A long drive to Brighton. Rail replacement buses and so everyone is driving instead and someone crashed. I worked out a route around it ignoring Google and it seemed to go in my favour. Channelling dad and his “bump of locality”.
He would be 100 today, it’s his birthday.
Precious little about the old man on the internet and I think he would be glad of that. Occasionally I find a photo of one of his old powerboats or him in something like a dragster crossed with death car. He was my age when I knew him first. And he was still moving fast whenever possible. I wonder what our adult relationship might have been. “Actors don’t like me,” he told me when I said that was gonna be my thing. “I sometimes play golf with Sean Connery but I think he merely tolerates me because I’m Scottish”.
1925 he was born. He served at the end of WW2, doing something out in Japan about munitions and Bren gun carrying. He was army. Wheeler dealing even then though and following opportunities. He stayed there after the war. Rumour has it that there might be half brothers there old enough to be my grandparents. He had a butsudan from those times which I remember knowing when I was growing up but I’ve never seen it as an adult – I think it went with his house. It was only small, but I remember him talking about what must have been Nichiren Buddhism when I was a child, in relation to it. “Yes, it’s mostly just one phrase on repeat, but it has an effect. You’re essentially brainwashing yourself to be a better more motivated version of yourself. That’s pretty good as far as religions go.” I’ve never done one of those DNA tests but if I did I might get an email from someone over there. I can barely keep up with my friends over here. But I like to think he would occasionally say Nam Myo Ho Renge Kyo. Age can be unkind so it’s nice to think that the man who very seriously taught me the correct way to stand on top of a moving car was older than I am now.
Happy century birthday dad. Thanks for the memories, the fearlessness, the ease.
I’m by the sea, by Lou, living in the now, thinking of his influence. We went to the woods and caught the light and the mild Indian summer and now it’s early to bed and a lovely chilled day by the sea to look forward to. I won’t be racing powerboats. Probably would be if I could afford it though.
AlBarclay 