Bye Pop.

I know a lot of people who do the tribute blog after a loved one has passed on. I often find it to be a bit excessive because it's usually a poem, or song lyrics, or some other way to show their artistic flare for conveying grief. This puts me at a loss because last week something monumental happened that i need to write about, if for no other reason than to vent about it.

As I mentioned before last week was the Canadian Federation of Students' national general meeting in Ottawa. I've been to the past three of these and this was to be my forth and final. But after getting there Wednesday my meeting was cut short. Thursday at 5 am I got the phone call I've been dreading my whole life. My Pop had died. I immediately contacted the necessary people to get arrangements to get home and by 8 that night I was on my way back to Newfoundland.

It's a horrible thing to have to say goodbye to someone you love, especially when you don't actually get the chance to say goodbye, but I'm going to keep with what got me through the past weekend and tell you some funny stories about my Pop.

Now, one thing you need to know is that my Nan and Pop had been sleeping in seperate beds by the time I was born. This was Pop's fault. First he would snore so loud he would wake himself up and tell Nan to stop snoring, while she was sat up reading. Then came the final straw. One night he woke up and on the way to the washroom stubbed his toe, or hooked his shorts, or something like that in the bed post. He then cursed (which he did a lot) and got a saw and sawed off the bedpost...I think it was the bed hitting the floor that not only gave Nan a bad back, but also woke her up.

He also had some run ins with the family dog, Perk. He used to take Perk in the woods hunting all the time. One night Perk showed up at the house without Pop. Everyone thought this was a sign something was wrong and a search party was formed. On his way out of the woods Pop met the search party and offered them help finding whoever it was they were looking for, they told him not to worry, because it was him. He then cursed on the dog and chased him with the shotgun. Perk just hid under the table, he was used to it I think.

The dog had to hide again when Pop was learning how to drive. It was the summer of 1969 and my Aunt Pat, who already had her licence, was teaching him. As he went to pull into the driveway Perk jumped in front of the car and Pop swerved to miss him and wound up putting the car through the house. This was happening as Neil Armstrong was about to land on the moon. Nan thought he crashed into the living room. Again, Perk spent the week cowering under the table.

All this happened long before I was born, but luckily for me, I was present for some of his finer moments. Like when he was being admitted into the Health Science Center when I was 10, and the nurse asked him if he had his own teeth, to which he replied yes...
Mom: No you don't, Dad
Pop: Yes I do!
Mom: No Dad, you have false teeth
Pop: Goddammit, I paid for them, they're mine!

He also had this old clunker car that was held together mainly by duct tape and shoestring. This was where I heard him say "fuck" for the first and last time, during which he flipped someone the wrong finger. It was also in this car that he said if he won the 649 jackpot, which was about $25 million at the time he would buy himself a brand new car, and he would give my Mom the clunker. He never won the jackpot, and when he gave up driving he sold the car for $150. With $30 worth of gas in it and four brand new tires.

Now, while you might not find this as funny as I do, I guess you had to know Pop. I did know him, and I'm really glad.