Some may wonder about the title.

I know it seems silly be to me it means a lot.

For you see my father's heart gave up on Thursday. One day after June 12 aka fathers day. I had wished him such not too many days before.

Most people concentrate on a person just before they died. Ie the last day they saw them.

Am I greiving, yes very much so.

Still to me my father was a hero to many and here is a tale of what I know of him.

My father was born in 1946 here in Winnipeg to my grandparents Alma and Charles. One of eight children. Three girls five boys.

He was just a meager four years of age when the great flood of Manitoba occurred in 1950, my uncle Leo was born during the flood. The family farmstead was destroyed during that flood and my father's family was, like many Manitoba families at the time, living out of a CN box car that had been derailed by the flood. There was a huge mess of them at the time. Many a picture shows a few brave engineers in what was probably the last days of steam pushing against flood waters steaming away with the water up to the tops of the driving wheels. Thats about five to six feet of water.

The first years after the flood was very hard for many a manitoba family. My grandparents settled into a house in the "town" of St Boniface. At the time it was "across the river" from Winnipeg proper. That did not last long as massive housing was being built at the time. Post wwII housing boom.

Actually the house I live in currently was flooded, basement only, at that time it was under construction. Rushed construction and the original coal fired boiler never got used. It was flooded and judged too dangerous. A coal stove was used for two years before the current gas furnace was installed here.

Back to Dad. The family was poor, I mean very poor. My grandmother and grandfather did what they could. Like many the property around the house wasn't grass but garden with many many vegitables. My father, Aunts, and Uncles are not fans of potatoes unless mashed. Most of them hate gardens with a passion.

Still the family survived even though what little factories that Winnipeg had were destroyed during the flood making work hard to come by. With the dying steam trains putting a hiring freeze at the railyard's. Winnipegs once proud street car system was old and many of the derailed cars developed serious rust problems after the flood.

My grandfather started by working in Winnipeg's sewer system, which in those days was done by hand no machines. Ie he went down a hole and started to shovel out all the muck and sewages that the flood had left. Many sewers and drains were plugged for years after. Many of the dykes built by the army out of canvas bags were never taken down. I know of one road that is built over them. Not sure if the old Model T was dug out before they made it a road though.

Working for the city Grandpa was able to make a fair wages, this combined with the child tax credits, got the family clothed and schooled.

This is not to say that my father never got in trouble. In a way I think him and his friends went looking for it in interesting ways. At the time the flood had wiped away much of the foliage and trees near the rivers. Playing at the union station railyard(now its called the forks, pity the miles of steel rails are all gone without a trace left. The cobblestone walkways that many of the WWII veterans met their loved ones on the return home are mostly gone as well. There is a section in the forks with all those cobblestones that people walk over day after day completely and utterly oblivious to the history they witnessed.)

One of the favorite things kids in his days would do was tape bolts to the tracks and wait for the good ole steam trains to come by. The new trains are quite heavy true but in comparison to the old steam trains aka 4-8-8-4 of the final days the new ones weight nothing. He would tell us about how the kids would go hunting for the squished bolts after the trains had gone by as they made really good knives having razor sharp edges.

Old washing mashing gas motors also gave a certain amount of fun. Such as the one hooked to a chair (wooden) and a propeller (carved out of a 2 x 4 and NOT balanced) on ski's(also 2 x 4s )..the test pilot bailed long before it wobbled too much and flew apart.

Into his teens where his younger brother got him interested in motorcycles. ( possibly Indian Scouts left over from war but not sure) where they got caught repeatedly by police for running around without mufflers.

Then him and his long time friend Dave got interested in these build it yourself electronic kits (Heath kits). That was all fine and dandy till they hooked an amplifier to a signal generator and blocked out most of the area(then inside city limits) on a broad spectrum of frequecies, including opening garage doors. The FCA tracked them down and took away the equipment. While I am sure there was a fine of some type I was never told about it.

About this time my father met a girl by the name of Denise who he took an immediate fancy too. One of her friends went out with Dave on their first date. I was told that they had a number of dates via the back of a motorcycle before they "borrowed" Grandpa's car. I can only guess what happened their as the details were never told to us kids.

I believe at least one of them graduated highschool. But I'm not sure. I do know dad proposed to mom on the day she found out she was pregnant. Again if it was before or after that part was not exactly told to us. They day after they both got grounded. During those days most boys hair was taken care of via the local barber (ex military barber) it's why many of the kids of the fifties and early sixties sported buzz cuts. Girls were done by the women's auxiliary.

