My Papa's Waltz

I read “My Papa’s Waltz a few times and I realized that the speaker isn’t recounting a bad memory from childhood but one that he appreciated and maybe enjoyed. Even though he didn’t like the smell of whiskey or his right ear scraping his father’s belt buckle he makes a couple of references that changed my viewpoint from that of any kind of abuse on his father’s part. For instance, “But I hung on like death” (line 4) and “Then waltzed me off to bed/Still Clinging to your shirt” (lines 15-16). His mother is frowning the whole time his father is dancing with him but she doesn’t stop them because she sees they are playing around, which is referenced by “We romped until the pans/Slid from the kitchen shelf” (lines 5-6). Maybe the speaker’s father didn’t spend a lot of time with him so even when his father handled him roughly the speaker didn’t care because at least he was spending time with him.