Take It Easy
Instead of heading Dad’s advice – as you tend not to do with parents – I got a tattoo of swallow about eight years ago, as a tribute to him, on my left bicep. After he passed I got a second swallow on the same arm. Finally, the other day, while I was sitting on the couch doing nothing in particular, it occurred to me what I would write in a banner if I had one. And so, I made another appointment.
Dad dropped out of high school and joined the navy when he was 17. Having no experience with boats he quickly learned he was prone to seasickness and lost two weeks of his life barfing while trying to complete his duties. This was a lesson that he would relearn decades later when he took a job as a deckhand out of Bamfield and was forced to hitchhike home from Prince Rupert.
The only action he saw while in service was the experimental bombing of a couple islands and getting mugged at knifepoint while in port in Jamaica. As he told it, Dad’s navy career was mostly about drinking in port with the guys from the ship and trying to meet women. . . which is how he ended with so many tattoos.
My favourite story I used to have him tell was about the morning he awoke to find he had a new banner across his chest. It was held up by swallows on either side and in the middle, it twisted where it was clearly meant to hold the names of two star-crossed lovers. Since Dad didn’t have a girlfriend at the time, it just had his name on one side – Syd.
Dad was embarrassed by his tattoos to some extent and never wanted us, kids, to make the same mistake he had. But I loved that his tattoos represented a life before us. They were just one reminder of the other experiences that had built to who he was as a father. And while he was flawed like the rest of us, I loved him and could have listened to the stories of his youth all day long.
Instead of heading his advice – as you tend not to do with parents – I got a tattoo of swallow about eight years ago, as a tribute to him, on my left bicep. After he passed I got a second swallow on the same arm. Finally, the other day, while I was sitting on the couch doing nothing in particular, it occurred to me what I would write in a banner if I had one. And so, I made another appointment.
Dad loved the Eagles, we listened to them on vinyl growing up and would sing their songs while out fishing. They had come to play in Vancouver many times and I always wanted to take him, but I was always too busy. Life would frequently get in the way and I would always think ‘next time.’ Finally, I made it happen. Dad and I went to see the Eagles. They put on a fantastic show, telling the story of their history, the inspiration behind their albums and songs, and of course, playing all their hits. It also turned out to be the second to last time I saw him alive – and one of my most cherished memories.
When he passed, Take It Easy, seemed like the perfect anthem for his life. A message about not getting hung up on the breakdowns in life told through an upbeat, vibrant harmony with witty lyrics. We sang it at both his memorial in Bamfield; over a hundred people gathered on about thirty boats at the mouth of the harbour, and again in Mexico; around a guitar on the beach. The words are even etched into the lid of the handmade wooden box that still holds some of his ashes.
One of the first times that I visited Bamfield alone after Dad passed, I went into the old garage and grabbed a handful of his CD’s to listen to on the way home. The CD on top was 60’s Jukebox Hits and I threw it in, expecting to hear Rock Around the Clock – but Take It Easy played. He was always giving me shit for putting his CDs back in the wrong cases (sorry Dad). It goes without saying that whenever I hear that song, I think of him. It has become a powerful way for his memory to stay alive within our family and community. I occasionally get texts from friends telling me ‘your dad’s song is playing.’ My cousins even stopped on the corner in Winslow Arizona for a photo op. Just writing about these memories makes me smile.
I got the words ‘Take It Easy’ tattooed on my banner for Dad, but also as a reminder to myself to make more time for what’s truly important. It is easy to get hung up on the small things in life and miss the bigger picture. These stresses contribute to depression and other health issues. Buy the concert tickets, take a break from work, take a walk outside, stop thinking that being busy is what’s important in life. These are lessons I’m learning – and that’s part of the reason these words are important to me.
On my drive home from Vancouver, Take It Easy came on the stereo. I smiled. Dad once told me that he liked that I put so much thought into my tattoos and that they had meaning. He had always felt like his were carelessly acquired. But I still love Dad’s tattoo stories the best – seriously, who gets drunk and wakes up with a chest tattoo? Syd Baker did.
Tattoo by Trevor Shea at Three Point Tattoo.
Grandma Logan's Easter
For as long as my cousin's and I can remember, Easter has been the holiday we've anticipated the most. We are quite possibly the furthest thing from being a religious family - instead our holidays have always been based on tradition, all of which were created by our Grandma Logan.
For as long as my cousins and I can remember, Easter has been the holiday we've anticipated the most. We are quite possibly the furthest thing from being a religious family - instead our holidays have always been based on tradition, all of which were created by our Grandma Logan.
In the 1970's my grandparents purchased property at the head of Nitinat Lake on Vancouver Island; about an hour drive from Bamfield on the logging roads. This is where I have spent roughly twenty of my Easters. We had the usual traditions of painting eggs and hunting for candy. And as we grew up we would go through little rites of passage from being the chocolate hunter to the chocolate hider - from believing in to becoming to the Easter Bunny. And for most of those holiday visits to Grandma's cabin, I would happily binge on sugar before hitting the bumpy and windy road home - forgetting every time - as soon as the truck started my stomach would turn and I would be carsick. When it comes to chocolate, I'm not sure that I've even learned my lesson even now.
What made our Easters special, however, wasn't the candy or the Easter Bunny, or even being in nature - it was our Grandma Logan's tradition of stuffies. Every year since I can remember she would make stuffed animals for all her grandchildren (of all ages), her adopted grandchildren, and any friends we had brought along with us. Every year was a different theme and Grandma would gather us around to hear the story of how the animals came to be. One year it was a teddy bear picnic and another was whales displayed with a handpainted 'save the whales' protest sign. We took home polar bears, lizards, pigs, hippos, cats, and more. Grandma Logan lived a very humble life and so the material was usually purchased on sale or often donated to her - which is why one year we had blue and pink beavers. True to her usual creativity, she constructed a 'beaver dam' to display them and told us a story about how the beavers had been locked out of their house for the winter and were blue from hypothermia. We were instructed to take them home and warm them up with love!
When Grandma had a stroke a few years ago we thought that would be the end of our tradition, but it wasn't. Our Aunty Marion picked up where she left off. They even worked on the stuffies together on the last year that Grandma made them as her eyesight was starting to make sewing difficult. This year was our second Easter without Grandma Logan and it's impossible to get through this holiday without feeling the hole in our family, but with her passing our family has drawn even closer. When we lost the one person who pulled us together I thought that we would all scatter, but it turns out that none of us wanted to give up her traditions. I can't help but think wherever she is, she's satisfied with the mark she made on this earth and the fact that her love is continuing even in her absence.
