I write this blog post for and about my dad.  He may not read it right away (or ever) but there are some things I think he should know.

I was gassing up my truck this morning to the tune of a small country’s GDP when I caught a whiff of the fumes.  I was instantly transported back to every summer Sunday morning of my youth, filling up the boat.  There was an hour every Sunday morning when my dad and I would head down to the boat before everyone else to get ‘er ready.  We’d take the top down, stow the life jackets and the cooler, and then we’d take it around to gas up.

As a bit of an aside, there really isn’t anything else like Georgian Bay at 8 or 9 in the morning in the summer.  It’s glass calm, the sun is just coming up and you can feel the heat of it on your skin but it’s not hot yet, it’s quiet, so quiet, and then there’s that smell.  The sickly sweet fumes of gas and the Bay mixed together.  It’s not unlike an elixir of youth - or joy.  I think it is actually impossible to be upset or worried about something when you’re down at the dock, before the crowd, on the Bay.  Lesley, when I go, just spread my ashes somewhere down the South Channel.

With gas prices heading through the stratosphere I imagine that pleasure boating will leave the realm of the middle-class to be enjoyed only by the uber-rich.  That’s a real shame.  I know I’m not the only guy out there who spent his formative years bonding with his dad over the fumes of an old Starcraft.  Like most guys, my dad didn’t try to teach me anything about life when we were alone, that kind of information you had to glean from his actions and from eavesdropping at parties when I was supposed to be asleep hours ago.  No, the stuff I learned from him in the early mornings was more about him and the kind of father that I wanted to be.  He’d sit in the back of the boat, being my first mate.  He’d wince when I came in too fast in the early years.  He’d comment about my wake (it was always too big but I just couldn’t drive that slow).  But in the end, he always let me take the lead, make my own mistakes, and learn on my own.

In the later years he’d just open a book and read until we got to the dock.  He’d follow my instructions and then let me run the show for the whole day’s boating.  Everyone knew that I was running the boat.  I know he was paying attention though because he’d never fail to thank me at the end of the day for such a good boat ride.  Imagine that, thanking me when it should have been me thanking him.  As much as I liked driving the boat I think the thank you at the end of the day was even better.

I often think about the years ahead and how I’d love to move my parents closer to me and my family.  I don’t get very far before I think about Georgian Bay and what it has meant to me, my dad, and my family in general.  I was raised on the Bay.  I proposed to Lesley on the Bay.  I think I’m about as close to it as a man can be to a body of water.  The thing is that my dad was there for all of it.  So is it really the Bay that I love?

Happy Father’s Day, Big Isi (the BBP).