My Dad...what a guy.

My Dad is an enigma. Well, maybe he's not. I just like typing the word enigma. ENIGMA.

He is an interesting character study, though. He's tough. He's volitile. He's unpredictable. He wants to make money. He may border on greedy. Then again, he is very giving. But he would deny it if you asked him. Let me share a story.

This story has it's roots  in 2005. In November of that year we evicted a girl from one of our houses. One of the reasons was... well, look at the 

pictures...       The whole house looked similar.

After that the tenant sued us for wrongful eviction. The suit included the claim that we threw away some of her childern's clothes and/or toys during our clean-up. We counter-sued for damages. This suit was heard in October of 2006. We won.  We were awarded a judgement of $3,000.00 plus court costs.  She appealed.

This morning was the trial date for the appeal. As we sat and waited for teh Judge, my Dad and I were talking about some other business stuff. After a moment or two of silence he leaned over and asked, "Do you think she would agree to throw this out if we didn't make her pay anything?" Now keep in mind my Dad is very protective of his money. If it's owed him, he will collect. We talked about it for a minute or so. We knew she did not have the money. She lives in public housing and has 2-3 kids. So he goes and asks her if shes willing to forget the whole thing. She agrees. 

Now there were probably some selfish motives on my Dad's part for wanting to settle. He did not want to testify. He was nervous about it. Very nervous. He gets chatty when he gets nervous. He talked a lot as we waited. He did not want to testify. When our lawyer arrived he asked if I could testify instead of him. He didn't want to wait all morning. By the time he talked to the other girl it was 9:30 (9:00 was our scheduled time) and there were no signs of the judge coming. You might think this was just a way to get us out of there quicker and avoid him having to testify. I thought so unitl...

He told our ex-tenant, "If there are any court costs, don't worry about it. we'll pay them." It may seem like a small thing to most, but I was very proud of my Dad at that moment. Not proud of him, like "Oh, your such a good boy. I'm proud of you." I was proud to be sitting there with him. Proud to be his son. 

He has his flaws, but I think over-all he's a pretty great guy. Ask me tomorrow and I may not agree with myself.