How Dad was like Calvin's Dad
Dad told me that engines turn over. So there I was, looking over the engine, while dad tried unsuccessfully to start it. "It's not turning over" I said, expecting the engine to physically roll or twist around in the engine bay. "Yes it is. It is turning over" "No, it's not" I argued. He then invited me to look closer and the engine would turn over. It never did any acrobatics, and it was years until I finally understood what "turning over" actually meant! For years I thought the engine secretly "turned over" when the hood was closed and I wasn't looking. Sometimes dad just liked to play around with me that way, just like Calvin's dad in the comics :)
Other times he wouldn't know the answer and he'd make things up. Like the years he told me any berry he didn't know was poisonous. I was about 4 or 5 years old, and I was playing on the church sidewalk, throwing red mountain ash berries for fun. I remember him coming out and telling me "stop playing with those, they are poisonous!" He said the same thing about most berries we'd come across when we lived up north. It turns out that mountain ash berries are indigenous to BC and not only aren't poisonous, but were harvested and used as food in the old days. I thought they were poisonous until I moved back up to Hazelton in 2006 and we had ash tree in our front yard - the birds would come eat the fermented berries every fall and then promptly fly into our living room window. Thank goodness for Google and YouTube - I've since learned that almost all berries up here are NOT poison (they just taste bad), and I've also properly learned how gas engines work!
I also can't count how many times dad told me to go work on things I didn't like doing as part of character building, or how he'd refuse to give me answers right away, instead encouraging me to figure things out on my own.
Unschooling and late night jam sessions
We "unschool" our kids, and some of this goes back to my upbringing and how dad chose to educate us. As a pre-schooler I was encouraged to play outside, and most of my surviving memories are of creating and playing outside on my own. He would praise my creations, wether they be mud cakes or a string hooked up to a branch that I used to open an imaginary door. When it was time for me to go to Kindergarten, dad was worried. I have these memories of living at the family cabin near Comox for the summer. I had a lot of freedom for a pre-schooler, and would spend many hours at the beach playing imaginary games. One night, I have this clear memory of sitting on the love seat with dad, and him making very serious tones. He was worried, because I would be going to school. He was suddenly concerned because I didn't know the alphabet or my numbers. I remember sitting and playing as close attention as I could (not very successful), because Dad was very serious. I remember him working on a lined note pad, desperately wanting me to understand, worried that he was sending me in to school woefully under-prepared. It was a late-night-pre-kindergarten jam sesh.
My childhood was punctuated with these jam sessions. I remember him drawing out fractions in the dust of our driveway at the end of another summer. I remember him reading to me in butchered french one night when I was in grade 3, hoping it would help get me caught up. Later in elementary and high school, I would manage to rope him into some major project I thought up. One year he called in an electrician friend to help us figure out why my model nuclear power plant wasn't generating current (we never figured it out). Another year he helped me build an only modestly successful working model of a hydro dam. Although there were many partially complete projects and some failures, the memories of having him by my side those times are still solidly with me.
He carried on some of this tradition when we lived in Vancouver, and Noah pressed him into pumpkin carving. He also dutifully completed our paper maché volcano project and facilitated a number of "explosions" at the request of his grandkids!
I'll finish up my thoughts for now with what I said over three years ago when he died:
"My heart is broken. My Dad Roderick McKye Iain Beaton - Daddeo to my kids - died last night. Creative spirit. Problem solver. Visionary. Hard, hard worker. Leader. Playful spirit. Lover of outdoors. Teacher. Storyteller. Loving father. Generous. Care-giver. If you see any of these in me, I received this gifts from my father. I miss you so much."
We still miss him so, so much. XO.
-Jacob
