My Night Out With My Dad

My dad was, and remains, my best friend and parent. In my teenage years, Dad would take me with him almost everywhere. We would get up around four in the morning to go beach fishing. He would take me on the country rounds of the horse racing circuit in Western Australia, and at a few of those country racetracks, they would sell tickets to young kids… me.

One Saturday night when I was around fourteen, dad and I were on our way to the greyhound track, but when dad turned on to the highway to shortcut through Belmont to get to Cannington Raceway, we saw flashing red and blue lights ahead of us.

Dad slowed because the police were directing traffic and as we drove past, while my dad said something about it being a bad accident, I saw a motor bike in a twisted wreck then a pair of denim covered legs and black boots sticking out from under the bike.

My heart skipped a beat, but I said nothing. I didn’t want to go back home. I wanted to go to the dogs with my dad, but since that accident, I have forgot nothing about the scene right down to what the victim, who was dead, was wearing. Dad got through the roadblock, that in reality only took a few seconds, but seemed like five minutes, and changed the topic of conversation. I, however, was unable to hold one, and asked if we could listen to the radio.

Dad turned the radio on and playing was Suzi Quatro's, Don't Change My Luck. Dad despised Suzi… My delicate ear didn't miss much, and I had heard dad and his younger sister talking one night at a family BBQ.

***

"C'mon, Ted," his sister was saying. "Suzi's great."

"What? I recall dad asking, he had a smile in his voice, but I could tell he was serious, and his younger sister was younger by over a decade. "She's foul-mouthed and--"

“That's her appeal," his sister said, and my dad was left speechless.

Of course, I loved Suzi Q, as I love most outspoken women today.

My father and I have only argued once in our lives, and it's because he told me more than once growing up, "Never talk about religion or politics, Karen. It'll always end badly."

This one time we were talking about a strong, independent woman in Australian politics who was not afraid to call out the boys club. Our argument went like this.

"I don't like her," My dad said, this was over the phone. "She's got a big mouth."

"I like that about her," I responded.

Now, I am just like my father and an argument is not having words, yelling or screaming, an argument is dead air that fills the spaces between us and on that occasion, it led to a," I've got to go," from my dad.

We didn’t speak for three months after that, and I couldn’t help thinking, Well, he showed me.

***

It’s been forty-three-years since the night I saw the legs of the body on the side of the highway. It was my first, and only, time I’ve seen a dead body. I’m not sure if I put up some kind of psychic shield around me in that moment of shocking realisation, but I have had very little to do with death during my life. Both my parents are alive, and the only funerals I have been to have been for people I didn’t know very well. When my partner's mother died, I had to stay in Tasmania to look after all the farm animals, but my dad successfully helped me forget what I had seen, and we went on to enjoy another great night out. It was one of many more I got to enjoy with my dad.

My dad is my world and I love him dearly. He turned eighty last year and is still going strong.