My son, Cy, called last night and we talked for two and a half hours. In fact, he calls three or four times each week. We talk about his work, the “projects’ he is currently working on in his garage and, especially, about what he and his family have been up to. Inevitably though, at some point in the conversation we end up talking about his gramma and grampa… my mom and dad. In Mom’s eyes my son could do no wrong, and he and my dad were each other’s heros.

I think that now that he is a father himself, he likes it even more when I tell him stories about my dad. He has heard the “Dad and the Bee” story several times and still likes me to retell it now and then. He has a couple other favourites about Dad’s patience, kindness and unwillingness to say a bad thing about anyone.

He likes this one too…

I played hockey with the Fort St. John Flyers in the 80’s. My dad and mom would often come up from Camrose to visit us and attend a couple of games. Dad would jump on the team bus if we were going out of town. One night he travelled with the team to Grande Prairie for a game.

I generally was pretty laid back as a player never getting too many penalties or being overly “chippy”, and I’d like to think most of my on-the-bench banter was of a positive nature. On this night, however, I let my good Irish temper sneak up on me. I’m not sure if it was because I wasn’t playing as well as I’d like, or the puck wasn’t going where I wanted it to, if we were losing, or because I believed the referee was picking on me, but when I received my second penalty within minutes of my first one… I lost it.

I slammed my stick against the boards until it broke and ranted loudly using the “f-word” several times until I received my second ever* (and last ever) “10-Minute Misconduct”. The crowd in the old Johnny Mac arena wasn’t huge that night but everyone there could certainly hear and see the show I put on. Mercifully, the game was almost over.

After the game I boarded the dark bus and sat beside Dad. As we pulled out of town someone started passing out the beer. Dad and I were each given one. As most know, I am generally pretty chatty, but on this night I was fairly subdued. About half an hour toward home, probably somewhere near Wembley, Dad finally spoke. He said quietly, “I’m thinking you didn’t impress yourself tonight.” We looked at each other, he smiled, and reached over to “klink” my beer bottle with his. That was all that was said about the “show” I’d put on, even though I’m sure it had embarrassed him as much as it had embarrassed me.

Although he was a man of few words, especially compared to me, he always seemed to find the right ones.

Cy’s little girl, our eldest grand-daughter, “FaceTimed” me last night at bedtime. She asked me to tell her a joke and a story. I won’t tell her this one for a while but I think I will tell her and her younger cousin someday.

(* my first ever misconduct was for shooting the puck down the ice after the whistle had been blown. No broken stick or audible f-word on that one.)