I do know that dad got driven to the marriage by a much pissed off grandfather. The picture of there wedding Mom looked quite beautiful and dad had a full head of hair!. They got married on the same day as my grandparents 25th anniversary. A few months later my sister was born.

Work in the electronics field at the time was limited to "professionals" aka they knew what vacuum tube to replace. So to support his family my dad went to work at whatever job he could. Plastering ceilings, Steel work (which he didn't do for long as he had a close call. He was afraid of heights ever since.) His older brother Paul got him a job welding at the factory where he worked as a machinist. (which was kind of ironic since Paul eventually became a "professional" welder.

With a bit of welding experience dad started into the autobody trade. There was good money to be made in those days as an autobody man. It was all flat rate work and with private car insurance, plenty of work. So he bought a house on Polly drive in Transcona (at the time outside of Winnipeg) it was an older home at the time, maybe ten years old if that. My brother came along about then. Not sure if that was before or after they got the house. I do know that I was born while they lived there. I myself have no memory of it.

I do know that my dad was still interested in motorbikes and tried to get my sister to ride one. There was also a story of this one stupid biker that kept riding down the dirt road in back of house where all the kids in the neighboorhood would play near at high speed....just not for long. You see my dad always hid this bar he called a CN bar. They make them now and sell them in stores out of cheaper material. It was made from I believe a piece of 1in key bar stock and was supposed to be for working on rails. How my dad got it I do not know. I know it's quite heavy though. Roughly ground round for most of it's length.

Well the smartass(dad's words) on the motorcycle wouldn't slow down after being asked so dad tossed the bar at the bike...which hit the front wheel and took out all the spokes between rim and hub. Stopped the biker dead and he went head over heels sliding along dirt. Police got called but no charges were laid. In case your wondering no the biker was not wearing a helmet but he had only a few scrapes and bruises.

About this time the fuel crissies of the seventies hit Manitoba and Dad was forced to go on welfare before selling the house and buying a trailer (house trailer) They, Mom and Dad, bought a piece of property off of his brother Paul out in the country. Moved the trailer there and dad had to go back and forth to work. The hand dug septic tank and well, I think one of his brothers helped with that but not sure, are probably still buried there. Turns out the property line that they had originally figured was wrong and everything but the septic was on Pauls land.

At the time dad had built, or started too, a garage. Knowing my father it was for anything but parking the family car in. Mom put her foot down thought and the garage got hastily converted into a house. It was the house I remember growing up in. The house trailer I sort of remember a bit but not as much as the house. I do remember the day it got towed away by Jules in his shiny new ford highway tractor. It got stuck, and I mean really stuck. They had to use two skidders to pull it around and out. Left big ruts in what would eventually be our front lawn. Im sure if you look you can still see them. We tilled them over and filled them with dirt but that grass never grew the same as the rest.

My dad tried his hand at farming the field around our house a few years with used machines that quickly broke down. He never got anything but hay off the field. Eventually in my younger years he just rented it out to a guy. Something about the soil made growing anything but hay useless. I do remember the farmer would plant clover every other year though. Heck the front lawn never grew much either mostly weeds. The only spot in yard that grew anything good was moms garden. Or the septic tank. Course since moms garden was mostly manure and black black soil when tilled it's understandable.

I know to most this seems like a fairly normal family. What you don't realize was the times. The interest rate on mortgages at the time was very high. 15%. Great time for investments bad time for loans or mortgages. The autobody trade in the 80's took another hit when Government Autopac came in. A number of bodyshops closed because of lack of work.

Still my Dad managed to make enough of a living to pay bills, mortgage, food on table. Us kids never hurt for clothing or school supplies, even if I didn't particularly enjoy the clothing I was given. We had toys and clothes at Christmas and our birthdays we always had a cake from the store.

We had an above ground pool for most of the time we lived there. The inground pool idea was a failure. Garder snakes love inground pools in country. We once found a very long shed skin of a garder snake once, about six feet.

My dad even managed to buy my brother and I some minibikes new, or almost new, from Princess Auto. I now know that these were not cheap. Actually everything he did in those days was not cheap by any standards. But he made it work.

Our nearest neighboors were a 1/4 mile away. We never had air conditioning in house, but we had a pool. Many a hot night we would go out hop into pool to cool off and go to sleep in out bathing suits.

