Dad

There is a song that never got finished, back in the old Knockin' Dog days, It started "sooner or later we all turn into our fathers", maybe it just needed to be an instrumental piece with that as a title, or maybe one day down the road it will roll, who knows, hopefully it rocks.

I guess it's in our nature to emulate the people who raised us; I know I think I had the best father ever. I think everybody should think that about his or her father, it means they loved you and it came through.  I'm glad I can't understand any other way, and I hope when my time comes my children think the same for me.

I guess that's why we have to become our fathers... perhaps the paranoia gets translated in other ways, or the systems applied on other grids, but the root values manage to find a way through.

Dad was my gardening guru... somewhere there is a photograph of me knee high to a grasshopper standing in the garden with dad working a rake.  He was what I might call a "method" or "production" gardener... if he produced 87 squash he might gleefully announce "Darn right, you go to the store and start pricing squash you will see".  At the time I was more horrified at the concept that we had enough squash to eat every night until next years harvest.  Did I mention putting butter, brown sugar or salt on squash was a non starter?  The experts claimed butter was bad for the heart, sugar would bring on diabetes, and salt would raise your blood pressure and stress your kidneys?  Dad would always be very liberal in pointing that out, every night, as a matter of routine, and he is correct... plain baked squash is better for your body than squash soaked in flavour enhancers.  It wasn't until much later in life that I realized that most families didn't have an overzealous health conscious roll model to analyze every decision with regard to what is better for your long-term health.  Truth be told, I don't always take the correct path when given the choice but having this encyclopedia of food health knowledge as part of my being, I at least know what I'm doing right or wrong.

I was pushing for a peach tree, but at that time Toronto didn't have the climate for peaches, and the two old apple trees didn't really produce eating apples but were more wasp attractants, I'm sure those facts had dad waffling over whether or not to get another fruit tree. He liked cherry trees but was worried about fighting birds for the cherries.  I get it now... now that I have become him...  he was so focused on all of these other factors he went and bought a Damson plum rather than the Italian prune plum tree his heart desired.  I don't really know what happened that day at the nursery... maybe they were out of Italian prune plum's but he was all geared up to plant a plum tree... he had a head of steam... this was going to happen.  So he bought the Damson tree and we went home and put it in the ground. Next thing you know we stood around it all proud... a fine family moment of positive unity.  It was good… perhaps it was too good!  This is how it works... you feel great, you have something great, then the paranoia kicks in. whoa this is so good somebody might want it... want it so bad they might steal it... and then he notices we are all standing around glowing at this tree, so he says under his breath "we should stop staring at it, we are going to draw attention to it, and I don't want somebody back here stealing plums".  For the next decade the bloody tree barely produced an eating plum until finally dad "cut the damn thing down", cursing the fact that he didn't put in an Italian prune plum tree.  He gave up fruit farming after that, claiming it wasn't worth the effort... if you are stressing it, then no it's not worth the effort, well played.

Nothing was better than getting dad laughing:

I remember those as two of his favourite cartoons, there were others, the Herman series really hit home with dad, he really liked the expressions on the characters in light of the situations.  Sometimes I would pull out a Herman book and ask dad if he wanted to read it with me rather than study. He was a strict authoritarian always study hard school teacher but once you got dad going it was all gasping, tears and repeating punch lines...  Soon the glasses would come off and the tears would need to be wiped, sometimes we would even need to take a break, so dad could rest up for the next round.  Laughter is the best medicine, readers digest says, it's always worked for me. 

I think one of the greatest attributes of my father was that he did what he did because he thought it was right... it wasn't because other people were doing it or it was cool it was because he thought it was right.  The 60's movement missed dad, I think it did anyway... he was doing his thing and it wasn't at Woodstock if you know what I mean.

Dad was composting in the 60's, his focus being "free organic soil".  My whole life it was unconscionable to put table scraps into the garbage... that was free fertilizer, and there were systems to deal with any garden pest that wanted to try and get some.  The system, for the record, was cinder blocks on an old wire gate with the compost just dug in a hole in the ground... in the end it would be a mound... a squash mound... a very productive squash mound.

Dad was ruing bird habitat loss in the 70's, he liked bird watching, he liked science and nature, and he liked to be out in it walking, breathing fresh air, and observing what was there.  He actually kept bee's up the street when it was just a field, but as the highway 401 expended he felt his bees were getting slaughtered crossing the highway, and it was at that time people were against bees, because they stung... only 4 decades later are progressive cities now trying to encourage beekeeping for obvious reasons. 

In the 80's he became a master of selective hearing... probably a child rearing issue.  My sister and I were in high school in the 80's. You could ask him a question at point blank range and get nothing, but yet if you were whispering upstairs his hawk ear would pick it off and dismantle the effort.  Clearly if you were whispering it was important... I see that now, when it grows quiet you know you might have problems.

In the 90's he was retired and thus started a new era of the laid back dad... he never missed working that's for sure, there was a short time he had a part time job but once he found out that gas company's are swindlers he lost his appetite for work altogether, which is good.  He always lived within his means, perhaps a few notches under for safe keeping... who needs more things and more money when you are actually happy?

We had lots of good times visiting a couple of times per year, as I had moved out west around 93.  I mentioned Dad missed Woodstock but he did catch Knockin' Dog at Localpolluza at the Samoo pub, Roadbed at the Railway club and the Cottage Bistro, and he even made it to a couple of Super Robertson Supper Shows... just saying he had some indie credibility.

Now my father is gone, but he lives in me, the good he had, I have taken and tried to make my own.  Always the same, just be that guy and people will learn how to deal with you.  Be interesting, and be interested in what others are doing, after all they might be on to something.  Learning how to do things better is better than doing things the same.  Get out and walk, probably the best habit I inherited from dad, exercise and a chance to think and mumble to oneself.  Eat well, love nature, grow food, laugh, be honest, care, respect and enjoy your life while you can.

Dad, you did that for me, thanks

Bruce Gordon Robertson 1933-2012