While his name may not ring a bell, there’s a very good chance Sam Halpern has made you laugh out loud at some point in the last four years. Because he’s the Dad behind the ShitMyDadSays Twitter feed (which is probably the greatest single feed in Twitter’s history.)
A little backstory: ShitMyDadSays was started as a lark by Sam’s son, Justin Halpern. Justin and I were working together at the time and when we were sitting around not working he would tell us the hilarious shit his dad would say to him (hence the name.) Invariably, someone would say, “You should write this stuff down.” So he did. On Twitter. Which then went onto become a New York Times bestselling book and TV show. And the rest is history.
On the off chance you have no idea what I’m talking about, here’s a sampling:
“Your brother brought his baby over this morning. He told me it could stand. It couldn’t stand for shit. Just sat there. Big let down.”
– Justin (@shitmydadsays) August 20, 2009
“You’re gonna run into jerk offs. But remember, it’s not the size of the asshole you worry about, it’s how much shit comes out of it.”
– Justin (@shitmydadsays) September 23, 2009
Recently, Justin’s dad wrote a book called “A Far Piece to Canaan: A Novel of Friendship and Redemption” which seemed like a great time for Sam to turn the tables on Justin and write down some of the shit (stupid and otherwise) Justin has said and done in his lifetime.
So he did. Take it away, Sam…
Vintage Justin – By Sam Halpern
I have four children. They are all solid citizens and I love hell out of them. As any parent can tell you, each of their kids are different and respond to parenting in different ways.
Some, however, bring new meaning to the term, “parenting.” And so it was with my youngest son, Justin. As a parent, one does not usually use four letter profanities in the proximity of their preteen children. I did, and I’m not apologizing for it.
Examples of my frustration:
“No”
Justin did not like toilet training. Indeed, he gloried in delivering a load into his diaper. The contents of a baby’s diaper will never be confused with perfume, but had we been bird lovers we would have killed more canaries changing Justin’s diaper than occurred in the history of every coal mine in Kentucky.
You don’t hold it against your child for having foul diapers. You do hold it against your child when they continue to use diapers for three and a half years for reasons (my take) purely mischievous.
Me: (intense, sitting on the rim of the bathtub and speaking softly): “Justin, it’s time to be a big boy and use your potty chair. Big boys use potty chairs. Babies use diapers. It’s time to make poop in the potty chair.”
Justin: “No.”
Me: “You’ve got to do this, Justin; you can’t wear a diaper all your life.”
Justin: “No.” Me (resorting to bribery): “Justin, if you go, I’ll give you one of those cookies you like so much.”
Justin: “No.” Me: “God damn it, Justin, crap in the pot!”
Justin: “No.”
And so it would go, for perhaps an hour or more. I was in the middle of a career, dog-tired after a 12- or 13-hour day, worried about everything from patients to getting out research reports, etc. I needed rest. Peace.
Eventually, I would give in and diaper Justin. Then, something I referred to as the “Green Fog” would fill the bathroom. There could be no better definition of a coprophagic grin than that exhibited on my child’s face at that moment.
“Jimmy Can’t Hit My Fastball”
From the time he was two, I knew Justin had a right arm like a cannon. I knew because Justin picked up his baby bottle and threw it approximately 30 feet against a window, nearly breaking it.
I seized on this and began my trek to the National League. Naturally, I worked to develop his pitching skills while he was in Little League. He blew the hitters away.
By age eleven, not only did he have a great fastball, but he had learned a little straight change and a dinky slider that was effective at his level. There were some good hitters in the league. One of them, at age 12, was nearly 6 feet tall and weighed about 150 pounds.
I will refer to him as Jimmy.
Jimmy not only hit balls over the fence, but into the trees beyond. Given those circumstances, when your pitcher is five feet three and weighs less than 100 pounds, it makes a coach think.
Justin and I had a conversation.
Me: (on the way to the game) “Justin, don’t throw your fastball to Jimmy. Jimmy is a dead fastball hitter.”
Justin: “Jimmy can’t hit my fastball!”
Me: “But don’t throw him any fastballs, OK.”
Justin: (Silence) Justin’s first pitch to Jimmy was his best fastball. Belt-high, down the heart of the plate.
