Yesterday was Father's Day...and I gotta say that I have a pretty phenomenal Dad. A person of epic proportions. He knows more about everything than anyone I know. He's absolutely insane, intensely obsessive, completely hysterical, skilled beyond belief, enthusiastic to boot, and the loudest person that I know. He was born into an Irish Catholic family...7 sisters and 2 brothers. This probably explains why he guards his plate at dinner, speaks LOUD and FAST, and knows how to survive in the wild {my Nan would lock all 10 outside for the day so she could get some peace and quiet...}. His mantra is "Kill 'Em and Eat 'Em"...and that he does. I grew up thinking that meat wasn't purchased at the store...funny, I know, but true. I thought that lobsters came in huge bags, deer hung in the garage walk-in box, and that everyone had pigs in their backyards...fattening em up for slaughter. My Dad was a "green" farmer before being organic was the cool thing to do. We had a half acre of fruits, veggies, berries and herbs. My mom said that my Dad would have all of the bugs he'd find in the garden under jars on the kitchen table. He'd study them until he found out what they were, whether they were good or bad, and how to get rid of them {without harmful pesticides}. I still remember my little fisher-price wheelbarrow. I wanted to help my Dad so I would take my wheelbarrow (with a built in water-holder w/ hose) into the garden and water the plants. I would pull the hose out of the wheelbarrow, water the plant, put the hose back into the wheelbarrow, wheel forward about 4 inches, put the wheelbarrow back down and repeat. Ha. It was rather counterproductive though, because once I was finished I would waddle down the strawberry patch and stuff my face with every red, ripe strawberry there was. I don't think that my parents ate one of those strawberry's the whole time that the patch existed.... Yep, even back then I loved food. When I was a kid my Dad was a fisherman and my mother was a waitress. When Mom would work at the restaurant my Dad would watch me. Most of the home-video we have from my childhood were from the days and nights my Dad watched me...and 90% of that is film of me eating, and my Dad laughing in the background. "Chubby child, stuffing food into face as quickly as possible"...then he'd zoom into the floor, where everything that had missed my mouth had fallen.
My Dad may be crazy, but he does live by a set of morals, or codes. He knows a good person when he meets them, he is generous with his time, knowledge and goods -- he is always, always learning something new, and he loves my mom as much now as he did back in the day. It always seems like jokes and laughter with my Dad, but the few times I've been in a bit of a hard place, he always knows exactly what to say. His wisdom has gotten me through several trying times, but one of my favorites was this.... he said "Cailin, life is like a river. It's going to bend right, then left, and it's going to rage with water and sometimes run dry. You can't control any of it, all you can control is how you react to situations and how you handle yourself. And that's all that matters."
Paul Callahan is a nose-walking, trash-talking, loud-mouth, know-it-all sonofabitch, and he's my Dad. Happy Father's Day Dad!
Fathers Day Gift:
Kill Em and Eat Em handcarved plaque from Dominical, Costa Rica
