Thomas Jarvis on Clash of Clans and the Rise of Dunan

Clash of Clans

Clash of Clans and the rise of Dunan

There have been few video games that my Dad has played with me over the years. When I was younger, I remember playing Crystal Castle (classic Atari game) and Galaga (classic joystick game) with him. When I was a bit older however I convinced my Dad to play Clash of Clans, a base building game that I was getting into at the time.

My dad started out like all players do. He picked a name (Dunan), passed the tutorial, and began to play with a very limited base, no troops, no experience, and no clan (which is what Clash of CLANS is all about).

I eventually convinced him to join a clan based in Montreal called MTLFusion that I had recently found. This began a journey for Dunan. One which would not only lead him to far surpassing the strength of my base but also lead him to becoming the leader of MTLFusion. How did he do it you might ask? Well, here are some of the qualities I learned from my Dad through playing Clash of Clans.

Consistency:

For me, playing Clash of Clans was the opposite of consistent. Some weeks I would play for hours, raiding villages, pillaging loot, and destroying other bases in clan wars. Other weeks I would barely play at all. I would sometimes give up the game for months at a time, then come back only to give it up again a couple months later.

I learned from my Dad that consistency is powerful. My dad would play very little, or so it seemed to me. For 30 minutes every day I would see him online raiding bases and organizing clan war attacks. This was very little to the hours I would play some nights, but slowly and surely the consistency of my Dad’s playstyle made his base grow and grow until suddenly it had surpassed mine.

Reliability:

Everyone knows group projects are the worst. Teammates forget deadlines, don’t answer calls, leave all the work to the very last minute, or sometimes don’t do any work at all. This is of course no different for teammates of an online clan.

Clan wars was one of my favourite parts of Clash of Clans. Each member of the clan had 2 attacks to destroy enemy bases and at the very end whichever clan had dealt the most damage would be deemed victorious.

These wars were often very close, requiring every attack from every clan member to squeeze out the victory. Many, many teammates would attack with the wrong troops, or with a poorly thought out strategy or even worse would forget to do their attacks entirely.

My dad never forgot his attacks. I knew in every clan war I could rely on him as a teammate to do his part.

Loyalty:

In the years that I played Clash of Clans I often thought about leaving MTLFusion. Frustration from clan members and hope of better teammates drove me to ask my dad often to find a better clan, one which had better teammates and better strategies.

However, I quickly learned my Dad was not one to abandon his clan. Instead he continued to improve his own quality of play and hoped that others would do the same. He is still in MTLFusion to this day.

Leadership:

When my dad was first made into a co-leader of the clan, I was in fact quite surprised! There were dozens of members in the clan and yet they had chosen my dad as the man. After some thought however I realized it was because he knew how to lead. He was selfless, donating troops to others constantly and helping others improve their gameplay. He was kind, never getting angry at others for bad or missed attacks. In short, he was an example to all the other members of the clan.

The qualities that my Dad demonstrated through playing Clash of Clans are apparent in the actions he takes outside of Clash of Clans as well. I see his consistency in reading the scriptures every morning, his reliability at his work and with his callings at church, his loyalty to his family, and his leadership as he is an example to me.

Thanks, Dad, for all the qualities you have taught me.

Your favourite son,

Thomas

Rebecca Jarvis: Reasons Why I Love My Dad

My dad: G. Eric Jarvis

Some reasons why I love my Dad…

1.     He sometimes comes into my room to help me with homework or ask me about my day, but often ends up falling asleep on my bed (which always makes me laugh).

2.     He read us Harry Potter every night before bed when we were kids (with attempted accents included)

3.     Setting aside time for date nights every week even though he was very busy with work and church callings.

4.     His laugh—it’s contagious. When he laughs, I end up laughing too.

5.     Dad waking up at 5:00 a.m 3 times a week to drive me down the street for my early morning shift.

6.     His sense of humour—he probably makes me laugh more than anyone in our house.

7.     He never hangs up the phone first. Sometimes I wait and see how long he’ll stay on the line before deciding to hang up the phone, but my patience always runs out before his does.

8.     He is dedicated to the things he believes are important—to his work, to the church and to his family.

9.     His passion for music and history that he always tries to share with us, whether it be taking us to the opera, the movies or on trips to new places.

10.  He is conscientious, and always gives 100% effort. I’ve seen him spend countless hours doing research and review papers in order to make sure they are just right. I think that’s something I get from him.

These are just a few of many reasons why I love my Dad. I’m lucky to have him.

~ Rebecca Jarvis

Doral Adored Wyora

L to R: Arta (27)), Bonnie (24), Wyora (54), Wyona (22), Darla (17), Moiya (15)

This picture was taken 10 days before she died.

My dad adored my mother.

He never came into the house but that he didn’t go find her and put his arms around her.

"Where's Wyora," is what he would call out upon opening the front door.

When she was in her early 50’s she found a lump in her breast, had a mastectomy, but too late, and the cancer eventually spread to her liver.

She didn’t want to die in a hospital so Doral had a hospital bed set up by the large living room window that had a view westward of the Rocky Mountains. She laid in that bed during the day. Wyora was well loved by others; people knew she was dyin and so the house was always full of visitors.

She slept in her own bedroom at night.

One day, because her temperature had dropped; a doctor came on a house call. The doctor told Doral that her death was approaching and she should go to the hospital.

