Dad
was born in Hamilton. An inland town fast becoming a city. With a lake and a
river running through the centre to separate it, east from west.
His
grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins from both sides of the family all lived
relatively close. If not in Hamilton, in smaller rural towns or on farms in the
Waikato area.
He helped build our
house, working with the builder after work and at weekends. He and Mum were a
great wallpapering team, transforming rooms. Dad is very precise and has a
strong attention to detail, so pattern matching was thorough and always
perfect. Symmetry is key.
Dad went to
computer programming classes at night school. Back when computers were so large
they filled a room, and you had to feed punch cards into them which contained coded
messages hidden in the binary numbers row upon row. Who knew that would catch
on ?
He built a stereo
too, importing all the little bits (fuses, valves and little transistory
circuit things) to solder together in the right order and places. Speakers too,
including building the speaker boxes.
There was always a
good vege garden to be cared for and lots of lawn to mow. A little less once
the double garage was built in place of the old toolshed and lean-to.
Dad liked gem
collecting too and many holidays and weekends we went searching for rocks. He
always talked about wanting to be able to polish them smooth, but that didn’t eventuate.
I think this fascination with rock must be in his blood – passed down from
those first settlers who went goldmining in the Coromandel.
Dad was also a
stamp collector, we used to help with this. Carefully tearing the stamps from
the corner of the envelopes and soaking them with water so that the stamp could
be separated from the envelope and then leaving them to dry face down – ready to
go in to an album.
He also loves
astronomy – not astrology. I remember watching the moon landing on the tv early
one morning. It seemed incomprehensible that people were actually in space, on
the moon. Now they stay for months at a time in the International Space Station
and fly over us at least once a day ! Dad started to build his own telescope,
something that began with a thick chunk of glass cut in a circle, which needed
to be ground to become concave. That seemed like a neverending task to me.
Planetarium meetings and running sessions for the public kept him busy too.
Committee meetings negotiating for premises in Harris Street and then starting
again when the council decided to expand the library and carpark and take back
the building and land. That move took them to the top of the cable car in the
Botanic Gardens, where the Planetarium is still located.
Later, much like
the stereo, he and some friends began to build their own home computers. The
Commodore 64 came along though, and the home made version went on the back
burner.
Dad was always calm
and didn’t seem to lose his temper very often, he likes to do crosswords and
read. These days Suduko have become a favourite pastime as well.
Genealogy is still
an interest today. Search methods have changed from the way they were though,
so much is available online. Although you can still go and search old and
original records, not so much time is spent in library reading rooms anymore.
He’s a great story
teller too, he would read to us at night – a chapter or two from whatever was
the current novel we were reading. Or he would tell stories about when he was
little and the adventures they would get up to. The eclipse of the sun, finding
the teeny rabbit by the railway tracks, so small he fit in a tea cup and more.
As a grandfather
too, he would read stories, putting on voices for each character in Goodnight
Owl and the BFG – among others.
He’s a great Dad !
All wired up and techy; emailing, texting, whatsapping, skyping - you name it.
I hope we are as on to it and willing to try new things too.
