Fourteen and Learning

Once Dad started talking to me it was a contest to see who could talk and who could listen the longest.  It wasn’t all trauma when Dad talked with me.  From the beginning he treated me as an equal when it came to comprehending issues of the day or topics he happened to want to discuss.  In case you haven’t got the picture I adored my Dad and to this day I have never met anyone as brilliant and diverse in mind as I found in my father.  That may sound immature but you had to know my father to realize that he really was extraordinarily intelligent, well read, witty and on top of everything else he was a fantastic story teller.  My father had an IQ of 163, read the newspaper front to back every day of his adult life (and when he travelled he read the foreign newspapers as well).  He read widely on a variety of topics (almost everything interested him, from physics to history, philosophy to linguistics, child reading and the universe).  In his youth he was a sportsman, a champion runner (he qualified for the Olympics in the 50 and 100 yard dash) as well as a soccer player (he didn’t especially care for the sport but it was available at his sports club so he played).  He also boxed.  All three of my brothers both ran and boxed and John has his brown belt in judo.

When Dad first started talking to me one of the main subjects happened to be politics.  What I remember about my first conversation on this subject was that Dad did not tell me what was right or which party I ought to choose.  Instead he explained what each party stood for and how they were funded.  What struck me hardest was the lack of concern for seniors that seemed evident with Conservatives and Liberals.  It seems odd that seniors were somehow incredibly important to me at such a young age, more than poverty or unemployment.  I knew that the NDP was the party for me.  To this day my biggest “advocacy” is for seniors and sadly we see that the Conservatives and Liberals continually neglect seniors while giving lip service to what we want to hear during their election campaigns.  Having just turned senior myself and having received my first Old Age Pension – a whopping $596.67 I can say I am not impressed (I knew what I was getting as I had been doing my homework – another long story). 

Fourteen was a pivotal year for me in so many ways, in large part because of my father’s interest in discussing things with me.  Something that never stopped right to the very end of his life.  I was extremely fortunate in both my parents for widely different reasons!  My cup runneth over.