#6: you are not my father

I never really had a father figure. I had a daddy, but he died when I was sixteen, and we weren't the best of friends, so I didn't really have anyone to want to be like when I was growing up. That was okay, I never really wanted to be like anybody.

Then I met you with your elbow patches and your long drawling words, calling me Mr. B in a way that, in itself was almost enough to lift my depression, as you smoked your pipes in that old house on the hill with the ominous swinging sign out by the main road: PSYCHIATRY.

I would normally have picked a woman; I don't know why, I just always felt like I had a better chance of getting my head straightened out with a female therapist. That's why I chose your office, because of the Indian woman who was the head shrink there. (Ha! That's funny.) But she wasn't available for an appointment and I got you. Tennessee had a really good public health policy at the time (its own Medicare, which unraveled to nothing by the time I left the state, thanks to our current Administration), but the list of names to choose from wasn't long. and most of them were men. I wasn't sure it would work out between you and me, but you were provided free by the state, so the least I could do was make the first appointment.

You put your feet up on your desk and leaned back in your wooden chair. The place reeked of cherries and vanilla mixed with Cavendish tobacco. It wasn't so bad, really, and it went well with the decor, that crazy old house with the peeling paint and old furniture and knick knacks in the foyer; they looked like they might've been left there by the original owner. There were a few mental health posters sprinkled around for good measure, too.

I liked you right away, you eccentric man with your wool jacket in the Tennessee heat with the leather patches on the elbows. You were like a man right out of the Seventies, right out of my childhood. Like a father figure. I didn't think of that then; I thought of you as a friend. I knew you were my shrink, but you were the best kind of a shrink, one whom I could mistake for a friend.

In the odd times that you talked about yourself, you told me about your former life, how you hauled cattle around from auctions to ranches. Everything you told me became romantic in that damn pipe smoke. "Do you mind if I smoke?" Of course not.

Today, I bought myself a gift, a pipe and some tobacco to sit on the front porch and smoke. I don't really like smoking cigarettes except for the reflection time they offer me. I thought a pipe would be a little more classy, it would taste a little better, too. Some of the tobaccos have clever names: Texas Honey; Very Cherry; Georgian Cream; Strawberry Delight; Commander's Choice; 24 Karat.

I didn't think of the irony until this moment, didn't think of the inspiration you gave me, to make this purchase. You, my favorite psychiatrist. And the name of the tobacco I chose?

Nut 'n' Special.