A little tanget today... this one is an open letter to my son. I figure once I get it off my chest, I can move on - and hopefully the strain on my brain will release.

From: Art Crego
Sent: Sunday, January 18, 2009 11:17 AM
To: John Crego
Subject: past events

Not sure how much you heard of me yesterday…it was loud and crowded at the arena.

I need to get this off my chest – and since I’m not talking to you on the phone here goes:

Yes, you are wrong on this one. The maturity I thought you had gained while at boot camp has apparently disappeared the minute you got away from that setting. I can’t believe that you think I’m so terrible telling you what I think. Someday you’ll realize how you deal with this in the correct fashion. Now it’s been 3 weeks and you should know that I’m not caving in on this until you apologize. You really need to stop and think about your choice here and I’m not talking about your choice in psycho girlfriends. I’m talking about the what you want, because if you look at the relationship that I have (or don’t have) with Art Sr. out in Hannibal. I only talk to them to make sure no one has died. My own sister, who I grew up with, as well. How about my step brother Jimmy? It’s been 12+ years since I saw him and have only spoke to him maybe a ½ dozen times. I’m that way, if you don’t want to talk to me, then fine. This is your call. I hope you realize this error in the next 20 days. I’m sure there will be moments at sea where an e-mail or letter from home would make you feel better when your homesick. Again… your choice not mine. My choice comes only in letting you leave for sea without saying good bye properly.

I know, you’ve got “friends” again, so we get the boot. We won’t mention the 10+ text messages a day, or the multiple phone calls during the week for us to cheer you up when your bored.

Now, as I said, as long as I have a home, you’ll have a place to stay. I won’t ever take that away from you. Now, whether you feel welcome in that home is another matter. These past weeks have pissed me off so much you have no idea. In between your bullshit attitude and losing my job (oh yeah, thanks for the support on that one as well) of 11 years it’s been quite an emo roller coaster. You make poor decisions and I’m sorry you don’t like someone telling you. I’m doing for you, what my Grandma & Grandpa did for me, but you know I didn’t listen to them either. Of course I would have NEVER told them to stay out of my life because of the respect I had for them. Your actions only open the wound from before (selfish Fucking asshole?) and exacerbate it further. Now, you went and bought a laptop, which I KNOW you paid too much for. Again – you think you know stuff and you don’t. We both know that opening the credit card was a mistake as well. I’ve managed to survive most of my adult life without credit cards. It works along the lines of if you don’t have the money you can’t afford it.

(I bet if you took the money you were using for the plane ticket and hotel you would have enough to purchase a new laptop – did you think of that? Oh and since I’m offering unsolicited advice – Shannon’s parents are really big on the “respect your parents” thing. I wonder how this would fly with them?)

I have no idea what went wrong in your life to where you think I’m the enemy. I’ve talked to Teresa as well, and she is stumped too. You always had everything you wanted and needed. Now it’s come to this, at what point did we fuck up and make your life so horrid? The Erie family is also very shocked at this turn of events – they can’t believe you’d be this way as is your mom (at least as far as I can tell – she’s told me that she’s been saying the same thing to you about “those girls” and she thinks that’s why you failed out of CTT school).

This time, you’ve hurt my feelings quite severely and because of that you’ve lost my respect. For the record, you would have never told me that to my face because we both know what would have happened.


Love ya!
Dad.