Dad

Here's the second installment in some series about those people who were always around the house when I was younger. It features one of my two living male relatives, and probably will be of limited coherence. I realize it's not a good picture of him, because it's taken from behind, but I really like this picture, it has all sorts of stuff going on (click on it, it's much bigger). Here's a second pic of him for good measure.

Walter Spencer Henderson was born in 1950 to parents of English and Scottish ancestry. That makes him a baby boomer, which I think has something to do with dynamite. His dad was a machine-gun instructor in WW2 and his mom was once the lawn-bowling champion of Quebec, although that had nothing to do with any war. He grew-up in Town of Mount Royal, which is an English district of Montreal. As a boy he played lots of hockey, waterskiied a lot and appeared on an old-school television quiz show with his parents. They won the first night, but lost the second.

In nineteen-seventy-something he moved to BC, for reasons known only to God and the mafia hitmen who were chasing him. He worked as a log-peeler, a fruit-picker in the Okanagan and a miner. Eventually he joined the radio industry, which he remains a part of to this day. The year Star Wars was released, he and my mom were married.

Whenever something went wrong when I was little (that is, everyday) he would say "it's not the end of the world." And you know what? He was almost always right. The notable exception being the Cuban Missile Crisis. The thing I remember him doing most when I was young was driving me to soccer practice. I went to a lot of soccer practices and he always drove me and picked me up. He was also my baseball coach, but I liked soccer better than baseball, so nevermind that. I guess it's a trivial thing, but plenty of kids don't have anyone to drive them to soccer practice, so they just stay at home and play soccer with their dog, but then the dog runs away and they shout "stop running dog!" But the dog just keeps running because the dog can't understand English, also, it doesn't like soccer.

These days my dad is a civic councillor in my hometown. That's cool, because I like politics, except for civic politics, because they are boring. It's still cool though. His main hobbies are golf and buying weird Montreal Expos memorabilia on ebay, apparently because he loves inept baseball teams. He does not collect Washington Nationals memorabilia (the latest incarnation of the Expos), probably because they are actually good.

What else? He really likes those movies about football where there is some underdog player or team, and they eventually win in the end against all odds. Seriously, he has like 8 of them. That's cool though, Rudy was a pretty good movie (Ruuuudy, Ruuuudy!). He is a big Beatles fan, and is generally into music from the 60s and 70s, not surprisingly, since he has often been a DJ, and has often lived during those decades. He also likes to drink hot chocolate, in all seasons, and go for walks with his dog Gamgee, but they don't play soccer, because who would drive them?

So yeah, that's my dad. He's a really considerate and giving person, kind of like Leah, but with less rock-throwing. He can also make a voice like Donald Duck, and super-good omelets.