My dad was a good man. Every other summer if there was a family gathering it would be at our place. The first few BBq's were holes dug in the back yard with coals and the grill from oven over it.

I remember my younger cousing Patrick still in diapers with his plastic hammer trying to ride out dog Mugsy. Good dog had every reason to nip him but never did. I miss that dog. He died of old age, with no teeth left.

My dad even built us a sandbox. It was a big sandbox about four feet wide by eight feet long. Though after playing in it for years and years most of the sand got mixed with the dirt from underneath. I miss that sandbox. Pity it got dug up when my dad tried his second attempt at farming. The pad for the barn was poured and piping for water laid through that sandbox. The building never got put up and the lumber that was supposed to be for that got put into the addition to the garage/shop.

Oh yes my dad did get his garage a few years after the house. He added onto it for a spray booth. He started to do work at home to help bring in money. Most of it was helping the neighbors if they need something fixed or one of the family. The only time the garage was empty was if there was a family gathering or a neighbor party.

Uncle Paul put up a fence for his cows not long after the trailer was moved. It's wasn't bad. Would have lasted longer if he had taken the bark and sap wood off the cedar fence poles though. It was electrified. During one of the neighborhood parties, with a little too much alcohol one of the neighbors whose tractor they had custom fitted a cab onto, Something nobody else but my dad would do, a very drunk Arnold found out that pissing on an electric fence was a bad idea.

You see my dad was always doing stuff for friends or family that other people either refused to do or flat outright said couldn't be done.
Such as the used camper shell that was fitted onto my grandpa's van. It was originally a panel van that he turned into a camper. My dad put in the windows as it had none in the back. A bit of fiberglass work and the shell fit perfectly. Though the combination of lots of early silicone fumes and a little too much alcohol lead to many of my family sleeping outside in tents,cars, and under the camper. (Aunt Marie refused to Let a very drunk Uncle ray into the camper)

When the frame of the Uncle Ray's camper (big fifth wheel type) rotted and broke it was my dad that helped Ray repair it. Nobody else would have tried (combination of 2x2 wood and thin wall steel section had rotted and broke in middle of camper.

By the time I was in junior high Mom went back to work as a waitress. She did it more because she was bored that because of the money, although the money helped. Dad also tried his hand at running a bodyshop, his dream. It only lasted a year or two. The garage got another addition in the back. The insurance guys insisted that the paints be stored in a separate tin lined room. We stored wood for the custom made wood stove there for few years before Dad made a tank to do radiator repairs.

Many a radiator was repaired there, too many actually as guys were bringing radiators from the city to my dad to repair or recore.

He also started doing custom restoration of vehicles that all other shops would not touch. My dad never refused to help someone. That is not to say he never got pissed off at a customer. The one time I came home from school, alone as dad was out in Steinbach for some reason, mom was at work, and my older siblings had not returned from their hichschool yet a customer had driven up. I had got home unlocked house and garage and went inside to change from school clothes and start supper(my job in those days) I had not seen customer until I went outside to garage to check on something.

The customer turned around and yelled at me, serious, about why his car was not finished yet. It actually was but since the paint on the panel my dad fixed was glossy and rest of cars paint wasnt he was going to polish it.

Well when dad got home and found out what happened he towed the car outside via a chain to the previously unbent bumper, called the guy and told him to get the car out of his yard. As far as I know he never even took it out of park. The car was a 67 Gtx that had been raced from 1968 to 80 then "restored". Race cars tend to get a coat of paint every other year. I met the owner of that car and worked on it a few times since then. We were civil to each other. He passed away a few years ago and his son inherited and wrecked the car.

A friend recently told me how his 1959 desoto got wrecked on a bridge and nobody would touch repairing it. It looked like his first car was destined for the scrap heap when he was introduced to my dad. My dad straighted the frame, rebuilt the floor, doorjam, all from scratch, repainted and repaired the door and fender all without removing the very old windshield. That windshield is still in that running and driving car today with no cracks.

Thing is a lot of people I have talked too always refer to my dad as the one person who would fix something that nobody else would.

Even as my Dad's health started to fail he never gave up on finding ways to help someone when they needed it the most.

Something I have only heard people refer to hero's do.

So to me my Dad was a Hero to many many many people.

And when he didn't disown me when I transistioned and did his best to get used to it when many did not.

He was also my Hero as well

His leaving has left a very big hole in me that I don't know if anyone can ever fill.

My dad. My father.

My Hero!.