Not merely because it's Father's Day, but probably because it's 8 p.m. on a Sunday evening, generally the time when I would call to catch up on his week and fill him in on mine.
I looked forward to our conversations. For the most part his weeks were fairly routine – church, the occasional outing or visitor, perhaps the passing of someone in our home town. Depending on the season, we would chat about the state of my beloved Habs or discuss reasons why Mike Weir just couldn't seem to get his golf game together anymore.
The conversation would occasionally make a foray into the entertainment world – a world one would think a small town, visually impaired man in his 80s would know (or care) little about. But dad liked to keep up on everything, and I think it gave him great pride to toss some random comment about Madonna's latest antics into the mix.
One time he informed me about a Springsteen news story before I even heard about it. I was regaling him about my recent concert in Cleveland that week and he just sniffed and said, "Springsteen? I wouldn't cross the street to see that guy. He doesn't even know where he is." His comment alluded to Bruce's following show in Detroit in which he welcomed the crowd by saying, "Hello Ohio!" My dad with his pulse on all things newsworthy heard the story before I did. And it's not very often when I can be upstaged in the realm of Springsteen.
I was always surprised about how much dad knew about everything – whether discussing sports, world events, politics, entertainment or local history. The man had a phenomenal memory. It was always a learning experience to watch any kind of sports game with him. You wouldn't be five minutes into the game before he'd be lobbing question at you: "What's unusual about the fellow pitching right now?"or "What town is that hockey player from?"
An avid reader before age-related macular degeneration kicked in full force, dad enjoyed reading many newspapers and magazines as well as any sports and historical books he could get his hands on. And I'm convinced he had a photographic memory since he had so many statistics, facts and interesting tidbits at the ready, regardless of the conversational topic.
In his later years he relied on an intricate system of radios (each set to a different channel) and the television to keep up on his favourite shows and the latest news.
He passed away March 20, 2010 and I still find myself reaching for the phone, thinking I've got to tell dad about some interesting story I just heard or get an answer to a question I know he will be able to answer easily. I miss him most during the hockey season, especially over Christmas, when we would watch everything from the NHL, to the Juniors World Championship and the Spengler Cup.
But mostly, I miss him Sunday nights.
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