With Father’s Day just around the corner, I thought it was only fitting to spend this week sharing the love for my father/dad/paps/Big T/Tone. Anyone who knows my dad knows that he is the most impatient, opinionated, short-tempered and best person you will ever meet. I feel so lucky every day to be able to call him my dad (and to be able to call him about anything I need help with…)
Growing up, Dad took every opportunity to play with us outdoors. He had my brothers and I throwing a tennis ball before we could walk and encouraged us to play any sports we could. He hated us being inside, cooped up in front of the TV or on the computer. So much so that whenever my brothers and I heard Dad’s ute pull into the driveway, we would sprint out to the backyard and pretend we’d been playing out there for hours. Because of that, I have dad to thank for where I am today. He ignited my passion in sport and taught me almost everything I know. Once netball started to get more serious for me, he would wake me up at 5:25 three times a week to drive me to training at the SA Sports Institute. He’d drop me off, walk the dog along the nearest beach in the pitch black of the cold winter, take me home, make me breakfast then take me to school.
Despite this dedicated support, he still doesn’t know how to be a netball spectator. Anyone who has sat in his vicinity at a Swifts game will know what I mean. He treats it like an AFL match and screams at the top of his lungs for the majority of the game. He sometimes gets his references wrong, yelling “holding the ball” or “in the back”. Yet he somehow thinks he knows more about the game than I do, even though his only experience of playing is a few games of mixed netball (before he got sent off by the umpire!) He was quite the footballer in his day, something he likes to remind us of regularly. He still plays tennis every Thursday night, swims in the sea most days (rain, hail or shine) and this year climbed Machu Picchu at the ripe old age of 61 (and with a deteriorating hip).
Dad has had a pretty incredible life. He grew up in country South Australia on a farm, the only boy amongst five children. He was scrawny and little yet loved to play sport – and apparently was good at it! Eventually he grew into a 6 foot 3 broad-shouldered bloke which helped playing centre half forward in the various Aussie Rules teams he played in. Big Tone is one of the smartest people I know (tied with Mum and just behind my brother Doug) with more general knowledge than he knows what to do with. However, as one of the younger kids in his class he struggled through year 12, and so after school he went jackerooing in Moulamein, NSW, for a year, riding horses and herding cattle. He then came back to Adelaide to attend agricultural college and in his early 20s worked in irrigation in Jordan and Iraq. After owning his own irrigation business in Australia he later spent a year with my Mum in Ethiopia on a United Nations project. Travelling has always been a real love for Dad (and Mum) which they have passed down to us kids. People thought my folks were mad when they took three kids aged 9, 7 and 4 around Europe in a campervan for six weeks. But from what I can remember, it was one of the best experiences of my life.
There are a few stories that stand out when thinking about Dad. The first was the time he wanted my younger brother, Doug, to go down the beach so badly one morning that he told him the water had been cut off and he’d need to go for a swim instead of having a shower. Dad had been nagging Doug for weeks about him taking for granted living so close to the beach as he never spent any time there. Clearly, he had grown sick of the nagging and tried a different approach. The result was Doug enjoying a beautiful morning swim at the beach and Dad (and the rest of the family) laughing about it for weeks afterwards.
The second is the time I had a small car accident and instead of getting a tow truck for my car like a normal person, he insisted we do it ourselves and hire a car trailer to tow the car to a crash repairer. It wasn’t the issue of money or availability of tow trucks; it was that Dad simply thought he could do it himself. He is a proud man who prides himself on being very handy and therefore shouldn’t have to get someone else to do something he could easily do himself. Without going in to detail, let’s just say the sun had begun to set by the time we finally found the right driveway with the right angle to get the car onto the trailer and figured out how to tie the car to the trailer. Let’s also just say he hasn’t tried it again since.
But the best memories I have with Dad are the simple ones. It’s the endless hours we have spent down the beach throwing the ‘Waboba’ or trying to beat our record in ‘bat and ball’. It’s the quizzes he used to do for me and my brothers on road trips through the countryside. It’s the bedtime stories of Morris, Mildred and Molly that he would tell every night throughout our childhood. It’s the fact that I can count on him to help me for absolutely anything; whether it’s my tax, car insurance, broken air conditioners or advice on whether or not the internet man is ripping me off. It’s his famous Sunday roasts and ‘interesting’ stews. It’s him encouraging me to move to Sydney to push myself and get outside of my comfort zone. And it’s the fact that he would do absolutely anything for me. I don’t know what I’d do without him in my life, and I’m so grateful every day to call him my dad.
I know we say every day is Father’s Day, but I hope you have the best day regardless.
Love you Dad.
Love Maddy x