What My Father Taught Me

Yesterday was the book launch for a new history title about the Scottish exodus to Canada. Compared to our last book launch, which was held at Casa Loma with close to 500 people in attendance, this was a small affair of about 20 people held at the office for family, friends, and staff. Even though I’ve now organized my fair share of book launches and events, I still get nervous and anxious just before. Will people show up? Did we bring in enough books to sell or will we run out? Do we have enough food and more importantly wine? This book launch was no different actually this one was worse since there were so many hiccups along the way from only 3 people RSVPing for the event to not deciding the format (a lunch event versus an after work event) ‘till two days before the launch. Thankfully the launch was a huge success; people showed up and we had enough food and books on hand!

So I’m at the book launch doing my duty of greeting guests as they arrive and selling books and my boss, Yenta (I have soo many funny stories about her she deserves her own blog posting ... hmmm I think I know what my next blog will be about), starts looking for a book; an older title that I know is not in the cabinets that house our promotional copies, so before she asks because I know in the next 30 seconds she’s going to ask, I grab the copy in my office and hand it to her. And that’s one of the lasting lessons that my father taught me: always anticipate what someone wants, especially if you want to be useful.

My father believes in doing things himself, especially when it comes to house maintenance, from reinforcing floors to installing an underground watering system and I would often help him. To be honest I don’t think he really needed the help, sure he could use the extra hands to hand him nails etc but looking back I’m pretty sure that most of the time (ok he definitely needed help with the underground watering system) this was his way of spending time with me. As his helper I learned quickly to anticipate what tool he would need next and it came to the point that we wouldn’t even have to talk since we both knew what the other one needed in order to complete whatever that weekend’s project was. Growing up I gripped a lot about helping my father and his never ending projects – heck I still sometimes try to get out of helping him when he asks for my help when I go home for a visit — but in hindsight (isn’t that always the way) I appreciate the values he instilled in me as we worked on projects together.