Requiem for an Irish Man

My Dad was born in a little farm house in Ireland. He had six brothers and three sisters. The boys were wild and fought like cats. But my Dad had fond memories of growing up on the farm.

He never did well in school. However, he valued the education of my sister and I. He always said to me “Knowledge was no burden to carry”.

Later in life, he bought a set of World Book encycloypedias. He used to read them in bed. He would come down in the morning talking about canons and camels and castles. We knew he was reading the C book.

When my grandfather retired from farming, the Taylors moved to a big house in town. The boys became fancy dressers who loved big cars. They would come home from church on Sunday afternoon, open the hood of their cars and start changing the oil or fiddling with the carborator in their Sunday best. He continued to do this all his life. My Mom used to get furious at him.

He lived at home until he got married at the age of 36. Apparently, on his wedding night, he sat on the edge of the bed and cried about having to leave home.

Shortly after he married, he and Edwina came to Canada for the job opportunities in carpentry and teaching. He always regretted leaving Ireland. He went back many times to visit. He used to say to people that he has lived in Canada for 50 years but he only lost his accent 10 years ago.

When he left carpentry, he worked in real estate. He would get listings by going door to door. He would talk his way into the house and convince people to put their house up for sale over a cup of tea. One time he was forcefully told to go away in sign language by a deaf couple.

His most famous client was Tim Horton when Tim Horton was starting his famous business in 1966. I remember in 1967, my Dad taking me to the opening of the first Tim Horton's donut shop in Burlington. Tim Horton brought the starting lineup of the Toronto Maple Leafs there just after they won their last Stanley Cup.

He went from real estate into the hardware business. He bought a little Home Hardware store on the Hamilton Mountain. I used to help him on my summer vacations. My aunt and uncle and cousin lived in an apartment in the back of the store. One day my aunt gave us a mattress, she didn't need anymore. We put it on the roof of the car in the morning. In the evening, we got in the car and started to drive home. Pulling away from a stoplight outside the hardware store, my Dad cried, “Oh the mattress!” I looked back and saw the mattress bouncing down the road on its edge before being driven over by a bus.

He learned to play golf with my sister, me and my friends at a little executive golf course in Clappisons Corners north of Burlington. Little did we know that it would become his major passed time in later life. Before he retired and started going to Florida, he even played golf in the winter in Hamilton. He got his picture on the front page of the paper putting on a snow covered green. They had to shovel little paths with their clubs to get to the hole.

My high school friends in Burlington used to tell me about playing golf with a little Irishman who was telling jokes and singing songs who turned out to be my Dad.

His other favourite passed time was taking Sunday drives. He continued that tradition long after everyone stopped doing it when gas prices increased drastically in the 1970's. He loved to take friends and family on long drives in the afternoon to see the sights. He would often drop in unannounced to see old friends and have a cup of tea.

When he could no longer drive, he enjoyed Daphne taking him for long drives to do her errands. He passed that “going out” gene on to Daphne and at least one of his granddaughters. So we know his “going out” and his “love of golf” genes will live on through his offspring.

Die Dove

Ever since Sarah was a baby, Barb and Sarah have had a cute way of saying goodnight or goodbye. They say “Die Dove You” or “Die Dove” for short which is baby talk for “I Love You”.

Since Sarah has the Rogers My Ten on her cell phone, she can phone home any time of day to talk to Barb for long as she wants. She is working at University of Guelph this summer. She usually phones home to talk to Barb on her lunch hour when she is sitting outside eating.

One day she was talking to Barb but Barb had to go out of the house. So Barb handed me the phone to finish talking to Sarah during her lunch hour.

As I was talking to Sarah and heard the call waiting beep.  So I hung up on Sarah.  We had finished talking.  I picked up the waiting call from my brother-in-law Truman. He wanted to tell me about how my Dad was doing in the nursing home.

As Barb was rushing out the door, she ran over to me and yelled into the phone "Die Dove" thinking Sarah was still on the phone. I don't know what Truman must have thought.

Coaching in the Dark

I am managing the Manotick Blitz Fastball Club. The other night I was at the 7 pm game. Around the third inning, I asked one of the players to turn on the lights. He tried but he couldn't seem to get them to come on. So I asked another guy who I thought might know how they worked. He got them working. But I thought it was still very dark at the park that night.

