My Dad, his divorce, and Woodstock (a fable about why you should come to the first Thursday Harold Night) - Harold Night Blog
When my Father was young, he had a friend that would try to get him to go to concerts. He'd usually say yes, and they were usually fun. My Dad rarely had something better to do. One summer day this friend made the same request, but it was going to require a little bit of driving. It might have been the heat, it might have been the long shifts at the grocery store, but this time my Dad said no. His friend went to the concert without him.
Home with nothing else to do, my Dad went to the local diner and sat at the counter. After his first cup of coffee, a cute young woman sat next to him. They hit it off and before long started dating. The concerts became few and far between. The friend would bug my Dad about it, saying he wasn't the same and that he should spend less time with his new girlfriend. My Dad thought the friend was jealous. Inevitably the two of them parted ways.
Dad's girlfriend became a wife. Slowly but surely, it all started to fall apart. She grew distant and turned to booze. My Dad tried to help her, but he just couldn't get through. She became verbally abusive, berating my Dad the second he walked in the door and not stopping until he was headed to the construction site the next morning. She cheated. She lied. It all turned upside down and my Dad had no idea why. Eventually they divorced and she took my Dad for everything he was worth. Thankfully they never had kids.
My Father still looks back on the day he decided not to go to the concert as the biggest mistake of his life. Imagine if he could take it all back and never meet the girl at the diner? His life would be totally different. If only he went to that concert.
The concert's name? It was WOODSTOCK.
The friend? BRUCE WILLIS.
Don't let what happened to my Dad happen to you. If you opt for some other way to pass the time tonight rather than going to the first Thursday Harold Night you're making an intentional choice to miss going to Woodstock with Bruce Willis and instead deciding to marry the worst man or woman in the world. Do you really want to make that mistake?
See you at Harold Night!
Somehow I'm kind of proud about wasting most of my lunch break writing this nonsense.
