I listened to my Dad.

His luminous social aura reflected synergistically, an open channel for all. He was spongy, soaking up whatever came his way, probing current events, natural history, geography, religion, and even deeper into his passions of pigeons, poetry, hockey, history, geneology.

His words were golden. Few could resist his positive strokes as he gesticulated, semi-smirked, did a mini soft shoe and sang;

O, I've got a wonderful bunch of coconuts, there they are standing in a row!

His lead became hypnotic, he wouldn't miss a beat. He'd drum upon the table, his favorite tribal beat;

Pounded, pounded, pounded on the table,

Pounded on the table with the handle of a broom.

With a Boom lay, boom lay, boom lay, boom.

Pounded on the table with the handle of a broom.

With tablecloth still rippling, we'd be transfixed as could be, so he'd transit into Kipling, and jar our sensitivity;

When you're wounded and lain, on Afghanistan's plain,

And the women come out to cut up your remains,

Just roll on your rifle and blow out your brains,

And go to your God like a soldier, a soldier of the Queen.

As he recited Mom would register shock over the lurid content and non-verbally issue the appropriate censure. He'd show a hint of guilt, but amid the piety and reverence of the last line he'd be awash in absolution. He used rich, direct humor, alive with misdirection and inuendo, wit, skew, and subtlety, plot, sub-plot, and mystery. His audience digested his humor for variable periods so one would hear belated snickles, snorts, glottal stops and guffaws. He would affect an awesome countenance, inhale, puff up, and, assuming a pea soup brogue, would spray:

Me grandfather used to say: 'Pete me boy,

We'll get ourselves a vessel and go get Kidd's treasure.

He told me where it is.