A little while later, I was looking at the scorebook. It is easier for me to read fine print without my glasses. So I took off my glasses to look at the scorebook.  I realized that I was still wearing my clip-on sunglasses. It was funny that none of the guys on the team mentioned it when I was so worried about turning the lights on.

Glasses on a Chain

Barb always seems to be looking for her glasses. She has a number of pairs around the house for different purposes.

She likes to read at bedtime. So she has a pair of glasses in the bedroom she uses to read with. She always falls asleep when she is reading at night. So the glasses only have one arm now because the other one broke off.

The other day she lost these reading glasses. She couldn't find them anywhere in the bedroom. She looked all over. It didn't help that they have clear rims. Eventually after much frustration she gave up looking and got another pair from downstairs.

About two weeks later, I was changing into my fastball uniform. I had closed the door to the bedroom. As I was leaving the bedroom, I saw her glasses on the floor behind the door. They must have fallen out of her housecoat that she hangs on the back of the door.

Putting her glasses on a chain around her neck would avoid so much frustration.

Lights Out Coincidence

Barb and I went to Guelph to help Sarah set up her new place for the summer.

Barb had done everything she could to arrange the room for Sarah. She came down to the livingroom to tell me about it. Sarah and her roommate were still up in her room.

Barb felt that the livingroom was too dark. She tried to turn on the standing lamp. It didn't work. She noticed it wasn't plugged in.

She plugged it in and immediately heard a loud bang. We both thought that she must have blew a circuit.

We found out that Sarah had dropped a heavy mirror upstairs at the exact time Barb had plugged in the lamp. Barb didn't blow a circuit. The lamp worked just fine when Barb turned it on. It was an amazing coincidence.

A Wedding and a Funeral

Barb had to buy me new clothes for the wedding of the daughter of one her tennis friends.

We left a little late and got to the wedding just on time.  We sat with Barb’s tennis friends at the ceremony.  Somehow they were seated on the groom’s side of the room.  So unfortunately, we couldn’t see the bride’s face during the ceremony.

At the reception, the father of the bride made a funny speech.  When he reached into his pocket to get out his speech, a long roll of paper fell onto the floor.  He said that it wasn’t his speech it was the bill for the wedding.  Then we went on to tell many silly puns.

Barb and I enjoyed some of the dancing.  I remarked that young people don’t dance anymore.

Later in the evening, Barb was complaining that she didn’t like the music.  However, the young people were all up and dancing.  I guess they were waiting for all the old people like us to leave so that the DJ would play their kind of music.  

 

We do the same thing in Florida.  We have to wait for all of the old people to go home before the DJ plays the music from the 70’s and 80’s that we like.

It turned out that the clothes Barb bought me for the wedding would be useful soon after to go to a funeral.

One of Barb’s old volleyball friends’ son was attacked while protecting a girl from her ex-boyfriend. Barb followed the story on the news.  She also read all of the posts on his Facebook page.  The 21 year-old boy eventually died and the ex-boyfriend was charged with first-degree murder.

We knew the family well although we hadn't seen them for a while.  They organized get-together for families like us who all had babies at the same time.  We got together a few times with all the parents and kids.  Barb searched through her photo albums and found a couple of pictures of the group.

Barb and one of her volleyball friends went to the wake.  Then the next day, Barb and I went to the funeral.  It was a very nice ceremony.  One of the family friends, who we used to get together with back in the old days, was a pastor and presided over the ceremony.  He read a number of quotes from the boy’s Facebook page.  One of the boy’s friends played the guitar and sang two songs.  There were two very good eulogies.  Then one of the boy’s sisters read a touching poem that she wrote for the occasion entitled “My Hero”.

The death of someone so young helped put things into perspective for me.  My troubles with the fastball administration seemed very trivial in comparison.

Too Busy to Eat

I have been so busy working on my fastball leagues that I have not been taking time to eat.  I have lost 25 pounds since I retired.

Barb has had to buy me new clothes.  I fit into clothes that I haven’t been able to for years.

This week I had a doctor’s appointment to go over my blood test results.  The doctor said that my results were very good.  If I come up with similar readings at my next three month tests, he will start to reduce my medications.

The guys at fastball have noticed how much weight that I have lost. 

It was funny that on my Glen Cairn team, our pitcher is a big guy like me.  Julia said that we looked alike when she came to watch a game.  He had lost about 50 pounds in the off season and everyone was very surprised to see him this year.  We still look alike.