So Father's Day is over and it's now graduation weekend here.  I've talked about my mom alot here on my blog but not my dad so taking a trip down memory lane with him. 
Dad always worked 2 or 3 jobs while I was growing up.  His choice as he wanted my mom to stay home with us kids after I got a severe kidney infection that landed me in the hospital for 10 days when I was 4.  What time he spent with us was good.  They took us camping every summer -- a week in Maine for my mom and a week in the north woods of the Adirondacks for him.  We camped in tents until all us kids left home, then they bought a camper.  The early tent was an old canvas Army tent with huge wooden poles and no floor. Probably my best memory of that tent was in Maine near Wells during a huge rain storm.  There was a river running down through the middle and us kids had to stay on top of our cots (again Army issue canvas).  He taught us how to canoe.  He had this wooden canoe with canvas on the outside that he rebuilt in the side yard one year.  Steamed the ribs himself to make the bends.  It was great fun but very tippy.  We always called her Tippy Canoe cause if you leaned just a little you would flip it over.  He even had it in the harbors in Maine.  When I was about 13 or so he and my grampie (his dad) took me on a canoe trip from Blue Mtn Lake to Raquette Lake.  It was an all day trip and each of us kids got to do it at some point except my sister.  Dad was the cook when we camped, it my moms vacation too.  He went hunting every year for a week in November with grampie and sometimes other guys too. He taught each of us how to track in the woods and stay safe.  The boys went hunting with him for a lot of years.  Us kids loved it because mom would make TV dinners which he hated and wouldn't let her cook when he was home.  She also repainted or wall papered a room while he was gone every year. We had an old fashioned ice cream maker that you cranked till your arms fell off, he made the best chocolate ice cream, had "ants" in it--little tiny tiny bits of chocolate.  Dad was a police officer for 35 years and a part time mechanic.  We all learned gun safety at an early age and the boys learned how to fix cars.  He also loved to do woodworking.  This from my grampie also.  Tim learned a lot from him and does some great furniture when he has time.  Dad was a stubborn man at times and more so after my mom died.  She wasn't around to tell him to cool it.  He wasn't always the greatest--but who is?  I do miss him.
Love you dad.