Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Papa Cat's progress

My dad, who turned 84 in February, has finally got himself a hearing aid, with the, erm, aid of Vets' Affairs. His 1944-46 stint trundling round the Pacific and then up and down the Queensland coast on a corvette used at the end of the war as a minesweeper (blown up the year after he was demobbed) has assured that he is being well looked after in his old age and just as well too.

I can still remember the summer I was home in Adelaide for Christmas -- 1982-3, I think it was -- when he put the telly on to watch the Melbourne Test, the first day of which I knew my friend Helen would be attending, and I called out from the next room 'Look out for Helen!' and he called back 'Quarter past ten!'

He still drives; he drove for a living for much of his life and is still one of the best drivers I have ever been in a car with. And I got a text (yes, a text, and what's more he has worked out how to do capital letters) from him this afternoon saying 'Practising with my new ears. The car sounds like a truck.'

Yes, I know. I am very, very lucky.

Papa Cat (centre), Princes Bridge, Melbourne, 1944
at

2 comments:

  1. MindyJune 2, 2011 at 11:12 AM

    Thank you for sharing Papa Cat with us.

    ReplyDelete
  2. PlumeofwordsJune 2, 2011 at 4:56 PM

    At midday today I was catching up with a friend not long back from Timor when, up the crowded laneway from where we were seated, we spotted him: a passing octogenarian who inserted himself between a guy with a serious-looking camera and a done-up-to-the-nines model, dancing. And dancing, and dancing. He kept swivelling those hips and moving those feet; I was laughing so long and so hard that tears came to my eyes. The photographer just waited, looking bored (idiot), and others passed him by without a glance; he wasn't laughing or self-conscious, just dancing. When he'd finished, he just went on his way. My (and my friend's) hero.

    ReplyDelete

Please feel free to write long(ish) comments if you have long comments to make. Off-topic comments will be assessed on a case-by-case basis and deleted if they derail the discussion. Hostile or malicious comments will be deleted regardless.