it was a dark and stormy night....

Dear Pops,

The Kid just asked me if I liked Halloween when I was a kid. While I'm tempted to give the stranger danger, check your candy talk, I can't help but be reminded of Halloweens past. I don't really remember what costumes we wore as much as I remember the ridiculous enormous hauls of candy and being allowed to stay up way way way way way past my bedtime.

We would trick or treat the neighbours, our street (both sides), the next street and the next. When our pillowcases were too full to carry we'd head home, dump them out on the living room floor for the candy check. You would check to make sure we had enough then encourage us to hit the streets again or get in the car so you could drive us to another neighbourhood!

We would stay up late sorting our candy into Mom's biggest roasting pans, one for the chocolate, one for the Twizzlers and Rockets and one for chips and other salty snacks. It wasn't long before we were covered in empty wrappers and calling it a night. Our friends parents used to keep the candy in the cupboard high over the fridge, ours was not only kept out but over the next couple of days more candy would show up, you hit the 75% off post-Halloween sales (you did the same at Easter too).

We enjoyed our candy as much as we enjoyed scary stuff. We loved Stephen King books, you kept trying to get me to read in a cemetery! We loved spooky movies and ghost stories, you always told me they were true and you'd hide behind the couch to give me a good scare in case the movie didn't traumatize me enough! Nothing was ever too scary for me to watch, Freddy, Jason, Norman Bates, well actually they were too scary but you'd let me watch anyway. This is likely why, when the Kid asked me what Psycho was about I told him, "it's about a creepy motel run by Norman Bates, people check in but they don't check out". Then I tucked him in, said goodnight and turned out the light. Parents, here's a tip, if your kids ever ask what Psycho is about, LIE! Tell them it's about rainbows and cotton candy, the Kid was in my bed for next three nights!

I don't like scary movies anymore. I think the last one I watched was The Ring. I watched it on TV with commercials and the lights on, how scary can that be? I kicked my ass that night. I went to bed talking to myself, out loud, giving myself hell for watching that movie, "I could have lived a long and happy life never having seen The Ring!"

Scared Shrekless and Garfield's Halloween is as scary as it gets in our house this year and no, I don't hide behind the couch and yell "Boo"!

Love Poops

like you...somehow

Dear Dad,

I've always thought of September as the start of a new year. September is the month of my birthday (and yours) and the month when kids start a fresh new school year a whole grade higher (hopefully).

September is also the month the winter wood is delivered to the house, by delivered I mean dumped in a heap in the middle of the driveway. Last September you didn't get to finish stacking the wood so this was the first of the manly tasks Mum and I had to tackle. Looking at the massive pile, I could hear your voice and I was able to roll up my sleeves and get the job done, "that wood 'aint gonna stack itself you know!" With every piece of wood, I thought of you, I talked to you and I knew I had to figure out how I was going to live in a world without you in it.

I didn't realize just how much work you did because you always seemed to be enjoying it. How hard can it be to gather up garbage and take it to the curb? You would gather it, sort it, pull out what you didn't think was garbage, separate the bottles and cans and tie the cardboard whistling while you worked. Again, your voice can be heard, on garbage gathering night, every week without fail "too late for the garbage, no, hop in!" Then you would laugh and carry on to the next room with your green garbage bag in hand.

The summer brought a whole host of new chores and some firsts for me. There is your voice again, "that lawn 'aint gonna mow itself you know!" The ride-on mower became my BFF on some days, my worst enemy on others. Geez, I watched you on that thing year after year thinking to myself, "he calls that work?" You're sitting down, catching rays, how hard can it be? Well, he doesn't have a cup holder, that's rough. OMG! Grass in my hair, grass in my mouth, grass in my ass, sun burnt and sore, the shower never felt so good!

Having walked a little in your shoes and ridden on your mower, I have a new found appreciation for you. I understand things about you that I didn't before. Like when we ask if we can have pet chickens and you say "no, too much work" and we think you're mean because really, how much work is a chicken? Too much we've come to discover now that we have two! The thing is, baby chicks don't stay little for long, they grow and need a house and food and a perch and they poop A LOT! You knew all that, you also knew you would have been the one building the house and the perch and cleaning the poop, when you weren't mowing or weeding or sorting garbage. I get the "no", you weren't mean. By the way, we turned your outhouse into a chicken house, we kept the Shania Twain poster up though.

