12 things I learned from my eccentric dad - Peter Chandler 1928-2007
12. If you’re being funny, be dark, and even better, make it at your own expense
“Do you play violin, Peter?” people asked as he took his old violin apart, one of the few things he brought with him as an English immigrant, 30 years earlier.
“Three lessons as a kid; then the teacher died,” he replied. Dramatic pause. “Cause and effect?” he added, punctuated with an impish grin.
11. It’s never too late to switch gears
Dad was asked about violin-playing because in his early 50s, he began making musical instruments. At 57, he retired from dairy farming to go full-time as a luthier. By his death 20 years later, he’d made 158 violins, violas, cellos and double-basses, sold to players around the world, as well as several harps, a lute, and a harpsichord. My mother still receives royalty cheques for the book he wrote in his early 70s, called “So you want to make a Double-Bass;” he hadn’t written anything other than the credit union board minutes since he left school at 16.
10. Laws are meant to be followed
“Do I have to run this country myself?” he’d ask, anytime he heard of someone dodging taxes. He believed we all had a duty to follow the law, and was especially scrupulous about tax-paying. If the democratically elected government decided it was the right thing to do, then you do it.
9. Every rule has an exception
In 1994, he received his second photo radar ticket. Instead of sending the expected cheque to the Ministry of Transportation, he threatened to return the photo with a note saying, “I do not wish to purchase this.” Speeding, you see, was the one exception to the requirement to follow the law. If the conditions warranted it, you drove as fast as you could, scanning the ditches for cops and crossing your fingers. Photo radar was a very unwelcome development. So unfair!
8. Borrowing without asking = stealing
“You’ve stolen my tractor. Bring it back,” dad said to his hired man over the phone. The poor fellow. After clearing snow from the laneway at the end of his workday, he’d decided it made sense to drive dad’s tractor up the road to his parents’ farm, where he lived, knowing he’d just have to begin his workday 10 hours later blowing snow again.
I’d made that mistake myself - in my case, taking dad’s pickup truck to town without permission, even though he wasn’t available to ask and he’d never said no.
Message - if it’s not yours, it’s not yours. Period.
7. People deserve a 2nd chance
That same hired man got himself into a bit of legal trouble hanging out with a pack of bad boys who were stealing stuff in our community - roadsigns, snowmobiles, stupid stuff. Dad had faith in this young man who’d done good work for him. Dad spoke in court on his behalf, appealing to the judge to release him from jail early, guaranteeing him a job to resume. Many would have written him off.
6. Think on your feet
“It’s been a good 50 years,” dad said. Not one to assert himself in a group, his voice was lost in the hubbub of the family gathering marking this, the last wedding anniversary he and my mother celebrated - he died just a few months later.
“Er, dad, it’s 55?” I said out of the corner of my mouth, hoping mom hadn’t heard.
“The first five were a bit rough,” he quipped in response, covering his error. Again with that impish grin.
5. Don’t be daunted by naysayers
“How will you get it out?” people asked, as he talked about the wooden airplane he was building in the dirt-floor cellar in the farmhouse.
“I will just remove the stones around that window,” he replied, as though it were bleeding obvious.
And he did, and we flew in it, and that’s a whole other story which might have accounted for another couple of the 55 years that weren’t so great. You can read more about that here.
4. Silliness brings a smile, costs nothing
Milking cows was dad’s business when he wasn’t building airplanes and later, instruments. Until I was 18, I didn’t spend much time in the barn. Occasionally I ventured in though and nothing pleased me more this:
“I’ll go get #49,” he’d say at the end of milking all the other cows. #49 was a lazy girl and was alone lying in a stall munching on her cud, oblivious to her solitude and the ache in her udder.
He’d come a minute later with #49 in tow. To amuse me? him? he’d taken a red grease pencil and drawn a large happy face on her white flank. Two minutes. No cost. Still delighting me 50 years later.
3. Some innocence from popular culture is a good thing
“What department does he work in?” dad asked his colleagues at the fertilizer plant, circa 1952. They were discussing Hank Snow, a popular singer of the day.
“What are these Smurfs? dad queried his grandchildren thirty years later, time having not improved his awareness of the world around him.
“I found a new show, Degrassi,*” dad said to me in 2006, the year before he died. “I like it.”
2. Knowing you’re loved is more than hearing the words
“That’s alright, Laura,” he replied, awkwardly.
He was responding to her sweet four year old voice saying, “I love you Grandpa.”
In his latest Netflix special, Super Nature, Ricky Gervais explores some very controversial topics and offends a ton of people but his commentary on this business of saying “I love you” hits the nail on the head for my upbringing: saying it is not necessary when you demonstrate it.
Same with dad. Sure, he didn’t have those words at the ready for Laura or anyone else, but I knew it when I saw him in the audience when I was called to the bar six months before he died; just as I knew when we played cello/flute duets together in my 20s; and just as I knew when we camped in a tent beside his plane at a homebuilt airplane convention when I was 8.
1. Value completion and enjoyment over perfectionism
Truth is, right from that violin playing as a kid, Dad wasn’t much of a musician but as with so many things he did, he played violin, flute, piano, clarinet, and trumpet with enthusiasm and without regard to what others thought. Even the instruments he made were made fast, with a view to getting them into the hands of people who would put them to good use, often sold well below market or donated to causes to be sure people benefited from having the quality of a handmade piece even if it wasn’t visually a show-stopper. He often said he preferred bass players over violinist because they were less highly strung (and then we’d see that grin).**
This is my 16th fatherless Fathers Day. And every day I try to demonstrate these lessons and so many others he taught me.
Degrassi was a teen show, first broadcast in Canada in 1979 but with international profile even before it produced hiphop star, Drake.
** if there were a 13th lesson here, it would be that there are no bad puns. He was forever touching bass with people just so he could say it. And his bass-ment sometimes became the cell-ar depending on his inventory.
