I have written about my father before. As I think of him now I would choose the word unique to describe him, but maybe there are lots of people who have had fathers like him, after all - PLUGGERS has had so many comics which "paint" him like he was.
Yes, every summer he would be repainting something - like the time the tricycle needed an upgrade for the last child to have it. After the trike was finished in Fire Engine Red almost every tool had the same red for handles, along with bird houses, etc....Other years it was turquoise or white or green...to us this was all normal and I find myself doing this so it must be normal!
Another story of my unique father was when he saved up and eventually purchased through the mail a Heathkit color television set to build. I do not know how long it took him to build that TV, but I know he enjoyed every moment doing so. It was our first television in color and with a cabinet, but unfortunately, it always had issues. He had a real job so the time to work on it was short. While waiting for the time to repair it he bought a smaller TV and put it on top of the cabinet for us. This TV on the TV became the norm.
My father's love for nature is one in which he instilled in me. Camping, hiking, canoeing, sailing, with bird watching and feeding the birds on the top of the list at home.
I remember all those years with him trying to thwart the squirrels from eating at his homemade bird feeders. He tried every tact he could design. Eventually, he decided to let them "win" by making a big wooden platform for all the birds AND the squirrels, plus he made many squirrel houses for our wooded lot.
When I was three my family moved into the house my parents kept for over 40 years. I remember when he built his first pigeon house. He was fascinated by homing pigeons. Many times he raced them. All the time he trained them. Once in a while he would allow me to come into the pigeon loft with him. He would explain things and even let me hold the baby pigeons.
As time went by the small, square pigeon loft began to fall apart so he designed and built another one twice the size of the first at the corner of the yard. After the change over to the new house the old one was dismantled. What remained was the rock foundation and the flower beds which surrounded it. My sister and I loved to play "house" in the dirt square. It was just joy!
All the while my father raised his pigeons he had special clothes to go work in the lofts. His old grey coat became his "Pigeon Coat", his tall green wellington type boots were his "Pigeon Boots"... pigeon gloves, pigeon hats...
It was only natural for us. Doesn't every father have a pigeon coat?
In our own family every slip-on pair of boots have been called "pigeon boots" and even now when our big old coats are replaced by new ones, the old ones become our "play coats", but mostly, they are lovingly called our "pigeon coats".
As the Piper's Wife if I needed new pigeon boots these are the kind I would have to purchase! I would love to share this photo with my father. He would have had a good chuckle. I can just hear him now:
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