September is almost over and we've come full circle. When the school year started the Kid said, "this is the first year Papa isn't here to say have a good year in school and do your best". See, he listened to you all those years AND he heard your voice as I'm sure he will with the start of every school year.

It's soon time to stack wood again and I am no longer trying to figure how to live in a world without you in it because you are in it. You are in each of us, your voice will go on, in fact I think I hear it now, "turn out that dang light, the name aint Edison!"

Love Poops

♥for the record, Mum has assumed the role of the whistling garbage collector and I'm going to assume the role of mean.

once upon a time

Dear Dad,

It is August 2010. Even though August means the end of summer and the start of school is just around the corner, August is about good times. It's about getting the most out of the great outdoors because after the sun goes down there's a chill in the air. It's about have a wicked time at the campground even though it rained. Its about getting new clothes and new "indoor" shoes for school.

August is a month of notable anniversaries, such as the deaths of Elvis Presley on August 16, 1977 and Princess Diana on August 31 exactly 20 years later. August is a month of celebrations, good friends celebrating birthdays, the wedding anniversary of my Brother, our favourite cousins and of course yours and Mum's.

I've seen Pearl Jam three times in the month of August. The first time was 17 years ago, 10 years ago I saw them for the third time in New Orleans and one year ago, on August 21 I saw them for the fifth time in Toronto at the Molson Amphitheatre.

That day was perfect, it was hot and sunny and the night couldn't have been nicer had I custom ordered it. The funny thing is, the day before, Toronto saw torrential rains and a hurricane was predicted for the day after the show. During the show Eddie Vedder commented that good karma was responsible for the great weather that night.

I was staying with my good friend, who was celebrating an August birthday and we had plans for the rest of the weekend but the looming hurricane changed everything. I called home not knowing whether to stay or come home, airlines were changing flights and there was a chance if I stayed I may not get home for days. I was torn until I spoke to you on the phone. You simply said, "come home". There was no wishy washy-ness about it, just "come home". Come home I did.

Although the hurricane didn't happen the weather was still pretty nasty and being safe at home with my family was more valuable than I knew at the time.

Every second of every day is a gift. Hug the ones you love and always kiss them goodnight.

Love Poopsie

"a man's got to do what a man's got to do"

Dear Dad,

I went to a movie this week, Inception with Leonardo DiCaprio. I couldn't help but think of you, Leo reminded me of Titanic which we saw together in 1997. Inception was a great movie and I thought for sure it would linger in my mind all night but instead my thoughts were on you and our movie-going experiences.

I think we must have gone to the drive-in every weekend when I was a kid. It was very common on Saturday night to put on my pajamas, get in the backseat of the car with a pillow and blanket and head for the drive-in just before dusk. You and Mum would be in the front, likely with brother on her knee, he would have been really young. After the first feature we would go play on the swings up by the big screen, they were the fun rusty old playgrounds with merry-go-rounds and teeter-totters, too dangerous for the kids of today. After we were sufficiently dizzy and we would go to the snack bar for egg rolls and popcorn to get ready for the second feature, which we ALWAYS stayed for, hence the pajamas. People would started honking their car horns for the movie to start.

The funny thing is I don't remember too many of the family friendly first features, but I do remember the late movies. I know that we saw The Sting, American Graffiti, Paper Moon and The Exorcist in 1973. I'm not sure if The Exorcist was a drive-in movie but I saw it and it scared the crap out of me. I was so afraid I was going to become possessed. You and I did scary movies together alot. Rather than comforting me and telling me it wasn't real you would hide somewhere and scare even more crap out of me.

We saw just about every Clint Eastwood spaghetti western at the drive-in, I slept through a lot of those, it was nice to hunker down in the backseat and listen to the tinny speaker that was wedged onto the window.

A couple of years later we saw Jaws. That is a very clear and traumatic memory. It was the second feature at the Tee-Pee Drive-In. I can clearly see myself leaning over the front seat glued to the opening scene where the girl is skinny dipping at night and you can barely make anything out and the music is building....I was afraid to sit on the toilet for months after for fear that a shark would grab my ass!

The Tee-Pee was an indoor/outdoor drive-in. It had a viewing room, I'm not sure why, for people that don't have cars? We sat in it once to see The Jungle Book, just you and I, not sure why.

