Last Sunday was Father’s Day, an occasion which we Lower Mainland Doukhobors commemorate by holding a picnic / potluck at some obscure park out in North Delta.  Obscure, but it’s actually called Annieville Lions Park, which works well for me since I’ve been living in my own version of Annieville for over a decade now.  

The local community has been holding this annual event for years–decades, I think, by this point–and while I haven’t attended every single one of them, I have been to a few.  This year I decided to show my respect for my pops by taking the Skytrain from downtown and meeting my folks  at Scott Road Station in Surrey, where they picked me up and the three of us made the brief drive to the park.

The morning was grey, gloomy, and unbearably soggy; as I helped my 78-year old parents with some boxes of packed-up homemade food, an electric coffee urn, and a couple of folding chairs, I sneered that we’d be the only ones in attendance.  It was a truly miserable day, the sort of Sunday that you’d have to be of unsound mind to leave your warm bed for in order to voluntarily have an outdoor picnic, but this is also typical of Vancouver weather in June; we don’t annoyingly call it “June-uary” because it’s a fresh, delightful word.  However, since there’s almost always abysmal weather when we have this picnic, I can’t figure out why we haven’t moved it to a community centre, or someplace indoors, or even someone’s house, but my mother explained that a prominent member of the community has a “standing reservation” there.  Right.  So in typical Doukhobor fashion, we were going to endure adverse conditions and circumstances that could easily be changed, all in the name of being spirit wrestlers.  

A surprising number of people showed up, and before the food was busted out, we had our typical prayer, hymn, and song service–men facing the women as is grand Doukhobor tradition–called molenyie (and for those uninterested in / pre-judging our heritage, I will clarify and reinforce that it is NOT an organized religion, but a spiritual, guiding philosophy). It would have been lovely to do this beneath some of the beautiful trees in abundance around this park, but instead, all thirty of us had to huddle beneath the covered picnic area, creatively assembling ourselves around the benches and tables crammed in there.  To add to this somewhat-amusing, surreal scenario, not a handful of metres away was a baseball diamond, where a crowd of uniform-clad pipsqueaks and their parents were hustling and yowling, doing their best to put an abrupt end to the tournament they had planned.  As we Doukhobors raised our voices in song, someone among the ball-playing crowd climbed aboard the P.A. system to warble out an off-key version of “O Canada” (which is actually pretty tough to do, since our national tune–a mostly redundant series of repeating notes occasionally going up and down the same octave, with the only interesting feature being an unexpected minor-key shift in the final line of the song–takes actual skill to be unable to sing properly.  It is actually perfectly-suited for the formless passivity of Canada, and nowhere near approaching  a soaring, melodically-stirring anthem).  

The rain didn’t then just start pouring down in faster, larger drops, but turned into sheets, and actually started going sideways, spraying several of us who were standing underneath the roof.  The slant of the downpour meant that hoods were pulled up and yoinked tight beneath chins, and sleeves were used to mop off dripping faces.  Yet everyone was, inexplicably,  in a great mood.  That’s the magic, I suppose, of belonging to a community, one that has maintained its traditions and members across multiple generations, and for whom grace, hospitality, and kindness are trademarks.  Also, martyrdom and suffering is in our DNA.  Some hard rain as we conducted our traditional spiritual service?  This was literally a picnic compared to, oh, having some government spooks show up and exact their unthinkable punishment on us for peacefully acknowledging a faith and our adherence to a God, one represented by the majesty of nature rather than the bearded, fearsome, anthropomorphized Biblical wizard officially established by Michaelangelo’s depiction.  

My Dad held and facilitated the molenyie, and he had asked me to lead the beautiful hymn Speetyeh Arlie, which was my signature song when I belonged to the Victoria Doukhobor Choir.  It means “Sleep on, you brave fighting eagles,” and it honours the Doukhobor martyrs who sacrificed their lives and families to combat militarism in Russia, and help the community immigrate to Canada about 100 – 120 years ago.  You can hear me and the Victoria choir here; my song is somewhere down on that list, and it should, at the very least, give you the shivers.

Despite the admirable deluge, I was legitimately pleased to be in attendance and among members of the local community, and so was everyone else.  It had been years since I participated in anything like this. I won two raffle / trivia prizes (an outdoor plant and a pen set!) and above all else, it was very nice to get a chance to publicly honour my father.  He is usually in Hawaii during his March birthday, so this annual June event is a pleasant way to remind him how special he is, and what a distinctive, superb, brilliant human he is and always has been.  As a father, a husband, a grandfather, a community member, and simply as a man and member of society, the term “role model” seems far too much of a diminishment; they do not make men like my father anymore.  At least, none that I’ve met.  He is a unique and untouchable blend of strong genetic matter and magical brilliance, of logic-based morals and lucid reason, of fierce loyalty and unshakeable family values, of politics and rationality, of effortless music and even more effortless, magnificent art. 

