AMI Executive Director Aaron Perlut recently returned from a weekend in which he spent some quality time with his father, and he provided these thoughts for our readers:

We all have complications in our lives. The people I trust the least are the ones like my buddy's wife. Every time I see her, she always tells people how normal her life is.

Coo coo, coo coo!

The reality is that everyone experiences some degree of dysfunction. Most of us experience a lot of it. And much of it is generally tied to our families and the relationships we have with close relatives. Of course, I'm no exception. The family in which I grew up is, um, complex, to say the least. I've had my ups and downs with my family, and it's impacted the relationships I've had otherwise as well. It's part of life and happens to all of us.

My father Rick, cooky as he may be, has always been the constant in my life. I mean, he's always been bald. When I was young, he would always make me PB&Js for breakfast on the weekends while I watched "The Superfriends" ("Shape of a glass of water with lemon! Form of a wounded donkey with foot fungus!"). I loved those PB&Js.

My dad made dinners for me and my brother despite at times working three jobs. He coached my (cough) soccer teams. He kicked my ass when I was bad, he encouraged me when I was good. When I got older we'd go to Cubs games in Chicago and slug down beers at the game, and then go eat double sausage, double cheeze pizza at the original Uno's at night (Note: All he can ever say about the Cubs is, "Heh, they need pitching." I wish he'd follow them outside of our trips to Chicago).

Overall, he has been a solid father despite his male pattern baldness and introducing himself as "D1ck" Perlut when I was younger which always drove me nuts.

But any of you who know about my background know that I grew up in a "relatively mustached American family." That meaning, I had two uncles and one great uncle with cookie dusters, but my old man never sported the Labia Sebucula (Latin for "Lip Sweater"), and I don't think my mother had one, but who knows.

So when I saw my father recently for my oldest son's fifth birthday, I was shocked at what I saw. He had grown a beast - albeit a goatee, which of course is considered the "spousal compromise" by the AMI because beards and goatees represent weakness versus the manliness of a mustache. However, he grew that beast of burden so that I could guide him towards shaving it down to a rich, delicious 'stache, as you can see in this photo.

To quote our man Borat, "Very NICE." 

Now, understand, Rick Perlut has never, ever had facial hair in my nearly 37 years of life. Never. So why did he do it? I didn't ask, he didn't volunteer. But my guess would be it's because he loves this site (he tends to comment on many of our blog postings but writes them in a manner of a personal note to me about his thoughts), he loves his boy, and he loves the fact that his boy has been involved in leading a mustache revolution in this country. In short, he gets off on it. He digs the whole deal.  And my friends, that's a nice feeling. Like I wrote above - he's always encouraged me when I was good.

Thanks Rick...or shall I indulge you and call you D1ck?