After the drive-in years, our next big venue was the Molou Theatre in Haliburton, Ontario. We had a cottage there and every single Saturday night we went to the movies, regardless of what was playing. In 1980 we saw Urban Cowboy, I sooo badly wanted to be Debra Winger. We also saw Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom which you slept through! I can't remember if you slept at the drive-in but sitting beside you in the Molou, you snored on my shoulder for just about every movie. Maybe that's why it didn't matter what was playing.

Once you retired and moved to the country, the cottage long sold, drive-ins pretty much extinct and the nearest theatre an hour away, you got your movie fix from the movie channel at home. The guide book came in the mail every month and you highlighted what you were going to watch, what you would tape and what we would watch together.

When the Kid was born I gave you the job of picking out his middle name, you chose the name Ethan after a character John Wayne played. John Wayne was your favourite and when he died your love of the movies started to fade. You taped movies for the Kid from the movie channel and when he got old enough the two of you would sit in your lazy-boy chair watching them. He never moved and you occasionally snored but it was more about being together than actually watching the movie.

You taped all of the Harry Potter movies that were out at the time. You couldn't wait for the Kid to get old enough to start watching them with you. Every once in a while you would ask and I would say "no, not yet". Well guess what? It's time. He and his cousin have watched those tapes over and over and over. See, you didn't tape them for nothing and I know you are right there alongside watching with them.

Love Poops

"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday" - John Wayne

don't it make you smile....

Dear Dad,

Here we are, three provinces, five states, seven beds and multiple iced coffees later, we are home! We made it, we did it, 4,500kms, didn't get lost once, didn't run out of gas or get stuck for a place to sleep. We survived the CSI motel with the red bathtub in Niagara Falls, Whitby, the strip-mall capital of Ontario and I survived the pain of having to leave beautiful Burlington, VT. We even survived the dog/house sitter.

We left Mum's house in the country and her two pooches with a trusty rusty sitter. We felt pretty good on day one heading down the highway knowing someone was holding down the fort, someone that was close enough to us to know the sensitive nature of our trip, someone in her mid-fifties. She arrived like Nanny McPhee with her straw hat and sewing box, her first aid kit in a Rubbermaid container and various other things to keep her occupied for a couple of weeks in the country, exercise bands, self-help books, a laptop computer. We left the house stocked with groceries and my car in case of emergency.

On night one we called to check in with "Nanny McPhee" and there was no answer. After 10:00pm, dark country roads and she was out. She finally called back long after I was in bed for the night, she had been out for a joy ride and missed the driveway upon her return. This put me in a tizzy but the further away we got the less I thought of home, hmmm, maybe you can run away from your troubles, leave them far behind.

We checked our email each night looking for an update from home, I think by Tuesday we may have gotten one. Finally at our rest stop at the Grandmother's we called. A week into our trip, the last leg being our scenic route to savour when suddenly the needle was lifted off the record. "Nanny McPhee" is heading to the airport in the morning (in my car) to pick up a guy she met on the internet, he's flying in from Saskatoon for the week!

After a lot of cursing and plotting and fretting, we decided to stick to our route, we weren't going to let this ruin our vacation. We went through all of the quaint towns you took us through, Winooski, Skowhegan, Saranac Lake. I suppose we would have stopped at the giant can of maple syrup if we didn't have thoughts of a serial killer in our house.

We arrived home late Wednesday night, 10:15ish and were relieved to find she and Mr. eHarmony had fled the scene in a rental car, we haven't heard from them since. The house was in order, the only evidence that anyone was here is her straw hat left on the lampshade.

As I write this, I have just spent the day mowing and am a little sun burnt and I smell like grass. So while a piece of my heart remains in Grand Bend, a piece of you remains in me. When I close my eyes I see you as a boy hunting golf balls at the Oakwood Resort and selling them back to the golfers, I see you as a young father taking us to the beach for the day and now I see you at peace.

Many lessons learned on this journey, for one, the pooches are coming with us on the next trip. They are small enough to sit in the cup holders, we'll just have to drink our iced coffees faster.

Love Poops

I miss you always...

small towns

Dear Dad,

As promised, Green Mountain Coffee in Burlington, VT, oh what a beautiful morning! We took the ferry from NY at 9:30 and arrived at the Church Street Marketplace at 10:30 before the heat and the crowds. It was just like I remembered, I love Vermont! Not only the quaint shops, good coffee and Green Mountains but no tax on clothes, have I mentioned that I love Vermont?

