Perhaps destructive was a harsher word than you would have liked to describe Papa Max, but his absence for all those years was nonetheless hurtful to his family. Just as the absence of *any* parent would be.

My main point was that artists of any ilk show only a small portion of themselves to the world.

As you say, people who knew Papa Max had many wonderful things to say about him — but I imagine there might have been one or two who might have disagreed with that opinion.

As with *any* human being, artists or fathers, we are all flawed.

I know that Dad was a flawed individual, and I felt sad that I could not get him to return to art in his later years, when I spent a lot of time with him.
He was not however a mean person.
During the time he was living near the University many young people spent time talking to him, I have read a lot of what they said, and none of it described a destructor.

Thanks for posting about Papa Max. He was well-known in Austin around UT during the time period you mentioned. There was even a student documentary made about him that aired on the local PBS station.

I’m glad that he got you started in bee keeping — it was one of his passions. And I’m glad to hear he made a positive difference in your life.

As for fiction vs. nonfiction:

I guess I don’t think that memoirists or other nonfiction writers deliberately set out to lie (at least not always) . . . but I do think that we Naked Apes are incapable of honestly telling the Whole Story about ourselves.

A fiction writer doesn’t necessarily manage to crowbar the Whole Story into a novel, either. But there’s at least the possibility of doing so — and no such possibility exists when we try to write about what “really happened” (whether we’re writing about history or about our own lives).

As long as there are other witnesses, they’ll always see what “really happened” differently — and may well recall details that we chose to forget for very good reasons.

an amazing painting

I’m definitely not out here to use this Blog as a confessional, that’s for sure. And I will certainly use fiction as a tool as Brad did in the Flying Monkey post. But there is a line to be drawn when talking about oneself. I did not win the Nobel Price for Finger Painting, for instance.

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Mr. Skelley, that’s really interesting. Is there an image available of you in the time period that Max painted you. I’d love to see how well he did.

I’m happy if people are entertained.