Who Knew

My dad looked after his family, worked everyday, and in the early days, the weekend was his. Like clock work, Friday night the good old, real old, country music came on… and the good times rolled until Sunday morning. Forty Eight hours of roll the dice, come what may! Sometimes we would head to Hamilton from our Toronto home. Our best buddies had moved there, two friends I counted as sisters, and their parents were besties to my parents. Guitars were played, pizza was bought, us kids were left to do whatever and the Rents stayed late and long! We usually headed back home after midnight. Of all the years we travelled there, with the promise of staying for the night, maybe twice we actually did. Most trips home were the same, mom driving, stopping for dad to pee, then driving again until dad was asleep, mom pulling over for a little shut eye before the OPP came along to send us on our way.

This particular night, not quite summer, we headed home. The trip home was a science, we typically stopped at the cemetary just before the HWY, for the final pit stop. Not gonna lie, pops was inebriated, but if we didn’t make the stop, he didn’t fall asleep. So into the ‘final resting place’ we went. We always drove in quite a ways, obviously. Off he went, we waited,, heat on, waiting. We waited, and waited some more. I mean what was mom to do? Let the kid go look for him or leave the kid and go look for him yourself, after midnight, in the dark , in a cemetary. It was probably a good twenty minutes, we were going with the option to go together and look for him. Bam a hand slammed the passenger door and tore it open. After the initial shock we stopped screaming. Dad stood at the open door, his one pant leg was in shreds, his coat was missing and scratches were all over both of his arms! Mud, which at first I thought was blood was smeared across his cheek, and he was panting! We were terrified! ” What happenned to you?” mom said, thinking perhaps he was mugged or beaten up. He stared off for a minute catching his breath and stated, “Sasquatch got me!” He clambored in and insisted mom should hurry up and drive!

My best guess is, he got a little too close to the embankment that was pretty steep. So fall down there, and try and make your was back up, in the dark, with your pants…compromised. Makes the most sense.. thankfully he was able to get the hulk of himself back up. We wouldn’t of been able to do it, ‘dead weight’. At least he had the wherewithal to come up with a doozey! Goodtimes.