Happy Father's Day!

bydrjec

8.3K followers

2 years ago

My Dad was an executive with a natural gas company. Every year, he would haul my mom, my sister, my dog and me from Pittsburgh to a remote cabin he had built on a lake in southern Ontario. He had the old Nash Rambler station wagon packed to the ceiling. The road stopped a quarter mile away from the cabin, so he had to carry everything from the car. Of course, I was off swimming or fishing. He would stay for two weeks and go back to work for a month leaving all of us there.... without a car. In August, he would come back for two weeks and haul us home.

During those two weeks, he was fixing, hauling, painting or clearing. Generally, manual labor was relaxing for him. He built the cabin while we were in it.

He was a city boy. He couldn't swim. He didn't like boats. He liked fancy restaurants and over stuffed furniture. Yet, every year he spent his vacation at a cabin on a lake in southern Ontario.

We had lots of conversations about that cabin in his later years. We talked about improvements and great-grand-children enjoying it. He also explained in great detail why he and my mom built the place. He talked about doing things he had never done. He talked about providing a second base in the world where everyone could feel safe and happy. He said he had wanted us to get away from life in Pittsburgh just for a little while each year and focus on nothing but us. He told me that he thought it would be a good way to get me away from my hoodlum friends and my sister away from boys. He knew I would learn something.

I still have the cabin. I rock in that chair he used and watch my grandchildren run around. I ended up working in northern Ontario for almost 30 years, in a place I built. Mom taught me about cooking, and relationships and walking through life as I grew up in Pittsburgh. In the summer in Ontario, I learned everything from building a fire to framing a wall. He taught me about handshake honesty. Mostly though, as I hit my finger with a hammer or dropped a case of nails I was carrying, he encouraged me and praised me for trying and doing. Dad taught me to "Keep on Fishin." Happy Father's Day!!!