my Dad ...

A friend asked me last night, "What did you like to do with your Dad?" and I responded with an email, then another and another.... I soon found myself smiling as I typed, remembering all these fun, quirky things. :-) So I am going to share with you what I liked to do with my Dad....

My Mom and Dad split when I was very young, I don't even remember them together.. But my Dad was always there, in my life. He was a hairdresser, and made Wednesday his day off, because I only had school Wednesday mornings. He would pick me up and we would go to my Nona's for pasta. THE best Pasta in the world. On the way we always stopped at a little comic book store on Main street in Winnipeg. They knew my Dad when we walked in and would always let him know before we were fully in the store if the new Twilight Zone comic was in yet. Then down the street to the Italian store to buy my favorite cheese. As a kid I had no idea what it was called, as far as I knew the big white ball of cheese that hung by a string on another smaller ball was called "knobby cheese", which is what I call it to this day, ( Of course in my sophistication I now know it's Provolone ) Then off to have Pasta. We had whistles with sauce, ( Penne ) and we would watch Get Smart and Gilligan's island. Then.... a highlight for my Dad, Sylvia Kusak would come on the news.... he had a crush on her. Funny how I remember her name... especially since it was the NEWS??? but there she was, making my Dad smile.

Kites... my Dad would pick me up and we would drive to Birds hill park and fly the kite he had just made. He always made his own and we would fly them til it was dark out, or the kite fell apart, whichever came first. :-)

Fishing... My Dad loved to fish! I could never fish off the dock, my lures always got caught, so we rent or borrow a boat. My Dad would be busy trolling, keeping us in line and then he would also have to put the lure on my line.... cause EW, I'm not touching worms... then I would cast into to the lake, and catch the biggest fish in the boat, which my Dad would then have to remove from my line, cause EW I'm not touching a fish! And the fatal blow to the fish... of course you know who did that, but then after my Dad cooked it, I gobbled it up, and my Dad proudly told everyone, that was the fish Selena caught :-)

Stephen King... I was 14, 15 16, maybe even 17 when I was my Dad's shampoo girl at the shop. Francesco's. Every Saturday my Dad would pick me up and I would sweep the hair off the floor, make coffee shampoo customers hair, and later even got to apply some hair Dye. My Dad read in between customers and his favorite books were of the Macabre side of life. I guess we can blame him for my twistedness. While every one else was reading Judy Blume I was reading King, John Saul and Peter Straub!

In grade 4 me and my Dad went to the theater on Main where you can sit in the balcony. We watched Phantom of the Paradise... I LOVED this movie! The music was awesome!! And we actually stayed to watch it again.... later.... when I rewatch this movie, I can't believe all the stuff that flew over my 9 year old head.... but I still LOVE that movie, and the soundtrack :-)

My Dad had the greatest laugh, it was almost silent but raspy, his laugh made me laugh :-) Once we were playing a game called Slang Teasers, the object is to trick people into beleiving your version of the truth. My Dad would laugh so hard sometimes we would all be crying, he wouldn't be able to speak, just laugh and laugh.

The horses.... I almost forgot, after working on Saturday in the summer we would go to the race track. My Dad had a science on which horse to bet on, I picked 'em by the pretty name. Sometimes I won, seems tho.... if I won, my money doubled, but if I lost, I got back what I bet. Funny how that worked?

Golf.... I spent the whole summer at the cabin. My Dad would drive up and we wold go golfing at the Winnipeg Beach golf course. I was little so I got to hop onto his golf clubs and he would wheel me around the course. It was a sad day indeed when I got too big to do that.

Driving trips.... my Dad does not FLY. He will drive anywhere tho, and drive we did. Every summer he would pick me up at the cabin and we would drive to Vernon, to see my Aunt and Uncle. We always went different ways. We would drive thru' the States, or drive thru' Jasper, not often did we take the straight path of the Transcanada hwy. We even drove to Mexico. Yes, we drove thru a snowstorm in Yellowstone, and ended up in the sundrenched heat of Acapulco! I used to collect flags of all the places we had driven to. I had a collection of the whole West side from Winnipeg down of the good ole' U S of A.

Dean Martin.... the sound of Dino playing thru the speakers was a common sound. I always think of my Dad when That's Amore comes on, my Dad would sing to it...And Mr Elvis Presley. Another of Dad's favorites :-) Haha I remember when the bird song came out... you know bird bird bird, bird is the word.... my dad liked that song so much that when he recorded it for the car, he double played his favorite parts! And he would hear the first note of a song... and sing the first line. He was QUICK! with that talent.

My Dad moved from Winnipeg to Vernon, and I didn't see him as much, but then I moved to BC and had Maddie, and after spending 12 days in the hospital, on the 14th day, all I wanted was to go see my Dad. So off we drove, we had to rent a car, cause ours wouldn't have made it up the Coquihalla Highway, but we got there. My Dad had a hard time with Maddie's name, and kept muffling it into Madigan, which then became a joke and she was Madigan for awhile. When Maddie could speak, she called him Grumpy Gramps, not cause he was Grumpy, but it sure made people laugh when she said it :-)

Son of a Bishkabobs.... you rarely heard my Dad swear.... that was my favorite :-) Son of a Bishkabobs... does anyone else even say that?

That's my Dad, just a few "make me smile" stories.... there's more, but that's good for now :-)

Feb 23 1944 - May 5 2010