LSJohn
Verified Member
I've told several stories about my good friend Pat Duggan, and I may remember more, but I can't leave him laying here in these dusty pages.
Pat had class, but not the kind GQ Magazine would be reporting on. He dressed like a hippie, wore his hair long, and except for boots at work, wore sandals 24/7, rain, shine, snow or sleet.
He was as honest as the proverbial day is long, and had real character. I tell you this not to pump him up, but it's essential to the moral of the story.
Pat's father died of alcohol poisoning, and his younger brother went the same route. Pat only drank socially until...
After he put pool aside at about age 30, he took a job working on a lightweight concrete crew, and it was brutal work. I filled in on his crew once for three days, and honest to God, I couldn't get out of bed on day four -- barely made it home the evening of day three. Within a few years Pat was foreman for the company's only crew, and their product was in limited acceptance, so they traveled a lot just to keep busy. Their base was Kansas City but the work took them to all seven of the states that border Missouri, and not just near the borders.
The reason I couldn't get out of bed was that my lower back was practically locked solid, and doing that work repeatedly gave Pat a permanent back problem.
Lonely nights in distant motels and persistent back pain made alcohol look better and better to him, and eventually he got hooked just as his brother and father had. When he finally admitted to himself that there was a problem that had to be addressed, he tried to address it with the "cut down" method, but I think that hardly ever works for anyone.
Pain pills didn't work for his back pain nearly as well as alcohol -- at least that's what he said -- and it eventually took him all the way down his family predecessors' road.
So the moral of the story -- at least according to me -- is that if it could get Pat, it could get anyone. I never knew anyone I thought had a better chance of lickin' it, but he couldn't.
Pat had class, but not the kind GQ Magazine would be reporting on. He dressed like a hippie, wore his hair long, and except for boots at work, wore sandals 24/7, rain, shine, snow or sleet.
He was as honest as the proverbial day is long, and had real character. I tell you this not to pump him up, but it's essential to the moral of the story.
Pat's father died of alcohol poisoning, and his younger brother went the same route. Pat only drank socially until...
After he put pool aside at about age 30, he took a job working on a lightweight concrete crew, and it was brutal work. I filled in on his crew once for three days, and honest to God, I couldn't get out of bed on day four -- barely made it home the evening of day three. Within a few years Pat was foreman for the company's only crew, and their product was in limited acceptance, so they traveled a lot just to keep busy. Their base was Kansas City but the work took them to all seven of the states that border Missouri, and not just near the borders.
The reason I couldn't get out of bed was that my lower back was practically locked solid, and doing that work repeatedly gave Pat a permanent back problem.
Lonely nights in distant motels and persistent back pain made alcohol look better and better to him, and eventually he got hooked just as his brother and father had. When he finally admitted to himself that there was a problem that had to be addressed, he tried to address it with the "cut down" method, but I think that hardly ever works for anyone.
Pain pills didn't work for his back pain nearly as well as alcohol -- at least that's what he said -- and it eventually took him all the way down his family predecessors' road.
So the moral of the story -- at least according to me -- is that if it could get Pat, it could get anyone. I never knew anyone I thought had a better chance of lickin' it, but he couldn't.