{"id":292235,"date":"2025-06-14T06:09:27","date_gmt":"2025-06-14T06:09:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/business\/legal\/seaton-in-which-my-father-in-law-turns-80\/"},"modified":"2025-06-14T06:09:27","modified_gmt":"2025-06-14T06:09:27","slug":"seaton-in-which-my-father-in-law-turns-80","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=292235","title":{"rendered":"Seaton: In Which My Father-In-Law Turns 80"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n

Greetings, denizens of the SJ Hotel! Your humble humorist, Chris Seaton, is back to sling a tale of familial chaos, and this week we\u2019re trudging north to the soggy hills of Vermont for my father-in-law\u2019s 80th birthday. Buckle up, because this trip was less \u201cNorman Rockwell\u201d and more \u201cHunter S. Thompson with a side of steak tips.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, I fled the blessed warmth of Knoxville for the Green Mountain State, where the air smells like damp flannel and socialism. My father-in-law, a man who\u2019s outlived half his high school class and still thinks he can arm-wrestle a moose, decided his 80th warranted a shindig. The plan? Everyone at the family home and enough steak tips to choke a bear. Sounds wholesome, right? Spoiler: it wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

We rolled into Vermont under a sky that looked like it was auditioning for a biblical flood. Rain didn\u2019t just fall; it assaulted<\/em>\u00a0us, turning dirt roads into soup and my sneakers into sponges. By the time we reached the cabin, I was wetter than a Vol fan\u2019s face after a loss to Alabama. But the family was already there, unpacked, and\u2014most critically\u2014knee-deep in booze. I\u2019m talking bottles of wine, cases of craft beer, and some unholy maple-flavored vodka that tasted like a distillery\u2019s cry for help. My father-in-law, grinning like a kid who just swiped a cookie, was holding court with a glass of something amber and a story about the time he \u201calmost\u201d fought a bobcat in \u201972.<\/p>\n

Now, let\u2019s talk steak tips. These weren\u2019t your sad, stringy supermarket cuts. No, these were hunks of marinated glory, grilled to a perfect medium-rare by my brother-in-law, who wielded tongs like a samurai. We feasted like Vikings, piling plates with tips, mashed potatoes, and some token green beans nobody touched. The rain kept pounding the tin roof, but inside, it was warm, loud, and increasingly sloppy. My father-in-law, three whiskeys deep, started challenging everyone to arm-wrestle. My nine-year-old son almost took him up on it before my wife vetoed that disaster.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s where things went sideways. Vermont, for all its charm, has a way of making you forget how much you\u2019ve drank. Maybe it\u2019s the rain, or the cabin fever, or the fact that every aunt and cousin keeps refilling your glass. By 10 p.m., we\u2019d polished off enough liquor to stock a speakeasy. My sister-in-law was singing Dolly Parton off-key, my father-in-law was retelling the bobcat story with new, implausible details, and I was trying to explain to my mother-in-law why \u201croll tide\u201d isn\u2019t a personality trait. Meanwhile, the rain turned the yard into a swamp, and someone\u2014nobody\u2019s fessed up\u2014slipped and faceplanted in the mud while trying to \u201ccheck on the grill.\u201d<\/p>\n

By midnight, the party was a glorious mess. Steak tips were gone, replaced by a questionable cheese platter and arguments over who\u2019d win in a fight: a bear or a moose. My father-in-law, now four whiskeys deep and wearing a party hat like a crown, declared himself \u201ctoo young to be 80\u201d and tried to dance with my mother-in-law, who was sober enough to dodge. I, less sober, ended up outside in the rain, helping my brother-in-law drag a cooler back to the porch while we debated whether Vermont\u2019s legal weed was worth the hype. (Spoiler: we didn\u2019t test the theory.)<\/p>\n

Morning came like a punishment. The rain hadn\u2019t quit, the cabin smelled like a distillery floor, and my head felt like it\u2019d been used as a pinata. My father-in-law, somehow spry as a spring chicken, was already up, frying bacon and demanding we all go hiking. Hiking! In the mud! With hangovers! I muttered something about needing to \u201ccheck my email\u201d and hid in the bathroom with a coffee. The family, bless their masochistic hearts, actually went, returning three hours later looking like they\u2019d auditioned for a survival show.<\/p>\n

As we packed up to leave, my father-in-law pulled me aside, handed me a leftover steak tip wrapped in foil like it was contraband, and said, \u201cYou\u2019re not half bad, Seaton.\u201d High praise from a man who once called me \u201cthat lawyer who talks too much.\u201d The rain finally eased as we drove away, leaving Vermont\u2019s soggy hills behind. My wife was quiet, my kids were bickering, and I was already dreading the credit card bill for all that booze.<\/p>\n

So here\u2019s to my father-in-law, 80 years young, tougher than a $2 steak, and the architect of a birthday bash that\u2019ll live in infamy. Happy Friday, y\u2019all. I\u2019m off to nurse this hangover and swear off maple vodka forever. See you next week!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Greetings, denizens of the SJ Hotel! Your humble humorist, Chris Seaton, is back to sling a tale of familial chaos, and this week we\u2019re trudging north to the soggy hills of Vermont for my father-in-law\u2019s 80th birthday. Buckle up, because this trip was less \u201cNorman Rockwell\u201d and more \u201cHunter S. Thompson with a side of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":245146,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[97],"tags":[123540,38234,3816],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-292235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-legal","tag-fatherinlaw","tag-seaton","tag-turns"],"yoast_head":"\nSeaton: In Which My Father-In-Law Turns 80 - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=292235\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Seaton: In Which My Father-In-Law Turns 80 - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Greetings, denizens of the SJ Hotel! Your humble humorist, Chris Seaton, is back to sling a tale of familial chaos, and this week we\u2019re trudging north to the soggy hills of Vermont for my father-in-law\u2019s 80th birthday. Buckle up, because this trip was less \u201cNorman Rockwell\u201d and more \u201cHunter S. 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