would have probably been sentenced to extra masses and more hail, marys and rosaries and god knows what but?
Kerry:but going back to the talking about things with your parents after the fact, so we did we would have occasions where we would talk about things like that.
Chrisy:I would have that and I still do have that. Sometimes things that I did that actually horrified my mother.
Kerry:And so you talked. You can talk to your mom, because you never had a chance to talk to your dad about those.
Chrisy:Yeah, the chances might've been there, but that, just that wasn't how our relationship was, yeah, and you just didn't do that. You kind of had to know. Yeah, dad was willing to talk to you. I mean, I had some great conversations with my father don't get me wrong and I feel in general I had a good relationship with him you know, nobody's perfect.
Kerry:Yeah, that that wouldn't have been any sort of part of our talking back and forth, or Well, this morphed into a little bit different than just talking about summer, talking about our relationships there with our dad. So any other summer traditions that you did.
Chrisy:When I was younger. No, the pool was basically pretty much it. You know we didn't really do the vacation thing on a regular basis. We had kind of talked about that before and generally vacation was in the fall because that's when their anniversary was and if I got pulled into having to go with them because my sisters were out of the house already, so you just enjoyed, you know, the swimming pool and you know, just having fun with neighborhood kids, yeah, or being tortured by these, this other dysfunctional family.
Chrisy:You had to hang around with or hurting people's fingers and look forward to that.
Kerry:And bikes a typical kid of that time period swimming bikes you know, I think I realized after the fact one of the reasons why I so look forward to summer is I had a lot of alone. That was when I had my alone time because both parents worked. I would be left home alone from nine-ish in the morning until one or two in the afternoon, so my mom might work a half day or whatever, but I had a lot of time to myself. And I think that's kind of sometimes why I think why I like summertime so much and enjoy like going on vacations or just enjoy spending my time outside by myself. That was my solace. That was like recovery time from everything I went through in the previous year at school or whatever. You know, yeah, that was my solace. That was like recovery time from everything I went through in the previous year at school or whatever. You know, yeah, that summer. So I love summer. It's my favorite time of year.
Chrisy:Yeah, no it's, I don't have any. I have pretty much just good memories of summer for the most part, and, you know, do you go to movies. It didn't do too many drive. We had drive in movies.
Chrisy:Yeah, movies, yeah we did, but mainly you would just go to the theater. Yeah, a lot, and you know it was. Summers were good, what can you say? We played. We had a patio and I do remember, uh, fingers slash, natalie. We would play a lot of monopoly or trivial pursuit, oh yeah, and we would have some real good games down there with that. So in between swimming, we would do that, that's fun.
Kerry:Yeah, good times, good times, absolutely. Do you think your kids are kind of like summer people? Yeah, like you get people that prefer winter in the cold or summer outside warm. How do you think it's transitioned to them?
Chrisy:Yeah, no, I think they do like to be out, they like the outdoors. My, I think they do like to be out, they like the outdoors. My oldest, she played baseball for a while. Then she's real involved with tennis and she started into some track too. But she definitely likes to go out. She roller. She has a skateboard, yeah, and she amazes me. She just basically gets on this she's got her phone, yeah, she's holding on to her phone and she just takes that skateboard out, jumps on it, it is down and texting and everything, and she's her hands and she's completely balanced on the thing and she skateboards.
Chrisy:That's awesome, we have it. This is a nice. Where we live now is a good neighborhood. We have good families here and there's kids here, yeah, and she'll usually go and hang with some of the kids. She's kind of the oldest by a year or two, but there are still kids close enough to her age where she can sort of relate to them and hang around with them. That's fun, and we have a golf cart now, which is fun.
Kerry:I was thinking about your golf cart because I'm training for this marathon, been doing a couple of 5Ks, have a half marathon that I'm going to be doing just to kind of help train and stuff. But I was thinking about when we run the marathon. I was like, oh yeah, one of these, one of these shows or whatever one of these episodes or times we're here, we should do a Facebook Live of me practicing for the marathon and you could be following me in the golf cart encouraging me.
Chrisy:As soon as people think of how can I find someone who will encourage me, I'm the first person that probably comes into their mind, of course, of course, so reassuring, it'll be an episode of Carrie go, yeah, go faster.
Kerry:No, faster.
Chrisy:You look like you're getting tired. Do you want this water? Nah, you don't want no water. Look at me drink the water, carrie, yummy.
Kerry:Well, I am just so excited that summer is here. We've got some great topics coming up over the summer that we're going to be talking about sharing with you, and more events to come, so please be sure to keep tuning in. Check us out on our Facebook page, share with us your summer traditions, your opening summer traditions or things you'd like to do in the summer. We want to hear it all.
Chrisy:Yes, and make sure you get a lot of vitamin D. Everybody, wear sunscreen. We want to hear it all.
Kerry:Yes, and make sure you get a lot of vitamin D. Everybody, wear sunscreen. Oh, yes, please do. All right, everyone, have a great week. We'll see you next time. Bye-bye, everybody.