The result was inevitable. I watched the ball disappear into a tree. A tall tree.
When the game was over and Justin had cooled down and we were heading for a Baskin-Robbins ice cream parlor, I thought it might be worth pointing out my son’s errors in pitching judgment.
Me: “Jimmy really crushed that fastball.”
Justin (very loud): “Jimmy is the luckiest son of a bitch I ever saw!”
Fast-forward three games and we play Jimmy’s team again. I decided to say nothing regarding pitching to Jimmy and see if my son had learned anything in his previous encounter with the leagues premier power hitter.
I watched anxiously as Jimmy dug in 45 feet from my son, who look like a six-year-old compared with his adversary.
The first pitch…fastball.
Jimmy was a “dive in” hitter and the inside pitch came about an inch from the letters on his jersey, sending him flying back on his rear. The next three pitches? Fastballs on the inside part of the plate. Jimmy swung only once and halfheartedly at that, striking out in the process.
Justin: (later in the car after the game, a huge grin on his face): “Told you the son of a bitch couldn’t hit my fastball!”
“I Can’t Believe You…”
There comes a time in the life of every father when he has to teach his child to drive. It’s nerve-wracking; a bit like having two simultaneous cardiac arrests in your department while most of the staff is at lunch.
I taught my three other sons how to drive, encountering the usual problems, but none terrifying. All were taught on an ancient, stick-shift, half-ton truck. Now, it was Justin’s turn. We spent hours going over the rules of the road, Justin agitated, me frustrated, as I hammered away.
Eventually, he got his learners permit and I stopped grinding my teeth. It was time for road work. We approached the vehicles in our drive way.
Me: “Get in.”Justin (looking balefully at the grungy machine): “That’s the truck. I want to learn in the car.”
Me: “Wanna learn? Or are you going to just fucking stand there, in which case I’m going back in the house.”
Justin: “The truck has a stick shifter. I can’t believe you want me learn on a stick shifter! I’ll never drive a stick shifter in my life! This is ridiculous!”
Me: (turning on my heel): “Bye.”
I head off to relax in my easy chair on my day off and watch my baseball team get the hell stomped out of them for a few hours. Justin walks into the living room.
Justin: “Dad, I’ve decided to let you teach me in the truck.”
Me: “Please.”
Justin: “What?”
Me: “You say please, or I’m gonna sit here and watch these dog-assed guys get slaughtered.”
Justin: (about to choke on the word): “Please.”
Me: “Get’n th’truck! Driver’s side!”
Justin: “Alright, I’ve pushed in the clutch; now can I have the key?”
Me: “No, because you just pushed in the brake. The other pedal is the clutch.”
Justin : (dutifully pushing in the clutch and shoving the gear shift forward) “There. Now can I have the key?”
Me: “No, because you just put the truck in third. That’s its high gear. You got to stay more to the left to put it into first.”
Justin: “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me that before. Why…”
Me: “Wanta fuckin’ learn to drive? OK, now let out the clutch.”
Justin: “Why?”
Me: “Because it engages the god damn gear!”
And so it went, until Justin mastered the gear shift and began driving the streets of San Diego, my good old truck suffering the agonies of grinding gears, stall-outs, slammed brakes, and tires jammed against curbs.
Finally Justin was ready for the more difficult terrain that I put all my boys through before letting them onto the (shudder) freeway. This was a winding road that went from the start of the Navy facilities to the lighthouse at the end of Point Loma.
It’s a two-lane road, and at intervals, there are cliffs only fifty or so yards from the blacktop.
On the way to the Point, his performance was perfect. On the way back, however, something caught his eye and he looked away from the road. The truck hit gravel and was headed for toward the cliff and about 500 feet of air.
I grabbed the steering wheel and got us back onto blacktop.
Justin: “You grabbed the wheel while I was driving! I cannot believe you grabbed the wheel while I was driving!”
A few weeks later Justin got his license.
And he is a good driver. About ten years after these events I heard him speaking to a young person he knows.
Justin: “You can’t drive a stick shift? I can’t believe you can’t drive a stick shift.”
Pick up Sam Halpern’s new book “A Far Piece to Canaan: A Novel of Friendship and Redemption” today.
