Dad

I was 9 when my mom and dad got remarried and my older brother was 11, almost 12. I also have an older sister from my mother's first marriage who was 20 at the time they remarried. She was living in the house when they got remarried but moved out soon afterwards. When I was older I learned that she had always harbored hopes that our mom and her dad would get remarried at some point. Of course, considering her father is gay, that was most likely never going to happen anyway. However, being the age she was, she understandably felt a little hurt when they got back together. It had just been the four of us for a long time, plus, she was old enough to remember their previous marriage and all the fighting and drunkeness, which neither my brother nor I could. I'm sure she was a little distrustful that things would be different this time around, but my dad really did stop drinking; as long as I knew him he never had another drink his whole life. By the time he passed away my sister considered him her only dad and now regrets not taking his name. I was actually named for my dad, he was almost as bad as George Foreman, naming all his sons after him. My oldest brother (from my dad's first marriage, my family is very convoluted) is 22 years older than I am and is a Junior. Then he named his last born, me, after him too but changed the spelling to the feminine form. For a time my older brother lived with us and it was so confusing when someone would call Gene or Jean, so we had to go by Sr, Jr and Jeannie (which I hate). To this day some family members still call me that and some very old friends, but those are the only ones I allow to use that name. My grandmother calls me Cheannie because of her German accent, it sounds odd but it's cute.
It was weird getting used to having someone else who could tell us what to do, my mom was pretty lenient, as long as we weren't getting maimed or arrested we could do mostly what we wanted, especially in the summer. Curfew was dark, which is like 8:30 in July and August, so we'd be out as late as possible. Dad wasn't quite as lenient as mom and we didn't like having to check in more often and ask permission to sleep at a friend's house. Even though I was the youngest I was also the most independent and liked being able to come and go as I wanted, within reason. My mom would also allow us to bring home almost any kind of critter we wanted, we could keep them overnight and then had to set them free. So we were always bringing home lizards, horned toads, frogs, snakes, etc. My dad hated snakes so all of a sudden we couldn't bring them home anymore and the 4-7 cats we always had around the house became like 2. But it was good having a father around, especially for my brother, he'd only had my two uncles as male role models before that and I think he really needed my dad around. We'd go to the beach and my brother and dad would race up the sand, even though my dad was 56 or so by then it took years before my brother could beat him. My dad also really liked fishing, we'd go to the lake or the pier and then he'd clean and cook whatever we caught. I learned how to clean a fish from him, and although I can't say I've used that skill recently at least if I had to, I'm sure I still could.