My dear old dad, had he lived, would have been 73 this year. Its hard to believe hes been gone almost 30 years. He used to love driving the backroads. You could go all day and although you’d cut across paved roads, you did’nt have to drive on em to get anywhere if you didn’t want to and usually we did not. This was the ‘backroads- country- drop in and say hello- type of roadtrip’ that is still practiced by some today. The roadtrip bug bit me when I was young. It was’nt uncommon, in the summer months, to be piled into the open truck bed of our trusty F150, sometimes just me and Steve-O, other times heaps of cousins or neighbours kids. Barrelling down some quicksand-gravel topped, pothole infested ribbon of washboard, the AM radio blarin’ ‘Tinman”, the dust so thick it would burn the eyes, sting the skin and make your throat feel like you were drinking volcanic sandpaper. God it was great to be a kid!!!

Anyway,enough about roadtrips. The old man liked to laugh and had a pretty good sense of humour. Being German, some of the humour was a little odd. He ate Limburger cheese. The most disgusting, foul, toxic, substance on earth. One of dads great pleasures was convincing people to try it. He took great pride, and skill, in explaining how it was one of the finest cheeses in the world and tasted nothing like it smelled( of course it tasted much worse) and on and on. The reactions were always worth the investment. He would roar.

Dad loved TV. And dad loved radio. I have fond memories of watching Laugh-in, Ed Sullivan, the Smothers Brothers, Flip Wilson, Bob Newhart, Johhny Carson, Steve Allen, Jack Benny and so many more. TV or radio, one or the other was always on. Thanks dad. Happy Birthday.