Memories of Dad

It’s a hot humid evening in Niagara with the sun beating down out of an optimistic blue sky.  It’s hot like mid summer and I am ready for evening to creep in from the east with its pink paintbrush to touch the sky.

I will start out by saying Father’s Day is a tough day for me to get through.  The huge build-up in the media, the talk radio shows on the topic, and the many BBQ’s going on right now in the neighbourhood in honor of the fathers that surround me. 

There are two reasons for my dread of this day; I don’t have any children so there are no crappy ties that I will never wear coming my way tomorrow or a year’s supply of Old Spice aftershave.  Also, my own Dad passed away June 8 1991.  He is no longer around to call on the phone so I can bounce an idea off of him and he is no longer around to visit this weekend with a card, a chance to chat, and to chew my way through my mother’s very well, well-done roast beef.  His passing is 20 years ago this month in which, Father’s Day falls.

His passing came on the weekend I was running an international yacht race for double-handed yachts racing the length of Lake Ontario and back to Port Credit with some marks roundings along the way.  My father’s living will instructions were clear.  There was to be no caskets, no viewings, no funeral service, and a total absence of “fuss” as he would call it. 

My Mother called me the morning he died to tell me.  I went into my standard response of fixit mode though I didn’t have the foggiest clue as to what I would fix.  Mom just said I should cool my jets, run my race and come down the next week and help with the funeral home papers. 

I did just that.  It was strange to walk into what had been the family home for 43 years and not see my Dad in his LazyBoy recliner reading a Mickey Spillane novel while listening to military bands or Strauss waltzes on the stereo.

After the hospital released the body, he was cremated right away.  Later, my Mother and my sister spread his ashes in one of his favorite places along the Illecillewaet River in British Columbia.

I have not visited this place yet but suspect I will on one of my rides.

So on this Father’s Day’s eve, as I sit here alone my Niagara home, part of me longs to receive a tie with a hideous patter and color combination that I will never wear or a red squeeze bottle of Old Spice that would likely trigger a full blown asthma attack.  But most of all, I would give the world to hear my Dad’s soft, gentle voice again telling me “Well Kim, there’s no future in getting old.”

Here’s to you Dad, on this Father’s Day 2011.

Here is a selection of pictures of my Dad.  I have tried to figure out dates and time but I will let my Big Bro’ the family historian correct any in accuracies.

Dad in uniform before his posting to Kiska, Ak as part of the joint US/Canadian garrison in WW II

Mom and Dad on their wedding day in January 1942

Dad in Yorkshire with his lorry in the training period before the Normandy invasion

Dad in his uniform of the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders of Canada probably in England

Dad's Bren Gun carrier somewhere in Normandy after D-Day

Dad (bringing up the rear) at Port Loring with the day's catch from Long Lake with a camp guest

Our Family taken in the mid 80's

Mom and Dad with my sister-in-law and their grand children

Of Sunshine and Supermen

It is a beautiful sunny late spring day in Niagara.  I am enjoying a garden salad with salmon while I sit at the patio table in the garden listening to the waterfall that flows into my fishpond.  The fish are gone now to a deserving home as I am wrapping up life here in Niagara, selling the house, and planning another winter in Florida and Texas.

The superman part of the blog title is a little joke on myself.  Last weekend I rode up to Sturgeon Falls Ontario to ride through my old haunts and to see biker friends I have made over the Internet.  The ride is 306 miles one way and by the time I got there, the old bod was telling me I had overdone my current endurance limits.  The month layoff from riding due to my crash-induced broken ribs has left me with some work to do in the fitness department.  As Jim Croce said, “Have you seen superman step on his cape?”  That was me!

The weekend was rotten in the weather department.  It rained and rained.  The trip however, was exciting!  It took me back to the car trips with my Dad from ST. Catharines (our home) to the fish camp in Port Loring.  Every road sign was a memory!  Severn Bridge, Huntsville where I stopped for gas, Burks Falls, South River, Trout Creek, the Magnetawan River, Powassun, Port Loring were all associated with a memory of happy days as a kid sitting in the cat bird seat. 

