Father's Day

Because Jonas has been pretty much working non-stop on his FINAL project all weekend, we couldn't really celebrate Father's Day this year with a bang. However, I did manage to cook a special grub of slow-cooked barbecue ribs, creamy mashed potatoes and corn. I wanted to get Dairy Queen, but seeing as Jonas does not really have a sweet tooth, that would have been more for me than him!

Father's Day is a bittersweet day for me. I have not truly celebrated it for over 10 years now, as my father is no longer with us. In my mind though, I try to keep the memory of my father alive with all the little things that I remember about him. These will be things that I plan to share with our child one day, so he/she knows what a special grandfather he would have been. Here are a few things that I remember most, in no particular order.

1. Going to work with him at our restaurant in Red Deer every Saturday mornings, to help prep for the day. I would sit in the kitchen and watch him work.
2. Going to Edmonton or Calgary to watch the horse races. We would spend a whole day out there. I would always take a frisbee with me, sit in the passenger seat and pretend that it was my steering wheel.
3. His belly-aching laugh. He could laugh so hard at Wayne and Shuster, Bob Hope and some other comediens to the point of turning beet red and gasping for breath.
4. His love of peeled apples and shelled peanuts. After every meal, he would cut an apple in half and peel it in one strip. And he would always unwind after work sitting in front of the tv with a pie plate full of shelled peanuts.
5. To this day, I still have not had a french fry gravy that I love more than my dad's at the restaurant. I have no idea how he made it, but it was perfectly seasoned, and light in color.
6. His Sunday dinners. As Sunday was the only day off that my parents ever had off of work, he would always prepare a Sunday meal. The two meals that I remember the most are ketchup shrimp (tastes much better than it sounds), and his Chinese style barbecue ribs. I have no idea how he made either.
7. Doing yard work on Sunday's, tossing the football around after, and then going to Dairy Queen as a special treat to get ice cream for all of us.
8. Whenever we went to the local mall with my mother, my dad would take my brother and I to the Red Grill inside of Woolco so he could get a coffee. I would always want a jello, with that faked whipped cream thing on top. We always went because shopping bored us. To this day, I still hate shopping.

These are a few of the things from my childhood that I have mentioned to Jonas. I wished that they could have met, but I know that my father would have approved immensely of him. Wherever he is, I know for certain that he is smiling down on us and will always be with his new grandchild. In the meantime, Happy Father's Day to my wonderful husband, whom I am so proud of. And Happy Father's Day to my other dad in Toronto, whom I know will be a great grandfather!