Here's the back story:
My father abandoned me when I was 3 years old. I haven't seen or spoken to him since. He evaded paying child support for years. Even though I lived in the same house my entire childhood he never once bothered to call or contact me in any form. I was never upset about it since I never really got to know him. He was so inconsequential to my life that he may as well have been a sperm donor.
But as I got older I started getting more curious about what exactly happened. My mother has no answers for me. She says that he had wanted the three of us to move to California but that she refused to leave her family in Arizona (where I grew up). Then when his mother died, he returned to Vermont (where he is from) and never came back. That's as much as she knows.
Last year I started doing some research. I found out what town he lives in and I even found a picture of him in a newspaper article. It's the only picture I have of him. I was unable to find any contact information but I did find his brother's phone number.
Would it be out of line to contact the brother in order to get a hold of my father? And even if I can get my father's contact information, do you think it's worth it to bother contacting him? I'm afraid that he will want nothing to do with me (still, heh). Not that I want a relationship or anything like that. I just want some answers. I also kind of want to yell at him for being so irresponsible and show off how much better of a person I am. Is that a bad idea? Under normal circumstances I wouldn't be so rude but all things considering, I think I deserve to be a little angry.
I've been mulling over this question for a few years now and it's now sinking in that I'm getting old. And he's getting really old. I'm thinking it's probably now or never.