Gene's are a funny thing. As a kid, as much as I loved being around my dad, he also drove me crazy. I had to strip down/rebuild engines with him, so that I would understand why it was important to check the oil or rebuild a transmission/install a clutch so I understood why it was never okay to feather a clutch LOL. To this day, on the rare occasion I drive my husbands truck (56,000 gvw 10 wheel dump truck), I'll grind downshifting to 3rd, and I'll cringe and think of my father. The man was literally a genius. Most of us, if we want to learn something, we used to go to a library, or later, hit the internet .. He took college courses instead (right up to the time of his passing). He was always saying college was FREE (being a vet) and it was foolish not to take advantage of it (he grew up in Canada, and there, his view was college was a privledge, not like it is here in the states). HIS career choice developed from being a pilot, he was CURIOUS of aircraft engines LOL. I think we were about 20, and my husband asked him about the rotator blade on some chopper ... it was a 6 hour phone lecture. To this day, my husband thinks he can design one after that one conversation LOL. (My father's actual job was to take plans that someone else drew, build it, prove why it wouldnt work, and redesign it to work.) My son shares my father's same ability to just absorb info. Even funnier, is he has a lot of my fathers attitudes and mannerisms. My father moved to CA when I turned 18 for a career oppurtunity. He came back to visit when our second child was born in 1992. That was the only time my son and father met, and he was all of 16 months old at the time. There were some "say hi to grampa" phone conversations, but my father couldnt relate to younger children. He was great with me one on one (or I thought so), so I dont know if it was his general personality, his intelligence level, or the results of being in the military. My husband and son had a bit of a rough patch a couple years ago. Nothing bad or major, just where conversations would turn arguementative. The who was "right" ... They would try to drag me into them, and I would just smile and say leave me out of it LOL. My husband is also very intelligent, but again, my son is the type to remember every detail from the first exposure, and is almost never wrong with "facts" LOL. That is my father all over again. I cant even imagine how much more my son would be like my father had he lived closer and was actually able to help "mold" him LOL. As I get older and see more and more of my father in my son, I just smile more, and miss my "dad" less (June will be 13 yrs since his passing). I was always a "daddys girl" so there's a certain pride seeing him in my son ... Sorry to be so long winded!!! LOL.
He was a very proud man, and proud of his Canadian heritage. While my father moved to the US in 1966 (he joined the US Air Force via the Royal Air Force), he refused to denounce Canada, and never gave up his Canadian citizenship. I dont understand how it all worked back then, but something to do with Canada's citizen act of 1978, he was able to become a US citizen in 1978 (I was born in 1968), without ever giving up any of his Canadian rights. Good news for me though is if Obama keeps screwing up this country, I too am a dual citizen (my birth was recorded in Montreal when I was six weeks old, even tho I was born here), we can just pack up and go north;-) As far as Canada is concerned, my children are first generation born abroad, so are also citizens, just unregistered.