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