Hello readers. It occured to me that
before I dive into this week's post, I suppose I should give you a little
introduction to the people that are the inspiration for this blog, my family.
You see, although this blog is named after my dad and all the ridiculous things
he says and does, it is equally dedicated to my mother and brother, who have proved
an invaluable source of inspiration in this little endeavour of mine, and can
relate to all these ridiculous stories.
You see, the story begins in Montreal
in the mid 1970s: Mom came over from Mexico for the 1976 summer Olympics, and
Dad quite literally stepped off a boat. Now I know what you are thinking, but
it's not in the way you might imagine: he was actually working on a cruise ship
at the time, and he and some friends thought Montreal during the Olympics would
be a fun place to meet some girls. Well I guess I'll save the story of how they
met for another time (believe me it's a really great story, and one my mom will
surely be glad to contribute to), but moving things on a little bit, they were
soon thereafter married, and my brother and I quickly followed to 'brighten' up
their lives. Or as my dad so eloquently puts it, uselessly waste his money,
steal his stuff, and slowly kill him by leaving the refrigerator door open. But
for anybody who knows him well enough, and as my mom will tell you, these are
simply terms of endearment (very important to know, as my dad sometimes
expresses his feelings in less then orthodox ways).
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From left to right, myself, dad, mom,
and my brother Carlos, circa 1984
So remember last week's post? It's the
one on how my dad deals with conflict resolution, and moving mountains. Well if
you haven'tread it yet, it's a really great story on how creative/crazy my dad
can get when it comes to resolving conflicts. Anyways, back to my original
point: the way in which my father dealt with the yearly floods that devastated
our backyard, was to employ a fairly simple but extremely effective syphon
system to drain the flood waters. For those of you who don't know, a syphon is
a tube in an inverted U shape which causes a liquid to flow uphill, above the
surface of the reservoir, without pumps, powered by the fall of the liquid as
it flows down the tube under the pull of gravity, and is discharged at a level
lower than the surface of the reservoir. Sounds pretty technical right? Well
it's actually ridiculously simple. In fact so simple that one day a few years
back when I was curious about the whole process, and asked my dad how the
drainage system worked, he proceeded to berate me for his perceived view of my
general lack of knowledge. You see, when my dad is frustrated with my brother
and I, he'll usually yell at us for a while, and then engage himself in
conversation, asking why oh why he spent so much of his hard earned money on
two ignoramus sons who don't know anything about anything. Now you see, it
doesn't take much to be on the receiving end of my dad's humorous tirades on
education, and this can range from cracking a joke at the dinner table that he
does not understand, to not replacing an empty carton of milk in the
fridge...it's like some sort of lottery where nobody wins and everybody
laughs...you just never know! So what was I talking about again? Oh right. I
had just made the mistake of asking my dad how the syphon system worked. So
after a particularly good rant about how I wasn't learning anything useful in
university, and that maybe a good hammer to the head might knock something
useful into my brain (you see, strangely, for some reason, my dad thinks
hammers solve all problems), he proceeded to tell me how when he was a boy back
in his village in Spain, he only went to school until the age of twelve, and
would learn everything he knew, and in this case, the fluid dynamics of a
syphon system, through shear life experience.
And you know what, those few years of
school, coupled with a lifetime of real-world education have made him one of
the cleverest and quickest people I know (don't believe me? Ask the good people
at Bell ExpressVu Television customer service...he's on their abusive client
list, and usually gets what he wants on the first call). But don't tell him
that, because it will go straight to his head, and we'll never hear the end of
it. See I know what you are thinking...you're are probably saying to yourself,
"but Daniel, he can just read your blog, and he'll know all these
wonderful things you are saying about him". Fair assumption, but I thought
of that too. I actually hid the link to my blog on my parent's web browser in
my mom's tai chi favorites folder. I should be safe for a while.
So as I was saying (I seem to get
sidetracked a lot lately...reminds me of Sunday night dinner, where one topic
of conversation usually spins off into seven completely unrelated, independent
and simultaneous conversations...) the story of how my dad discovered how the
syphon system works is a great one. Let's take a little trip through space and
time back to Spain in the late 1950's. My dad grew up in one of those typical
mountain villages you read about in books, with picturesque views and two
lovely places of worship, the church, and the local tavern. Well from a young
age, my dad was not a church going man, but he sure liked that tavern: you see
back in those days, taverns in small villages were the place to see your
friends, to close deals, socialize, play cards, and generally have a good time.
Being a natural troublemaker and a gifted story teller, my dad usually found an
audience to entertain at the local watering hole, and he and his friends could
always be found there. But as entertaining as my dad was to the local patrons,
the owner of the bar was less then pleased to have a bunch of thirteen year old
boys hanging around. It also didn't help that the village priest and some of
the local women threatened the barkeep with bodily harm if he did not expel the
children from his establishment. So as the story goes, my father and all the
local children were promptly kicked out of the bar and left without a place to
meet. Well one day, my dad, his friend Sergio, and his younger cousin Paco,
were wandering the streets bored, looking for something to do, when they came
upon the rear courtyard of the local bar. What they found would be an
alcoholic's dream: cases upon cases of liquor and enormous one hundred gallon
barrels of red wine. Well you try telling a bunch of troublemaking teenagers
not to play with a limitless supply of alcohol...it's like telling the sun not
to rise...you can try, but it's just not going to happen. So, my dad being the
leader of the group, decided a nice way to start their little party would be to
drink some red wine. He made quick work of climbing to the top of the barrel
(which was over six feet tall) and rigged a rubber hose into the opening and
passed it down to Sergio and Paco. You see the reasoning was sound: think of
the barrel as a giant glass, and the hose as a giant drinking straw. Well my
dad took the first drink, and was quite pleased with the result. He then passed
it on to Sergio, who also proceed to take a drink. Now remember when I
explained to you how the syphon system worked? Well what happened next was that
very principle in action with about one hundred gallons of force streaming
through a rubber hose heading right for the mouth of an unsuspecting twelve
year old Paco. After the initial gush of wine in the face, and realizing that
they could not stop the flow rushing through the hose, Paco decided to be brave
and tried to drink as much wine as he could in order to stop the flow. I don't
know about you, but a twelve year old against one hundred gallons of wine...I'm
putting my money on the wine. After a few attempts to drink off the incoming
tide, the boys panicked, and ran off with a severely intoxicated Paco in tow,
leaving the syphon principle to take effect and subsequently drain the entire
barrel into the courtyard. Well the boys never broke their code of silence and
denied any involvement in the incident, but almost everyone in the village knew
they had done it: you see dropping off your extremely drunk twelve year old
cousin at his mother's door does not exactly scream innocence. In the end,
failing to be able to officially blame someone for the wasted wine, my dad says
that the owner of the bar eventually blamed it all on a group of travelling
gypsies, but knowing full well who was responsible. To this day, every time my
dad goes back to his village and runs into the now elderly barkeep, he still
denies any involvement in the incident. The old man usually just laughs and
offers him a drink...in a glass this time.
Although my dad did not go to school
for long, or get any diplomas from prestigious institutions, he'll proudly tell
you that a lot of the knowledge that's taught to engineers in university today,
he learnt at the tender age of thirteen with a giant barrel of wine, a hose,
and by giving his cousin one hangover he'll never forget.
So you know what? As crazy and
ridiculous as my dad's advice usually sounds, it's always pretty sound and
comes from a sure place. As he once told me: someone can tell you that drinking
too much will give you a hangover, but it's only by actually drinking that you
will know how painful it can be!
That's my dad for you.
Stay tuned for more.
Daniel
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