Today, my dad is 58.
Let’s see what he’s accomplished so far in his life:
May 31st, 1947: He was born to my lovely grandparents who had been married for nine and a half months (*ahem!*). Grandma was (is) a young lady who would grow up to be a housewife and mother. Grandpa was a coal miner and also knew a lot of stuff about a lot of different things, not bad for someone with a third-grade education. Dad was their first (of 7) kids.
Age seven: He started his own business (with the help of my grandpa), wherein he raised homing pigeons. He made a lot of money, which was contributed to the household finances (no allowance for my dad! no sir!). He also started on a long career of pissing off the nuns at his school with test answers such as the following:
Test question: “Explain why it rains”.
Dad’s answer” “Because it is too warm to snow”.
Age twelve: When Dad’s fourth sibling was born, it was decided that the two-bedroom house was too small for the family of seven (grandma and grandpa in one room, three of his sisters in one bedroom, and dad and his brother in the livingroom/kitchen/diningroom– I’ve seen this house, it was about the size of a garden shed). So they moved on up to a THREE bedroom house where they could live in style. The homing pigeons were freaked out for a few weeks but eventually got used to the move. He was in detention every day of the week for the entire year at school.
Age sixteen: He abandoned the homing pigeon business, which my uncle Frank took over (within a year all the pigeons had died. Crazy uncle Frankie). He also abandoned school (at this point the nuns had basically given up on detention and had started assigning hard labour– he and three friends of his dug the foundation for the New Waterford Hospital by hand, he likes to tell me), and joined the Canadian Navy, after having lied about his date of birth. Sneaky, sneeeeaky Dad. He worked on an aircraft carrier. Many adventures followed, including trips to Bermuda and the West Indies. There is still rum at grandma’s house that he brought from Jamaica in 1965 to commemorate the birth of my youngest uncle. In 1965 he also had a phone put in at my grandparents’. It’s still under his name. Once during a big storm in the middle of the Atlantic he was washed overboard but held on to the side of the aircraft carrier and was pulled back aboard and the captain yelled at him for two hours. Fortunately he wasn’t thrown into the brig or keelhauled.
At some point aircraft carriers became part of the Air Force instead of the Navy, and so dad went from being a sailor to being an Air Force guy. It’s too bad because he looked good in the Navy uniform.
In 1971 he met my mother (who was in the air force reserves) and my mother’s then-husband. At that point maman was just barely learning English and dad certainly didn’t speak any french (that’s all been remedied now). The guy she was married to worked with my dad and invited him to move in as a boarder. This is when my dad found out that the guy wasn’t a nice guy and was beating up my mom and (2-yr- old)sister on a regular basis. Dad would protect them from the mean guy by getting him drunk enough that he passed out. He also somehow figured out that he was in love with my mom, which is very romantic (and sort of sneaky, stealing the passed-out guy’s wife, but who cares, because the passed-out guy was an arse). He set about trying to convince mom to leave Mr. Mean, who had her convinced that if she ever left she and my sis would be dead. This is something that neither of my parents ever talks about and I learned from my sister.
April 19, 1974: My mom and dad got married (obviously before this happened mom got divorced from Mr. Mean) and Dad adopted my sister. Shenanigans ensued.
June 25, 1976: I arrived, with my father catching me because the doctor on duty was busy with a car accident victim in the other room.
June 26, 1977: My brother arrived, with my father catching him because the doctor on duty was busy with a ham sandwich in the cafeteria.
There were many many moves around the country during his tenure in the Canadian Armed Forces. He eventually got promoted pretty high up in ze ranks, although I’m sure he would have been just as happy had he continued to raise the homing pigeons (at least the homing pigeons would be happy, seeing as they probably wouldn’t have been rendered dead by Frank). When the air force base in PEI closed in 1989 he decided to retire (after 27years in the military, at the age of 43)so that we could stay in PEI. Which he did. That was the same year that my first nephew was born and Dad became a grandfather for the first time.
Okay this is getting long. So now, my dad’s a grandfather four times over, retired from the military but he had to get a job after that because the pension? Not so great. He’s head of security at a factory which is fun I guess, at least he still gets to boss people around. In January of this year he had an aneurysm in his heart so he’s been home since then and it’s boring for him because he’s not used to not working (he’s looking forward to September when he gets to go back) and is now learning how to use the computer. He’s the world’s slowest typer, as is evidenced by our three-message conversations on MSN where it takes him literally a minute to type one word. He tells the best jokes and teases my fianc?© about being a Newfie which is kind of funny cause Dad’s a Caper. Last time I was in Cape Breton my grandma gave me a set of silverware that Dad had brought back from England and given her and Grandpa (who died 10 years ago) for their 25th anniversary.
My dad knows how to fix my car when it breaks, and also does the chicken dance with me when I bug him enough to do so. He’s a little disappointed that I hate birds but is happy that I like dogs. My brother’s son is named after him.
My dad is cool, and it’s his birthday.
The End
Happy birthday to your Daddy.
Dunno about you, but I like calling them “Daddy.”
You have paid him a beautiful tribute.
I love pigeons. Maybe when I get my own house and can have a dovecote, I can write to your dad to learn how to take care of them.