That time in my life was one of privilege.  Although my parents struggled financially with the costs of paying for and maintaining the camp, they offered us such a wonderful opportunity to grow as independent, insightful children fully engaged with the world around us.  The camp featured our house where the five of us (later 7 with two late arrival siblings) lived and it also held the small variety store that was called the Tuck Shop for some reason.  There were 14 cottages with housekeeping facilities, plus a large boathouse to store the fleet of boats that went with the cottages, a recreation hall that featured a ping pong table (pooh to all those that call it table tennis) and an old Wurlitzer juke box that Mom and Dad kept stocked with the latest hits of the 50’s, a laundry, an ice house, and a gas shed.

The property sat on a peninsula jutting out into Wilson Lake, the largest lake on the Pickerel River system.  The land was rocky with big granite outcroppings with beautiful quartz seams, pine trees, and white birches along with oak, maple, elm and basswood trees.  On the down side was the lack of plumbing so every cottage had an outhouse! They tended to overcome the natural scent of the forest on hot, still days.

I recall that we had about 1,000 feet of shoreline and a rather large dock that was permanently installed in the lake plus a number of stringer docks that came out each winter.

My father had to work at his refrigeration business in St. Catharines during the week then he would make the 300-mile trek almost every weekend to the camp.  My mother ran the camp for the most part.  And run it she did with all the drive, the temper, and the energy that seemed larger than her 4’ 11” frame.  All of us older kids had out chores that grew as we grew though my big brother pointed out not long ago that my mother seemed to favor me and I ended up doing less.

Our season there usually started with a quick trip on the Easter weekend.  Sometimes we kids were left behind because the snow was too deep and getting there involved a fair hike over less-than-ideal roads.  The first regular trip up was the Victoria Day long weekend (the weekend before the USA Memorial Day weekend).  That trip was used to assess the damage suffered by the camp over the long snowy winter.  The ice on the lake got thick enough that the logging trucks would cross the lake to deliver logs to the lumber mill!  Every year there was some damage to the large dock and that meant donning our swim trunks to help Dad lever the cribs back into place and to tighten the mooring cables.  A frigid job considering the ice was there but a couple of week’s previous.

Our northern life swung into full gear in June as fishermen from all over the eastern USA and Ontario would roll into town for the pike and pickerel seasons.  Some years, Mom would badger our principal to get us out of school early so we could be there with her.  Sometimes we would not get up there until the end of the school year at the end of June.

Our days were filled with adventure; swimming, snorkeling, fishing, canoeing, sailing, and goofing about in the forest.  We met kids who were up there with their families from places like Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, and Virginia.  Many of the families would come up year-after-year and great friendship ensued that lasted for years.  We measured our summer by the weeks in which particular families would be scheduled to arrive.

When I think back to those days, I am sure my parents would have been locked up and we kids would have been wards of the state for the latitude we were given to do things.  My big brother would often take me on excursions by motorboat then canoe portage with a plastic sheet as a tent, a few basic food items and our fishing poles.  If you want to eat you had better catch dinner!  He was and is still a master camper.  I remember the day he got licensed as a guide at 16.  I was so proud of him!  That was a big deal to be a guide.  It meant you knew what you were doing and had the skills to take tourists to far places and get paid in the process!

One of the joys of the summer was the weekly wiener roast for the whole camp on Thursday run with military precision by Mom.  Occasionally Dad would take a 4 day weekend or come up for a couple of weeks to spend time with us and to make a few bucks servicing the cooling equipment for the local stores.   Those were special times we kids looked forward to.  When Dad was there for an extended period he would take a large group of guests into one of the back lake systems that could onlu=y be reached via a mile long portage to the boat livery.  We would pick up boats with 3 hp motors and fish these back lakes for pike, large mouth and small mouth bass.  The fishing was great and we would see deer and other wildlife during the day.  We had favorite spots where Dad would breakout the picnic lunch my Mom had made and we would sit among the blueberry bushes eating sandwiches and fighting over the chocolate bar selection he had brought from the Tuck Shop (what the heck is a Tuck Shop anyways???).

These were idyllic times with friends and family.  Perhaps some of my character for introspection was born in those times of hiking and fishing in such a setting.

As I rode north this past weekend, the scent of the pine trees, the rocks and the moss took me back to those distant memories and caused me to reflect on the good fortune that afforded this opportunity for me and my siblings.  I think the experiences of my youth in this wonderful setting helped develop a sense of adventure and a love for scenery and solitude.

It is a wonderful thing to be surrounded by Nature’s beauty and the gifts of the Creator.   Perhaps I will get back to Port Loring this summer and can blog from there with pictures of my places in memory.