A Word Or Two

About Dad.

As of about two weeks ago dad finally became a part of the few, the proud, the retired! We were so happy for him we bought a cake, and made a nice dinner to celebrate. He worked the last 30+ years at the same place. Year after year he left home at 10:00 pm every week night to attend to the night pharmacy at one of our local hospitals. He never missed work, never called in, he went to work sick, or tired, or in whatever mood he may have been he never failed, and never buckled on the job. In all those years, if he made any mistakes as the hospital night pharmacist, I never heard of it. I must mention, that dad was the night pharmacist because he chose to be, after all those years he had enough seniority to have any shift he wanted, but he liked the night shift, and pretty much hated the politics of working during the day when all the managers and brown noses were there.

My husband remarked one time that all dad wanted was to just come home and eat his toast in the morning in peace. Everyone knew if they needed to catch dad before he went of to sleep you had to show up at around 8:30 am where dad and mom would be sitting at the kitchen table over breakfast. She would drink coffee, he would eat his toast, and then, he would get up, stretch and head off to bed.

Dad has always been a man of many interests. I honestly think of him as one of the very smartest men I know. It has always amazed me that I can bring up any subject, and dad will pick up talking about it like he's studied it his whole life. He would never say what his IQ is, in fact, when I've tried to pin him down and ask him what it is, he waves it off as unimportant, but mom told me once that as a young man it was quite high.

As brilliant and interesting as dad is, he is the most humble man I know. We often poke fun at his little quirks, and truth be told we all love to make him laugh. Mom has often referred to him as a "nutty professor type" which in some ways sticks. For instance, one day my dad came home from a meeting, this was back when he was a bus passenger type, now first I need to explain. My dad went through a phase where he tried to take advantage of our ill run mass transit bus system here in town. Honestly, I think he found it hard to resist since the bus ran past their house every hour or so, and sometimes when the weather was bad, he would take the bus in to work.

Bus passengers have often been a topic of discussion at our house. When I was in my awkward teen years every thing and anything was embarrassing and humiliating to me, including the fact that Dad had become friendly with the bus drivers and as a result they would drop him off in front of the house instead of at the bus stop up the street! Dad relished many opportunities to tell me that the bus passengers were asking about me. It goes back to the time when I got in trouble and mom and dad took my car away and made me ride the city bus for a month, but even before that, there was the time I died of embarrassment when dad was replacing our old toilet, and I was walking home with my friends only to see a toilet on the front porch at my house. For some reason this embarrassed me to no end and inspired much laughter from my dad.

I stormed into the house and demanded to know just what exactly that THING was doing on our front porch! This just made dad laugh and laugh, to the point that he was constantly dreaming up embarrassing household items he could put out with the trash to embarrass me, to which he would point out that all the bus passengers were asking why MY toilet was outside! Of course, I had to hit back telling him that I got up to go walk to school and there were bus passengers waiting outside in line to use the toilet! This went on for most of my teen years. I was a shit, I admit it.

So, one day dad came in from one of his bus rides and I remember him telling my mom, "I think I need new glasses, I can't see out of these anymore, have been having trouble all day" he kept going on until finally, I happened to look up and notice, "Dad, you are missing a lense in your glasses!" He took them off and gave them a good inspection and found that yes indeed he was missing a lense! He had to laugh because he had even been telling people he needed new glasses and not one person seemed to notice while looking him straight in the eye that he was missing a lense, either that or they had not bothered to mention that to him. A little while later he comes back with his lense, it had fallen out in his bedroom some time that morning. We all chuckled about that one, it's all in good fun.

Now that dad is retired we're all wondering, what is he going to do with all his free time? In the last few years he has been active in his church. He spends his weekends taking care of the church yard, which is a pretty big lot. He mows, he rakes, and pulls weeds, and it sometimes worries us about him out working in the heat like that, but he wants to do it. He's a very dedicated Episcopal man, but if it weren't for his care of his congregation and the priest, I guess he would become Catholic. The Episcopal church is not what it used to be, and dad knows there are a lot of problems, but he cares for the church.

Just the other day I was teasing dad about him running off to join a monastery. He's been going to these retreats and things with monks. He knows all about monks and stuff, even buys monk coffee. He brought out his literature about the different monks, and what they do and all, and it is quite interesting, I really don't know what I'd do if he ran off to join them. I guess it would make a great conversation starter, Hi, my dad is a monk...in fact today he was going to a meeting at a monastery about supporting the things, I don't know, I'm not Catholic or Episcopal. I'm just Christian, and not a very good one at that, although I'm not proud of that fact.

It's strange in a way, I think my parents could not agree on religion, although it was not heated or hateful, they just didn't seem to agree, and so, didn't really push us children one way or another. It was as adults that we found our own way, my sister became Catholic, and I share the same Christian beliefs as my mother. And it is what it is. We all get along fine, but we do have some interesting discussions about religion, we try not to crush each other with our beliefs.

I think my dad has always had a calling toward religion, I know at one point he contemplated becoming a priest, but didn't. I think he is quite interested in the monasteries as there are so few left. He's really into contemplative prayer and things, and I'm happy if it brings him peace. Although, I think mom's got some other plans for him like painting the kitchen and stuff, but he seems to be off to a great start with this retirement thing. More on dad later.