To say that the drive today was really beautiful would be an understatement. From the Green Mountains of Vermont to the White Mountain region of New Hampshire, to the state of Maine, I have never seen so many life sized fake moose in my life. We even found one for sale that was very tempting, it would look great at Christmas with lights on the antlers or on the mini-golf course we plan to build when we get home. The mini-golf course will go right next to the dairy bar we are also opening to raise money to send the Kid to the University of Vermont!

We drove Route 2 most of the day from Burlington to Montpelier to St. Johnsbury to Rumford and Mexico, ME. So many neat places to stop that it would take us 5 months to get home if we did. I wish we had of stopped at the giant maple syrup tin though, that seemed too good to pass by.



All of these little places we've been to before with you. The drive to Nova Scotia from Ontario when we moved we had two cars so we followed you, you were our GPS. On this trip we have used an actual GPS which we affectionately call Richard. Richard has been doing a very good job keeping us going in the right direction, although I started to have thoughts of him leading us into the woods and getting us lost amongst the fake moose....

As we drove through each place I could hear you calling out the name of the town and if anyone wanted to stop you stopped, it didn't matter if it was every 5 minutes. For most of this trip the Kid has watched movies in the backseat. While I wish he would take in more of the scenery it was a blessing today when we passed by Santa's Village in New Hampshire. It was a winter wonderland of fun and water slides on both sides of the highway, we didn't want to stop but he's been so good in the car it would be hard to say no, what to do, what to do? We inched by, his eyes still on the movie, if this were a cartoon the car tires would have been tip-toeing, a little further...a little further...and...we made it, eyes never left the movie!

This trip is starting its wind down and we will soon be back in Canada declaring our Bath & Body Works products. Like this entire journey, the end will be bittersweet, we miss you more than ever but we are so proud of ourselves for what we have accomplished and I know you're proud too. We've learned a few things about travelling and will be that much more prepared for the next trip, like pack light to ensure you have room in the car for moose and maple syrup.

Love Poopsie

around the bend

Dear Dad,

We've been around a lot of bends on this trip...the first being Grand Bend. As with past trips, this is a place I could live. The beach life is for me...beach all day, mini golf in the evening and the most amazing sunset to finish the day. From the top of the main strip you could see the ball of fire starting to sink into the lake a sliver at a time until it disappeared completely. I ran from the mini golf course to catch a few photos of the spectacle and I'm glad I did, the next night was rainy and foggy.

I was glad it rained on our last day or I may not have been pryed from the Adirondack chair of the Boonie Doone Manor. We browsed the shops and I saw a t-shirt that said "dual airbags doesn't mean your wife and your mother-in-law", you would have liked that especially since our next stop was at the Grandmother's in Whitby, ON. We visited the cemetery one last time and while sad to be leaving, at peace.

We arrived at the Grandmother's at dinner time and stayed a couple of days to recharge our batteries. Unfortunately, no internet, being in Whitby cut off from the world is a little rattling, its a drive around another type of bend. The Kid loved it, he's an 80 year old at heart, he had a hot tub with some old geezer the first night then watched the lobby on TV making fun of everyone that entered or left the building.

Mum and I spent an afternoon touring around our old hood, went to the beach and wondered what if...can you ever go back? We had lunch at the Big M Drive-in and the onion rings alone are enough to make me want to go back!

Once recharged we got back on the road for our scenic route home, we travelled through the Adirondacks and passed some really breath-taking scenery, some of the places you've taken us. I was hoping to spend the night in Burlington, VT, one of my favourite places. I had visions of eating pasta and having a glass of red wine at the outdoor courtyard under the twinkly lights. We got as far as Plattsburg, NY and had spaghetti in the room of the EconoLodge, we missed the ferry to Burlington. Maybe breakfast in Burlington...or a coffee?

One of the things I have learned on this trip not to put off until tomorrow what you can do today. Like the almost missed sunset at the Bend, there may not be one tomorrow. If you can take the scenic route on the way there instead of the way home, do it, you never know what you may have to rush home for.

So my dear dad, I will drink a toast of Green Mountain Vermont coffee to you and see what is around the next bend.

Love Poops