Dad hated zucchini. Refused to eat it.
He didn't always though. I asked him why and the story went like this.
In his early 20s, dad was a journeyman carpenter - just in time for the massive recession, and no jobs for carpenters. He found a job "teaching" at a very small Highschool up in Kitwanga, BC - initially in his trade, which was woodworking. Because he wasn't trained as a teacher, he was paid essentially minimum wage, and allowed to teach on a "letter of permission" from the Superintendent.
There were problems. Namely, nowhere to live, and no money to buy food. He had to find ways to make it with moving and paying student debt, a toddler (me) and a new baby due any day (Rebekah).
Dad said the owner of the Kitwanga General Store was very generous and gave him a $300 line of credit there for groceries. This was enough for staples - flour, sugar, oil, tea, etc. Now they needed a place to live.
For finding a place to live, Dad lined up a cabin, which was a chicken coop for a while, and was now a cabin again. Very rustic, very basic, and most importantly - very cheap.
Photo gallery of the "chicken coop" below, these from 2019. In 2019 it was literally on it's last legs - the foundation had mostly eroded and it was on the verge of collapse.
The cabin was on a farm, and in Cedarvale, a small community along the Skeena only a few minutes southwest of Kitwanga. Word got out the Mom and Dad - and their small children - needed some food. So, as Dad told the story, a farmer generously donated a small mountain of zucchini squash.
"Zucchini pancakes, zucchini bread, fried zucchini, baked zucchini... we cooked and prepared zucchini in every known possible way." - quote, dad.
"I never ever want to see another Zucchini ever again" - also quote dad.
"Get that zucchini out of my face" - dad, too
The combination of the line of credit and the mountain of Zucchini got my family through a couple of months of hardship until Dad's low-wage paycheques started rolling in. I don't remember him complaining about Zucchini when I was a kid (we weren't allowed to complain, so he had to lead by example, lol) but when we got bigger, he started refusing to touch Zucchini anything, and then this story came out.
I've been meaning to tell it for a while. When I see the funny summer Zucchini memes I always think of dad, who made a meme out of Zucchinis before that was even a thing.
Here is a photo of Noah, with one of his fav veggies to grow... Zucchinis :)
