Father’s Day 2020 was one of the strangest yet, but we celebrated my dad outdoors with steaks and social distancing.
The day started quietly with an espresso at dawn, but I couldn’t wait to get cooking. Jen bought steaks and corn. I love cooking and I especially love barbecuing. Cooking for my mom and dad is one of the best hobbies I have.
The morning was spent relaxing by myself on the patio, reading Gord Downie and Jeff Lemire’s graphic novel Secret Path, the story of Chanie Wenjack. I spoke about this book a bit on Saturday’s live stream. To say reading this book was an intense undertaking is to sell the experience short. I had to stop twice to catch my breath. This powerful, true story is made so clear, so intense and spiritual thanks to the words of Gord and the images of Jeff. A book/album review is absolutely forthcoming. (Even though the book comes with a download of the Gord Downie album, I still bought the CD individually as well.)
It was a hot afternoon but at least my parents have a back deck with some shade. I lit the gas and let the flames do their work. I incorporated some new techniques that I picked up watching YouTube videos over the winter. I let the steaks get up to room temperature, then patted them dry and seasoned with just salt, pepper and garlic powder. Nothing fancy and no marinate was necessary. I overcooked mine a bit for my liking. Everybody else likes them a bit more done than me. I forgot how hot my dad’s barbecue can get. But they were still juicy and flavourful, I just prefer them a little more red.
We chatted current events, the cottage, and Uncle Don Don. My mom saved for me what was left of his CD collection (I gave my sister first dibs and she took Frank Zappa’s Hot Rats.) Mom asked me to sort through the music, but I decided to take them home to do that here. The CD covers have the telltale yellowing of a smoker’s home and I didn’t want to handle them and have to prepare dinner too.
There are a few CDs here that I’ll have to keep. I’m missing several Tragically Hip. I don’t have that Lee Aaron (her debut). I could probably use some Johnny Winter, George Thorogood, Garbage, and Jane’s Addiction. A few of these are duplicates; I have all the Deep Purple and Alice Cooper albums. But those are two bands that Uncle Don influenced me to get into. “Child In Time”, he said. That was the song he praised. He has two versions of “Child In Time” in this cardboard box.
Looks like I’m going to be owning Jackyl, Haywire and Collective Soul too. Cool. I’ll go through the box in detail in the coming days.
My dad enjoyed his Father’s Day meal, and we had a nice visit. The first one in many months. It wasn’t hard to stay sanitised and distant, but it was different. Just something we have to live with for a while. Hopefully not too much longer. I’m starting to get tired of the same old scenery from my little patio at home. I want to get back to the lake. Because of various health concerns and vulnerabilities, we’ve all agreed that we can’t all be at the same cottage at the same time, so we’ll have to take turns. I’ll have to wait a little while longer to cook my dad a nice barbecue chicken dinner (skin on, of course). It’ll happen though — eventually.
I hope all the fathers had as nice a Father’s Day as my dad did.