I was strolling near my home in San Diego when I answered my phone and learned that my mother was dying in a hospital 3,000 miles away. I hung up and purchased the next plane ticket to Baton Rouge.

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I was strolling near my home in San Diego when I answered my phone and learned that my mother was dying in a hospital 3,000 miles away. I hung up and purchased the next airplane ticket to Baton Rouge. Two days later, my plane began its decent and I stared out the window, worried and fatigued and lost in thoughts.

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I don’t know if my dad, Ed Partin Junior, saw his father portrayed by Brian Dennehey in “Blood Feud,” the 1983 film about Jimmy Hoffa and Bobby Kennedy, but if he did he never mentioned it to me.

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I was strolling near my home in downtown San Diego and admiring America’s Finest City when I answered my phone and learned that my mother was dying in a hospital 3,000 miles away. I hung up and purchased the next airplane ticket to Baton Rouge. Two days later, my plane began its decent and I stared out the window, but I couldn’t see my childhood home through the darkness and my reflection in the window looked sad and exhausted and older than I was. It had been a long two days without any clarification, and I hadn’t slept well and the only seat available was small and cramped for someone my size and the flight had been long and I was fatigued.

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In July of 1984, seventeen armed men surrounded our partially completed cabin, and demanded our surrender. My dad and I heard them after turning off the table saw, and we surrendered peacefully. They allowed my dad to put on a shirt that was draped across the porch, near the door. I was fully clothed, which is a good thing to do when operating a table saw, I had I had thought, especially after making an “A” on safety protocols in my woodshop class in middle school earlier that year.

My dad always had done things his own way.

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