  *   *   *   *   *

Strangely, I don’t know too much about my father’s early life.  He just hasn’t really ever sat down and given a thorough breakdown of his upbringing and experience to me, my brother, or my sister…and quite possibly even my mother, to whom he has been married for 54 years this August.  Throughout our lives, we siblings have just picked up and pieced together a timeline of data and facts and particulars, thanks to casual, unplanned tidbits of information Dad drops now and then; photo albums and offhand anecdotes from friends and relatives; and conclusions we’ve drawn based on whatever evidence we are armed with.  He isn’t a man of mystery so much as a person who doesn’t speak at length about himself, and never has; a superb listener and man of grace, my Dad would never–and I mean, not ever–dominate a conversation with talk of himself and his life, never mind create a blog in which he could do so with abandon.  

I am my father’s daughter in countless ways, but not that one.  

Here’s what I do know about him:

• He has a fraternal twin sister.  They were supposed to be born on March 17, and my grandmother was going to call them “Patrick and Patricia” thanks to that particular Irish day of celebration, which is completely unacceptable, so the universe spared them this fate and protectively held the twins back in the womb for one more day.  Even though many Douks have English names to make life in Canada slightly easier, they also generally have a corresponding Russian name (i.e. Michael would be Misha, William could be Vasya, Peter might be Petya, Stephanie might be Stenya, etc) but going with “Patrick” and “Patricia” for your twins because they were born on March 17 is just a bridge too far for a zillion reasons.

• He was raised in Saskatchewan–Prince Albert, I think?–but there was some time spent in the teensy town of Marcelin, where there was, and still is, a family farm, and my beloved second cousins have there lived for their entire lives.

• His Dad (my grandfather), John, wasn’t a great father at all; as a family friend once described him, “Good man, but wasn’t cut out for the fatherhood thing.”  John was a decent writer, a working journalist, an alarming chain-smoker, and a tragic alcoholic.  My grandmother Anne–a fragile, beautiful woman of “Patrick and Patricia” infamy–had finally had enough of his unacceptable ways, leaving and divorcing him in the 1950s when this sort of decision was still a very big deal.  Anne, my Dad, and his twin sister moved to a lovely mid-century craft home in Kitsilano (a great neighbourhood in the west side of Vancouver) where they all lived with Anne’s parents. John was a classic deadbeat, and so my great-grandfather was the true male parental role model for Dad.  

(I only met my paternal grandfather John three times during my life–by that point he had been living alone in a small house in another itty-bitty Saskatchewan town called Blaine Lake–and I wasn’t impressed by this virtual stranger with the gruff manner, nightmarish speaking voice ravaged by decades of a five-pack-a-day habit, and overt favouritism for my brother.  John died of lung cancer at the age of 66, when I was ten.)

• Vancouver during the 1960s was the counterculture place to be in British Columbia–if not all of Canada–and my father happened to come of age smack-dab in the middle of it all, mere blocks away from where the main action was taking place around West 4th and MacDonald.  He was a good boy, though, and cared nothing for psychedelic drugs and dirty hippies, preferring to immerse himself in an education and folk music, even forming a folk duo with his twin sister where he played acoustic guitar and they harmonized gorgeously.  I don’t think he was a stranger to good old West Coast weed, though.

• He got to see “2001: A Space Odyssey” in 1968 when it came out in the cinema, something of which I will forever be envious.  Walking behind a couple of people on the street who were discussing it one day, Dad spontaneously decided to skip that afternoon’s classes and check it out for himself. He was so gobsmacked by the entire experience that he came out of the matinee, went home to rave to his sister about it, and they went that evening to watch it–making it twice in one day he watched the film.  He assures me he has never dropped LSD in his life, not even for this mind-busting cinematic opus.

• Dad wanted to be an artist, being so naturally gifted and entirely untrained (as just one example, he did this painting of my twin nephews in the mid-2000s just for sport), but understood he needed something prestigious and which would make decent money to help provide for his future family.  After a brief teaching stint that he loathed–oh, I understand completely–he went to UBC Law School, and practiced law for decades until he retired. He insists that he despised it, and actually talked me out of attending law school myself when I expressed interest (“It is NOT like the movies, with courtroom drama and excitement! It is paperwork, phone calls, and hell for creative people!”). Far from being rich, he supported himself through school by working manual-labour gigs, including an exhausting stint on Vancouver Island (Prince Rupert, I think) toiling away at a mill.

