Dear Old Dad

Election time is fast approaching, not only for the Yankees, but even sooner for us Canucks!
On Oct.14th Canadians will be going to the polls and electing a Prime Minister.
The campaign is going great guns right now. [The three Liberal buses passed me on the Queensway tonight, a big red one in the lead, followed by two white ones…. Stephane Dion's roadies perhaps?]
However, most Canadians seem to be more interested in what is going on south of our border! [And on a scale of global importance, rightly so, I guess.]
When I first became eligible to vote, several decades ago, I did not vote.
Out of respect for my dear old dad.
I am not sure now, looking back, if what I did was stupid or not.
See, way back then, my father and I were on opposite ends of the political spectrum ideology-wise. And when election time[s] came around, I would see him go to the polls, and there was no mystery as to how he was going to vote. He made it QUITE clear.
And his choice was not my choice.
And so, out of respect for him, I personally felt it would be wrong to cancel his vote with my own.
He raised me. For at least one or two, maybe even three of those federal elections, I was still living under his roof. [The cloud of marijuana smoke wafting up the stairway from my room was a dead giveaway that I was still a resident…]
Now, thinking back, I guess if I really really respected him I could have used my own ballot to DOUBLE his vote!
But even parental respect has its limits.

My dad passed away just two weeks before the new Millennium.
I have missed him since that December of 1999.
I now live on the other side of Canada, in the nation’s capital. Several provinces east of my pot-smoking days!
I can SEE Parliament Hill from my balcony! The Prime Minister’s residence at 24 Sussex is only a few blocks from my apartment. My polling station is connected underground to my own building.
I hope that this year, in a few weeks time, when I walk that subterranean labyrinth to place my “X” where my father would never have placed his -- I hope he is not watching me on some cloud-mounted big-screen TV in heaven.
He’d be shaking his head back and forth.
Dear old dad.
I still respect him. I still disagree with him. And because of both things, part of me hopes they do not allow televised coverage of such Earthly events where he lives.

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