what I love about my Dad

My dad died at age 79 in 1988 which would have made him 97 today, 8th June. He never used to make any fuss about his birthday. His Mum, my Grandma sent him 5 pounds for his birthday once and he used it to buy hot water bottles for us kids - there were 4 of us and Jill's being the baby had the only hot water bottle until then. He used to take it turns to put it in one of our beds and the one who had it thought we were special. So the night he bought one for each of us he came in and said Who's got the bottle tonight and of course we all said so and that must have been a special moment for him - our pleasure was his pleasure. That's a bit how God thinks too. He was a bookkeeper at Hales in Bourke, on the Darling in western NSW. He was actually born there but had his growing up years in Balladoran, and a short time in Ryde and moved back to Bourke with Permewan-Wrights after he returned from Occupation Force duty in Japan. He loved sport and was cheeky in a self deprecatory way: he taunted the bowler when he opened the batting at Dubbo once and Dad always laughed about how the bowler got him out first ball. He'd take his tennis racquet in for restringing after each game - that's what the big timers used to do in the days before they had second, third and fourth racquets. I love him and wish he were here to talk to.