MY DAD, A PRIVATE E-5

February 4, 2004 | 10:56pm

When I was two or three, my dad ran me over with a truck. It was a red Chevy with black rails extending from the truck-bed and I assume we were headed into town (Santa Fe, New Mexico). Don’t think my Dad is some horrible person — far from it. I was playing with the window, the roads weren’t paved and I got tossed out on especially bumpy part of the ride. Not so bright back then.

Hardcore seat belt propaganda didn’t even start until I was in third grade and I'm guessing common sense didn't exist back then. When I fell out, the truck ran over my arm. I’m told it was muddy so I never had a scar and tend to forget it happened.

But because my father and I have a parent-son relationship, I never had any idea who he really was outside of that role until last year. My father typed out a seven-page memoir, single-spaced, printed on form paper and mailed it to all of my siblings. I still haven’t torn the pages apart.

Here's one part that always gets me:

My dad would like to go to the bars in La Mesa. There were three bars and my dad would stay there for hours while we waited for him in the car. Most of the time it was my mom, myself and I guess Alice and Rosie (his sisters). We dared not leave him because he would take it out on my mom. I consider my mom a saint.

I don’t remember meeting his dad, although I can’t imagine I would care from what I read. Their lives were abundant with poverty and I hated that mine was too, in comparison to other more financially secured families at school. I never invited anyone over to my house until I was a junior in high school, and at first I would apologize for its ugliness. I never had pride in my parents’ handy work or how much bigger it was than either of the adobe houses they inhabited as children. I stopped apologizing when I was secure with where I had come from which was right about the time I came out as a rock ‘em sock ‘em fashion forward gay boy. Coincidence? I think not.

I was stupid and ignorant that my father gone through so much in his youth. He wrote this, too:

I remember eating mostly peas and a few other crops he (my grandfather) planted. My mom would cook asparagus we gathered from the ditch … When my dad came home after work we would rush to open his lunch box and see what was left or if he had something else for use (to eat).

I have the life my father wanted for me. I’m happy, I support myself, and I’m abused by none. I’ve also realized that we’re alike — yes me, the raging fag and my dad, the lentil-loving accordion-obsessed father figure. He mentions his love of planes and how he used to stair at them when he was younger. I, too did that, and I dreamed of escaping my life to something better than getting harassed by my delinquent extended family. This is why I live near an airport and away from blood relatives. At night, I hear the air traffic and I know I can be anywhere in the world. I’m not bound to an existence of okra and dirt roads in Southern New Mexico against my will. I’m thriving in this concrete urban jungle.

My dad also never talked to me about his military career but did write about it in his memoirs. He had top secret clearance at the Defense Atomic Support Agency in Texas. He worked in Quality Control, replacing manual pages of the atomic weapons and saw an occasional warhead. By ’67 he had an E-5 clearance. Six years later, he met my mom. I never knew he was so cool or had so much responsibility.

His life was also filled with music, my grandfather played the guitar and so did my dad at age eleven. My dad’s extended family is also a very musically talented Latino bunch. Some of his cousins in California sing in bars or have been on television while some are involved in fashion or own beauty salons. They meet on the weekends to eat, dance, sing and bond. I've only just met them and they totally kick ass.

Yet, some of my Latino friends grew up just like my dad did. They share a common history and culture. My father cut out most of his heritage from my upbringing, including Spanish. He did raise me on home-made tortillas and green chilie, so in a way he failed much to my pleasure. Moreover, he didn’t want me to grow up with an accent, he wanted me to be an American, to be able to fit in with little harassment from White America. I don’t connect with a large chunck of Latino’s for that reason — the exception is with Spanish pop, which I discovered after I left home. ¡Víva Shakira! ¡Víva Juanez! I don’t speak fluent Spanish and still haven't learned. But I fit in and I can disappear.

My dad and I do have a lot in common but he’s still a big ol’ dork and I love him for it. I want to get to know him a little better as a person and not just as a dad. His memoir was the first offering to that kind of friendship.

In the end, all we can be is ourselves, so please don’t hide where you come from or who you are. You’re perfect the way you came and never be ashamed of that, especially for your tolerance of very spicy foods.

And remember not to hurt your children in any way; like driving over them in a pick-up truck. And if you do, do it early enough that they’ll never remember. The exceptions are circumcision and electing a Republican President, there’s no good reason for either of those things and both could severely alter your kids' sex life.