Thank you to Cathy for the thought-provoking link to banned books. I've read 32 of the books on the list. I find it quite interesting, humorous, and strangely sad that several of them are books I adore from my childhood. Shel Silverstein, Roald Dahl, Zilpha Keatly Snyder... I had (probably still have) all of their books. I guess those books have damaged me beyond repair, being the black sheep of my family and all.

The Father in Law

Cory's dad (Mike) and mom (Lavada) were divorced when Cory was about 6 years old. His dad cheated on his mom. When Cory and I met 5 years ago, his dad was living in Kentucky with his then girlfriend. He had married the woman from the affair previously and had another son with her. He divorced her and now had this girlfriend. Cory lived with his dad his Junior year in high school. Then he and the second wife broke up and he had to move back with his mom. I don't think he had seen his dad for several years before we got together.

Mike and his girlfriend broke up a few months later. He moved back here and has tried to re-establish his relationship with his sons. About a year and 1/2 ago, Mike met a woman online and ended up marrying her. She happens to be a distant relative of Cory's mom. So Mike moved in with the new wife, who lives across the highway from Cory's mom.

Mike is a very depressed man. He chain smokes, and my hunch is he's an alcoholic. He feels very guilty for a lot of things in his life, including not spending time with his own children when they were young. This is speculation, but I think Cory's other brother has a lot of problems because of his strained relationship with his dad. I digress...

Mike has guilt. He told us a few weeks ago that he wants to see his grandchildren and hates that he is being kept from seeing his other grandchild (Cory's nephew Austin). He thinks Lavada has a lot to do with keeping him from seeing Austin. He cried crocodile tears when he told us this. Guilt.

Now to the present. Yesterday I went to my mom's house with the boys. She was making dinner and she said Cory could come over there when he got off work. He didn't want to come. In fact, he forgot to tell me that his dad had planned on coming over to see the boys. Now his dad thinks that we are trying to keep him from seeing them because a similar situation occurred last week. Cory forgot to tell me then that he was coming over at a certain time. Anyway, he is feeling guilty, wants to see them, and gets paranoid when something happens and he can't.

That was a long, sordid, soap opera story that is a part of my family. I could tell a lot of those kinds of stories on both sides of our family. Sounds like novel fodder to me...