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» Dad stories
Miss his sense of humour
While I have been following the board on and off for a few months, this is my first post so please be gentle.
I miss my father very much. While everyone thought of him as a very hard man, he was always very kind and loving to his family.
His early life was very hard and something that he never talked about. I did find out that he never finished school as the entire village he lived in was razed to the ground during WWII for helping refugees fleeing through the Sudetenland. His family fled in every direction and he and my Grandfather went to Yugoslavia. I later learned from one of my surviving Aunts that my father, who was still very young at the time, was shot and captured for smuggling messages and food for the Yugoslavian underground. He had spent the rest of the war in a forced labor camp under very harsh conditions. He was liberated by the British Army where he spent years working in a worn torn country before he could escape to work in the steel mills and coal mines of South Wales before meeting my mother.
While he never did get a chance to go back to school, he always prized a good education. He spoke several languages fluently but his English was broken and heavily accented. I have many fond memories of him always taking us kids to the used book stores and the public library anytime we wanted. His passion was reading books on philosophy, science, and politics.
When I was a teenager and a full of my own conceit, I remember the time he sat me down for "The Talk". He told me that for a man to achieve contentment in life, he must always follow the "Three Most Important Rules". I remember rolling my eyes, thinking childish thoughts and being such a know-it-all. He gave me a that look that said that he knew what I was thinking. While holding up each of his thick, calloused fingers, he counted.
"One, a man must never guess a woman's age."
Huh? What is he talking about?
"Two, a man must never guess a woman's weight."
Ok, now I'm really confused here. Where are the birds in the story?
"And three, a man must never upset his Urologist". With that said he had the biggest grin on his face while I stood there looking like the some confused idiot.
"Of these three most important rules", he continued, “Breaking the first two will cause you the most misery in life".
It has been many years since he passed. I wish that he was still alive today so that I could tell him that I have tried to live by these simple rules and that I would ask him if he would consider adding to the list "Never ask a woman if she is pregnant" just to see his funny grin.
As a side note. I did ask a woman if she was pregnant. She wasn't and I had the bloody nose to prove it.
(Wed 1st Dec 2010, 1:56, More)
Miss his sense of humour
While I have been following the board on and off for a few months, this is my first post so please be gentle.
I miss my father very much. While everyone thought of him as a very hard man, he was always very kind and loving to his family.
His early life was very hard and something that he never talked about. I did find out that he never finished school as the entire village he lived in was razed to the ground during WWII for helping refugees fleeing through the Sudetenland. His family fled in every direction and he and my Grandfather went to Yugoslavia. I later learned from one of my surviving Aunts that my father, who was still very young at the time, was shot and captured for smuggling messages and food for the Yugoslavian underground. He had spent the rest of the war in a forced labor camp under very harsh conditions. He was liberated by the British Army where he spent years working in a worn torn country before he could escape to work in the steel mills and coal mines of South Wales before meeting my mother.
While he never did get a chance to go back to school, he always prized a good education. He spoke several languages fluently but his English was broken and heavily accented. I have many fond memories of him always taking us kids to the used book stores and the public library anytime we wanted. His passion was reading books on philosophy, science, and politics.
When I was a teenager and a full of my own conceit, I remember the time he sat me down for "The Talk". He told me that for a man to achieve contentment in life, he must always follow the "Three Most Important Rules". I remember rolling my eyes, thinking childish thoughts and being such a know-it-all. He gave me a that look that said that he knew what I was thinking. While holding up each of his thick, calloused fingers, he counted.
"One, a man must never guess a woman's age."
Huh? What is he talking about?
"Two, a man must never guess a woman's weight."
Ok, now I'm really confused here. Where are the birds in the story?
"And three, a man must never upset his Urologist". With that said he had the biggest grin on his face while I stood there looking like the some confused idiot.
"Of these three most important rules", he continued, “Breaking the first two will cause you the most misery in life".
It has been many years since he passed. I wish that he was still alive today so that I could tell him that I have tried to live by these simple rules and that I would ask him if he would consider adding to the list "Never ask a woman if she is pregnant" just to see his funny grin.
As a side note. I did ask a woman if she was pregnant. She wasn't and I had the bloody nose to prove it.
(Wed 1st Dec 2010, 1:56, More)
» It's Not What It Looks Like!
They are NOT my Barbies... I swear!
Starting some 15 years ago when my niece was very little, ruthlessly adorable, and completely into Barbie Dolls and anything related to Barbie. As I adored her and could never say 'No', I would shamelessly indulge her. For Christmas I would always buy her one or two of the special collectible Barbie Dolls from FAO Schwarz (price range $150-$300 each, each serialized, etc, etc). Since I always paid by credit card, they had all my information, so they would send me ‘focused marketing’ catalogs.
Yep, I started getting Barbie Collector catalogs & brochures in the mail. At this period in time, I was a single male living alone and doing some traveling for work. And yes, my neighbor (ex-jock, regional sales manager for Dewalt Power Tools) was picking up my mail while I was away. If that wasn’t embarrassing enough, I was dating a very nice woman who came over to my house just after my neighbor dropped off the stack of mail he collected for me.
Thank god my niece sent me a “Thank-you” drawing/note for her presents. I rushed over waving the evidence in their faces saying “See, I told you they weren’t for me, honestly”.
Oh, when she was turning 17, she let me know that she figured out that if she sold off her Barbie collection, she could get a nice used car. A few weeks later she decided to keep her collection and get her dad to buy her a nice new car.
(Tue 14th Dec 2010, 0:46, More)
They are NOT my Barbies... I swear!
Starting some 15 years ago when my niece was very little, ruthlessly adorable, and completely into Barbie Dolls and anything related to Barbie. As I adored her and could never say 'No', I would shamelessly indulge her. For Christmas I would always buy her one or two of the special collectible Barbie Dolls from FAO Schwarz (price range $150-$300 each, each serialized, etc, etc). Since I always paid by credit card, they had all my information, so they would send me ‘focused marketing’ catalogs.
Yep, I started getting Barbie Collector catalogs & brochures in the mail. At this period in time, I was a single male living alone and doing some traveling for work. And yes, my neighbor (ex-jock, regional sales manager for Dewalt Power Tools) was picking up my mail while I was away. If that wasn’t embarrassing enough, I was dating a very nice woman who came over to my house just after my neighbor dropped off the stack of mail he collected for me.
Thank god my niece sent me a “Thank-you” drawing/note for her presents. I rushed over waving the evidence in their faces saying “See, I told you they weren’t for me, honestly”.
Oh, when she was turning 17, she let me know that she figured out that if she sold off her Barbie collection, she could get a nice used car. A few weeks later she decided to keep her collection and get her dad to buy her a nice new car.
(Tue 14th Dec 2010, 0:46, More)