Mine also instilled a love of reading and more importantly of language and the written word - whenever we came across a big word we didn’t understand as a kid the old man would haul out an A4 sized Oxford dictionary with some sense of ceremony and read out the meaning and talk about the etymology of the word - particularly latin and french derivations - which made language come alive even to an 8 or 9 year old.
And he always had a pool table - I played him solidly for 8 years before I finally beat him at snooker - at age 15.
When i was a kid and learning to read, whenever i managed to read a new word, my dad would leap up, run to the phone and call a fictional guy called King Gustaf and explain at length how i had managed to read the word.
When i first tackled ‘extraordinary’ it was pretty funny.
My dad loves metal and always will. Bought me my first cannibal corpse album.
He can’t stand when he comes into the garage and I’m playing Tiesto or Wolfgang Gartiner.
Also, Brendan has the can skills! I drive with a cab of mother/rockstar/v/red bull/monster between my legs every morning.
My dad taught me to swim, eventually driving me to squad at 6am. But best lesson of all was how to recognise the good waves to surf. I spent hours on my surf mat, ready to go, and my dad saying 'This wave is for Eric… This wave is for Frank… then finally, this wave IS FOR MARK! I still surf now; performance quads, fishes, malls, 70s single fins, whatever conditions & mood dictate.
First clean wave at 9 is red hot. Makes you proud hey?
Yep it sure does make you proud. A big fat bonus of being a parent.
In further news the new skate is now purchased - Fast Times in Swanston St did a reasonable deal on an Alien Workshop 7.75cm deck, Alien wheels and reflex (?) trucks.
