I certainly have a lot of memorable stories to tell about my two kids, Amanda (21) and Joshua (17).
But I think I'll sum it all up like this:
When Josh was about a year old, he was riding on my back as I, on all-fours, took him for a 'Horsey-Ride' all over the house. At one point, we stopped for a second and he suddenly--for the first time--patted me on the back and said, affectionately, "DaDaaaaa!"....freezeframe. snapshot. absorb it. keep it....
When Amanda was in grade 9, she had a writing assignment about her #1 'Hero'. After she brought the assignment home, I picked it up and looked at it. The cover page was all colourful and had the title, 'My Hero Is....' I opened the cover, inside it said, '...My Dad'.
Love you, kids!!
Dad XOXO...
The first cars my friends and I each had, we had to save up and pay for ourselves. The cars we bought were usually old broken-down beaters that had rust on them (unacceptable by today's standards--when was the last time you saw a car with rust on it?), and required regular fixing. The thing was, is that it was actually FUN!....a pain-in-the-ass at times, but we have so many funny stories to tell about our cars breaking down and only having 50 cents to put in for gas.
Two such stories come to mind: 1) One of the cars I bought was an old 1978 Cordoba T-roof. I called it 'The Pimp-Mobile'. For the entirety of one summer when I was working at Canada's Wonderland, the car had a slow leak in one of the tires. I could't afford to get it fixed. So, every morning when I was dashing ...
Back in the early 1980s, my 2 older brothers rented a house with an acre of land from my dad--it was in Woodbridge; back when it was all farm land. They had, of all things, a chicken coop at the back of the property; they also held many wild parties every Saturday night. By 3:30 or 4 a.m., people would be strewn all over the house, passed-out and hungover...and every morning a...t around 4 a.m.--without fail--the rooster would start 'Cock-a-doodlin'...and its not like an alarm clock you can just turn off. How annoying when your head is already pounding; it was like: "Shut Up, Rooster!!!" Finally, one such early morning, one of my brothers' friends couldn't take it anymore, so he got up, ran outside in his underwear and chased the rooster around the back yard, hoping to shut it up. The rooster was running about a hundred ...
Talk about things going 'Full-Circle'....
1970's: We'd have after-theatre-release movies available only ON TV.
Then, wonderfully, in the 1980s VCRs were invented. We could rent or buy our favourite recent blockbusters not too long after they were in the theatre (Although, at that time, VCRs cost about $1000).
In the 90s, prices dropped and more titles were available.
Then along came DVD. Better quality, better picture. Time to replace all those VHS tapes we blew so much money on, with DVDs.
In the recent 2000s, after having bought ALL the 'Star Wars' movies at least twice already (!!), along comes BluRay!....time to replace all the 'Star Wars' movies UH-GAIN!!
2013: Movie rental stores close-down. Why?.....because, funnily enough, after-theatre-release movies are available directly.... ON TV. Oh, the irony!! Lol.
Us guys, well, we have our own unique way of knowing how long to leave something on the BBQ. Here are the gender-specific methods of BBQ Timing:
Wife
Steak: 3 to 7 minutes per side.
Pork Loin: 3 to 5 minutes per each of 4 sides.
Whole Chicken: an hour or so.
Husband
Steak: 1 BEER
Pork Loin: 2 BEERS
Whole Chicken: LOST COUNT!!! Lol.
We had quite an explosive time at my mom's atop Blue Mountain on Friday night setting off fireworks at an annual family May 24th party.
Nowadays, we don't just have single-shot, stick-shaped fireworks; there are now available, much to our delight, these great big square shaped things that shoot up to 100 fireballs! Wooooooo-Haaaaaa!!! My brothers and I try to see who can bring the biggest, most exciting firework of the season...and every year, they just keep getting bigger and better. And probably more dangerous. Lol.
The firework I bought came with 'How to proceed with caution' rules written on the back. Of course, we did not read them...
..here they are (perhaps YOU'LL have the sense to read them!):
1) Do NOT light firework indoors---Ohhhhhh, so THAT was the noise coming from the basement that my teenage son and his friends were making last night when I came home; and ...