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Authors: Jann Arden
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set and what temperature it needed to be. He knew how much it would cost to pour an eight-foot by ten-foot by four-inch slab and how much concrete you’d need to make a garage pad or a sidewalk or a retaining wall just right. He knew how much concrete—to the very ounce—it would take to make it all work out perfectly. He was the go- to guy for anything made out of limestone, water, sand and gravel.
My dad had his own language when it came to concrete. I’d hear him on the phone talking to somebody about something to do with a job, and it made no sense to me at all. He’d have a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, and I always marvelled at how he could talk and smoke at the same time. He’d hold the phone between his shoulder and his neck, and he’d puff away without missing a beat. The smoke would often billow out of his nose. I thought it looked wonderful. I wondered how in the world he managed to do that. I wanted to blow smoke out of my nose too. It seemed to me like my dad could do anything, and that’s because he
could
. He was such a talented man in so many ways.
He pretty much knew all there was to know about plumbing and carpentry and fixing cars and building bird feeders and mending clocks and rebuilding antique furniture of any description. (I have so many of his pieces in my house today and they are all gorgeous.) He knew how to build sheds and change brake pads and plant potatoes and fly kites and make tree forts. He knew how to pull heads out of milk chutes and how to build giant barbecues. My dad’s hands were scarred from thumb to pinky with hundreds of punctures and gougesand blisters. He’d lost more fingernails than anybody I’d ever known. He always had a black nail, always. I remember him sitting down for supper, tired and covered in sweat, with at least one black fingernail. He’d have a giant new gouge or an old cut that hadn’t healed yet. I would watch him sitting there at the table thinking about whatever it was he was thinking. He’d look at his hands, folding and refolding them. He’d run them through his strawberry hair and look pensive. I wondered what he was thinking about. It must have been something heavy, because around the time I was twelve or thirteen he started drinking a little bit more just to make all the heaviness go away. He always said that he’d drink anything back then, but what I remember him drinking most often was dark rum. The smell of it to this day takes me back through a twisting and turning time-tunnel. My dad sitting there at the table with a dark rum and Coke in his fist and a lit cigarette hanging out of his head. It’s a good memory—it could be bad, but it’s not. He worked hard all the time, but he was starting to drink hard all the time too.
If I have any kind of work ethic at all, I get it from my parents. They were always so steadfast and determined. They never quit working on things. They worked so hard on the house and the yard and at their jobs, and they never quit working on themselves. They were constantly moving and doing and creating. It was a luxury for them to sit and read the paper at the end of a long day. They are in their seventies now, and they still don’t sit down. I swear they’re doing cocaine over at their house. Either that or they’re inhaling vitamins or they’re just really healthy and eager to get things done. I would rather think of the cocaine scenario as it would make me feel a little less lazy.
We usually had dinner together as a family, the five of us sitting around the small pull-out table that was Patrick’s bed come nightfall. Our meals were simple and hearty and, well, interesting. My momwas an interesting cook—she had to be because we were still living in the trailer, getting used to all sorts of adventures, culinary and otherwise. She’s the first person to admit that when she was first married she did not have a clue about what she was doing. She’d call my gram pretty much every night of the week
My dad had his own language when it came to concrete. I’d hear him on the phone talking to somebody about something to do with a job, and it made no sense to me at all. He’d have a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, and I always marvelled at how he could talk and smoke at the same time. He’d hold the phone between his shoulder and his neck, and he’d puff away without missing a beat. The smoke would often billow out of his nose. I thought it looked wonderful. I wondered how in the world he managed to do that. I wanted to blow smoke out of my nose too. It seemed to me like my dad could do anything, and that’s because he
could
. He was such a talented man in so many ways.
He pretty much knew all there was to know about plumbing and carpentry and fixing cars and building bird feeders and mending clocks and rebuilding antique furniture of any description. (I have so many of his pieces in my house today and they are all gorgeous.) He knew how to build sheds and change brake pads and plant potatoes and fly kites and make tree forts. He knew how to pull heads out of milk chutes and how to build giant barbecues. My dad’s hands were scarred from thumb to pinky with hundreds of punctures and gougesand blisters. He’d lost more fingernails than anybody I’d ever known. He always had a black nail, always. I remember him sitting down for supper, tired and covered in sweat, with at least one black fingernail. He’d have a giant new gouge or an old cut that hadn’t healed yet. I would watch him sitting there at the table thinking about whatever it was he was thinking. He’d look at his hands, folding and refolding them. He’d run them through his strawberry hair and look pensive. I wondered what he was thinking about. It must have been something heavy, because around the time I was twelve or thirteen he started drinking a little bit more just to make all the heaviness go away. He always said that he’d drink anything back then, but what I remember him drinking most often was dark rum. The smell of it to this day takes me back through a twisting and turning time-tunnel. My dad sitting there at the table with a dark rum and Coke in his fist and a lit cigarette hanging out of his head. It’s a good memory—it could be bad, but it’s not. He worked hard all the time, but he was starting to drink hard all the time too.
If I have any kind of work ethic at all, I get it from my parents. They were always so steadfast and determined. They never quit working on things. They worked so hard on the house and the yard and at their jobs, and they never quit working on themselves. They were constantly moving and doing and creating. It was a luxury for them to sit and read the paper at the end of a long day. They are in their seventies now, and they still don’t sit down. I swear they’re doing cocaine over at their house. Either that or they’re inhaling vitamins or they’re just really healthy and eager to get things done. I would rather think of the cocaine scenario as it would make me feel a little less lazy.
We usually had dinner together as a family, the five of us sitting around the small pull-out table that was Patrick’s bed come nightfall. Our meals were simple and hearty and, well, interesting. My momwas an interesting cook—she had to be because we were still living in the trailer, getting used to all sorts of adventures, culinary and otherwise. She’s the first person to admit that when she was first married she did not have a clue about what she was doing. She’d call my gram pretty much every night of the week
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