• He was so good-looking, talented, kind, intelligent, and well-dressed, women and men alike salivated over him (see header pic of him singing with my Mom at a Doukhobor festival, with some guy in the background typically gazing in rapture at Dad).  This factoid has been relayed to me, and proven to me, again and again during my lifetime.  My mother, being an attractive, professional woman of goals, tenacity, taste, and foresight, met my father for the first time in the late 1960s, and from that point on nobody else stood even a fleeting chance.  

• He is a horror-movie aficionado, a genre of preference which was passed along to yours truly.  We got our first VCR when I was about six years old–in the early 80s–and the very first movie we ever rented was the frightening “Halloween 2.”  Apparently I watched most of it from behind a pillow.  He perfected the casual 1980’s free-movie-owning technique by frequently renting a second VCR from 7-11 (you could do that then), connecting the two machines, putting a rented VHS movie into one and a blank cassette into the other, and then recording the playing movie onto the empty tape (you could also do that then).  Our family joyfully owned and watched dozens and dozens of pirated movies this way, and I would say 60% of them were horror films.  

• He can cook, draw, paint, sing, play guitar, orate, and parent stupendously, and has a dazzlingly dry sense of humour that I also inherited.  He also pays far too much attention to global economics and conflict–he was a Poli Sci major, after all–and luckily has my brother with whom he can vent, discuss, parse, ridicule, and analyze the ludicrousness of the hopelessly-corrupt powers that be, scoffing at the propaganda-peddling of mainstream media and instead gaining his knowledge from objective, intelligent, reputable sources (the ones that haven’t been censored).  However, I don’t think he believes in the Illuminati, the New World Order, occult Baphomet worship by the elites, or the shadow government; he’s far too level-headed and objective for such explorations.  That’s, uh, that’s solely my hobby.  

Above all else, Dad has been the greatest father a girl could have ever asked for.  Ever.  I am not a lucky woman by any means, but I got very lucky with him.  I’ve often had such lousy taste in men–have totally chosen the wrong ones again and again throughout my life, though I’ve always cheerfully and quickly bounced back from these doomed relationships–which surprises and irritates me since my Dad has precisely the sorts of qualities and characteristics that I should deem the barometer by which all potential partners should be measured.  What can I say: I try to believe the best in people, my kindness has been manipulated and trampled on, and a lot of boys just flat-out lie.  I was never taught this lesson, because Dad is the most honest, sensitive, face-value guy I’ve ever known, and really, the only kind of guy I was familiar with during my formative years.  Boys can be lying, cheating, manipulative, mean twits?  

They can?! 

But…but…but my Dad!

He never raised me to place importance on my appearance merely because I was (unfortunately) born female.  He emphasized my intelligence and talent above all else, always, and never failed to nurture and encourage both.  If I happened to be cute?  What a bonus.  Both of my parents are physically adorable, so it stood to reason their kids would be, too.  No big deal and nothing to capitalize on.  Early attempts at making me a girly-girl weren’t met with much enthusiasm on my end.  Ability, skills, good grades, creativity, and authenticity of spirit were the traits of which I was always reminded and which my father perpetually celebrated.  This might be why I insisted that every loser guy I have ever been involved with treat me as an equal and take me seriously first and foremost; if there is a constant emphasis on my physical appearance, not only am I uncomfortable, I am extremely annoyed.

And if they do focus solely on my face and body and how I maintain them?  I will shrug, accept that these are the pathetic and established relationship standards, turn the tables, and do the same right back to them (spoiler: they don’t like it so much). Now, I am not saying that every man I’ve been involved with was a schmuck, but the ratio of good-guy-to-hopeless-jerk is not exactly balanced.

…I could probably write an entire book about my father, and who knows; maybe one day, I’ll do exactly that.  He would certainly warrant at least one full-length publication, if not an entire anthology.  Suffice it to say that I’ve spent these seven days since last week’s extreme monsoon-season Father’s Day thinking about how I could best honour him, pay tribute to him, and convey precisely how much he means to me and to so many others.  I guess I’m going to conclude here by saying that, of all his attributes and gifts, the most incredible qualities he might possess are his genuine modesty and humbleness: I have met and known fellas of much, much lower quality who swagger around with unwarranted and embarrassing arrogance.  My Dad could have a slight basis for doing so, with the goods to back it all up, but he never has, and he never will, and he never does.  Such distasteful conduct and attitude would be unthinkable to him at best, savagely and ruthlessly mockable at even better than best.

He may not like a lot of what other people do, but he would never be presumptuous and egotistical enough to impose his beliefs, ethics, preferences, or choices on others.  He is who he is, he’s just fine with himself, and he is just fine with accepting others, as it always should be if you’re a halfway-decent human being.

Unless you’re a politician.

Love you, Dad.  And thank you.