My Father Part Two.

My father, like many people, had several sides to his personality. Sometimes a positive attribute can also be counterproductive. As a person, my father was a perfectionist and only the right way would usually do. This, and my reaction to his admonishing, on occasion caused frustration to him and as a child at times left me resenting him. My father had a life long friend who was the exact opposite to him. For him, any kind of way would do, to get a job finished. A screwdriver was a hammer and that was that. Among some of my father’s talents, was his love for music, and he could play the banjo. In his former years, he beautifully played the trumpet and trombone. He was able to teach music, and formed a small band of former pupils, that would regularly visit the house to play. Over time, they all became long term friends.

Something I will always thank my father for, was his uniquely deft handling of the habit of smoking for me. He enjoyed smoking, and although I was very young he announced loudly one time that if I was ever going to smoke, that I might as well do it in front of him. As you might imagine, I was a bit surprised at that sudden statement, not least because I had not indicated any desire to smoke. On the first taste though, it was enough to put me off for life.

It was quite regularly that my childhood home was turned into a hive of industry as my father pursued his talents into cane weaving various accomplished and usable items such as lamps, trays and baskets of varying sizes. All of which would be sold to supplement the family’s income. Then he pursed his love of nature by building an aviary, constructing everything from the concrete base to the closed in part of the aviary itself. First, he had canaries, but budgerigars had become quite popular so he changed to breeding those. The one thing that I remember is the difference between the sex of the bird is generally indicated as the adult male will have a blue cere, that is the covering over the top of the beak, and the female’s is usually brown. At the first sight of newly hatched birds, each time they reminded me of the presentation of little prehistoric dinosaurs.

We lived in the end prefab, that was located at the top of a hill and a cul-de-sac. One day my father noticed a man standing on his own, facing down the hill, holding an open book and speaking. I was instructed to go outside and listen to the man. It soon became clear that he was reading from the Christian bible. The talking seemed to go on for ages, with just me present, until some local children began climbing the near by trees that bounded the park. It was right in front of the prefabs and they thought it was a bit of fun to call remarks out about the preacher, but fortunately after a while they grew tired of that activity and moved off. The preacher just carried on reading. Suddenly, something he was saying caught my attention. God stopped the Sun from moving to allow more daylight. The problem for me was that earlier on, some time at school, I had been taught the spin of the earth altered the affect of sunlight reaching earth. So stopping the Sun from moving would not achieve what God had intended. However, I did not think imparting that information would be well received by the preacher. Finally, the preacher finished and stepped towards me and thanked me for listening to his sermon.

A short time before my father passed away, he suffered a stroke that impaired his speech and hearing. He could play a musical instrument but no longer hear it clearly. I was in a difficult situation when he asked me what did his subsequent attempts at music playing sound like. How could I tell him the truth, because it was awful.

I believe for some misguided reason my father thought he could cushion his passing, by making me look forward to it, rather than dreading it. On the day my mother tearfully told me my father had gone, my first emotion was that of relief and it was only after several years had passed, that I could really cry with full emotion for him.