W/NW: My Dad

Me and my Dad, circa 1978-79, on our annual fishing trip to Wolfe Lake, Westport, Ontario.

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maggieo said:
Thanks, everyone. Really, thank you.

Digitialintrigue, your dad was a serious badass!!! Wonderful vintage photos!
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Thanks Maggie, haha, he appears to be so in that photo, for sure. :)

I have been enjoying going through old photos and memorabilia of his life. Will post more vintage ones soon.

Some very good photos in this thread!
 
Krasnaya_Zvezda said:
It's been almost 3 years since my dad died. He was proud of his service in the Pacific theater, but like most, he didn't talk about it much. He sometimes lamented, in a lighthearted way, that his medals and service ribbons had been lost by my elder brothers, long before I was born. Acted like he really didn't care too much. And probably didn't at the time.
In 2002, I decided to replace those lost awards. I knew my old man wouldn't be here forever (he was 84 then), and I wanted him to have them before he was gone.
One day at lunch, I casually asked him what medals and ribbons he received during the war, and he gave me one of those "oh I don't remember, son" answers. But the next week he offhandedly gave me a piece of paper that had listed on it every single medal and service ribbon that he had had when he was discharged in December, 1945.
The Army/Navy store had the shirt, and the unit patches. I knew them from his wartime photos. The extraordinary resource that is Ebay allowed me to acquire the actual medals and ribbons I needed.
On July 4, 2002, he was surprised with the request to don this khaki wartime shirt, and stand to be decorated with his missing medals and ribbons. My mother told me later that he cried like a baby that night. He wouldn't tell her the reason. If it was for pride of service, or memories of those, his buddies, that fell, I'm sure it was the latter. I knew my Dad very well.
That shirt, replete with his awards, stood next to the floral arrangements at his funeral 10 months later.
Sorry to be so maudlin, but I'm damned proud of my old man.

And George, here's to your Dad, I hoist one in his honor!
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Most definitely! HEAR, HEAR!
 
Great photos digitalintrigue: what a cool guy!

I have very few photographs of my father, and I know I will one day regret it but he hates having his photograph taken. I have to catch him unawares, as in this shot, in which he is absent (bar his fingers in the shadow), which seems appropriate given his dislike of being photographed. Like all fathers, mine is an amazing guy, but if he has one fault then it is his piano playing.
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"I wonder what the poor people are doing right now."

"I wonder what the poor people are doing right now."

Back when, we'd be sitting on the porch all afternoon. Reading the paper, listening to the ball game.

Then he'd say, very seriously, "I wonder what the poor people are doing right now"
and we'd all crack up. (This was a family ritual.)

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