“Is there anything you can do for her there, that I can’t do for her here?” Doral asked.

“No,” said the Doctor.

“Then we will just let things be,” said Doral.

Night deepened. Wyora fell into a coma. Doral left the room and had a bath. Then he put on his white shirt, his best tie, his Sunday suit, and his always polished brogue shoes and he laid on the bed beside her, holding hand until morning when she passed away.

She was 54 years old.

My dad loved my mother. He went on to parent their 17, 15, 13 and 12 year olds still at home.

He always said, "I am so glad Wyora died first. I would not have wanted her to feel this loneliness.”

Arta

 (My story about my dad, told June 21, 2020 at Zoom Church with the Jarvis Family in Montreal, and the Jarvis Family in Edmonton)

When I Lost My Dad: A Story About Hebe and Eric

When I lost my dad.

A story about Hebe and Eric.

My dad and I were spending some time together at Universal Studios in Florida.  It was in Jan 2019 to celebrate my mom’s 50^th birthday.  

Mom went with the older kids to ride rollercoasters and my dad took me to Dr Suess world.  I wanted to ride the Cat in the Hat.  The ride twirls around so dad couldn’t go on it with me.  He gets motion sick. 

I got on the ride with 2 random stranger boys.  I liked the ride.  It told the story of the Cat in the Hat.  When the ride was done I went to the exit.  The exit led straight into the gift shop.  I couldn’t find my dad in the gift shop so I went outside.  I couldn’t find my dad outside the gift shop either.  I looked around. Dad wasn’t there.  I’d lost my dad.  I went back into the gift shop.  Finally I found my dad.  He was standing there. I passed dad  when I went into the gift shop. 

The end.

Hebe

For Father's Day - #15 Trips to Moose Dome

Moose Mountain

A few times a year we would be taken to Moose Mountain, driven along the old roads that Doral had helped create in the 1930’s and that finally lead up to the cave on the top of the mountain, at least on the journeys that we took there.

A picnic lunch and everyone in the back of a van was all we needed.

As well, Doral took groups of scouts often to the mountains or to the foothills of Alberta. He had a truck and gas.

There was moose meat at home which Wyora made up into goulash, enough to feed 10 or 12 hungry boys, and it was a Saturday, so by the time they arrived back from their trip, our house was clean and ready to receive them.

Food and then pool, billards or snooker.

Doral built cohorts of many men that way, with a van, some gasoline and a Saturday morning's drive. Some he even took hunting with him. Alan LeBaron shot a moose on one of those trips. Doral asked Alan how he did that. Alan said the moose just looked at him, so he shot him. I think Alan felt pretty bad for the moose.

Arta

For Father's Day - #14 Scrub

Doral opening gifts on Christmas Day.

Each springtime, Doral would play scrub with  us.

After a few days of scrub, there was always a broken window on the house, after which Doral would move the game to the north side of the house where there were fewer windows.  But it wasn't that much fun to play on that side of the house as the ball always got lost in the field.

No matter how hard all of us tried, there was always a baseball throw that went wrong and broke the bathroom window.

Aways the bathroom window that got broken ... every Spring.

Arta

For Father's Day - #13 The Coin Game

Goal of the Game
Move two coins at a time that are side by side and in
four moves go from the picture above,
to having the coins side by said as in picture #3 below.

The 
Coin 
Game

This game is played with money, four coins of one amount and four of another.

So that could be four pennies, four nickels, or four nickels, four dimes or as illustrated, 4 loonies and four toonies.

Picture #2
Here is a hint.
The first move might be take coins 2 and 3,
and move them to the far end of the line.
Then figure out which 2 coins to move
 to take their place and so on

When they were lined up, Doral would say, skip the first coin, take the next two coins, move them to the end.

Then move any two coins into the opening left when you moved the first 2 coins, and so on until the coins go from four nickels, then four dimes, to alternately nickel, dime, nickel, dime.

He would demonstrate, and then leave me to my own devices, to figure out how to do that.

But he wouldn't leave me alone.

He would sit there and watch and then when I couldn't figure it out, he would demonstrate for me again, maybe starting at the right side and going to the left, the next time, and so on.

When I would ask to be shown how again, he would start at the left edge of the coins that were lined up instead of the right edge, just to keep me on my toes.

Pleasant hours, trying to figure out how my dad could remember all of these games.

And here is what I was looking for, all the coins to be alternating, as below.

Picture #3
Now the coins are alternating,
and this was accomplished in 4 moves.

Eric Jarvis: My Father Had a Formative Influence on My Growth

For Father's Day
June 21, 2020

Lower Left: George and Kathryn Jarvis
also in the picture, 
Michael Todd, Thomas Jarvis, Catherine R Jarvis, Kim Morrow, 
Jodi Bennett Jarvis, Jonathan Jarvis, George Eric Jarvis, 
Rebecca Jarvis Payne and Jas Payne.

My father has had a formative influence on my growth and development throughout all the days of my life.

As a boy of about 6 years of age, my father was the branch president in London, Ontario.

He must have been doing tithing settlement at the time because he was meeting with some other people in our home.

As he was leaving the house, he saw me playing with some toys on the floor.

He stooped down to me, and in a kindly way asked me if I knew what tithing was. I must not have known, because he lay down beside me on the carpet and took out ten pennies and showed me how we can give one of them to the Lord. He explained that this was tithing. I only felt love and privilege in this interaction, and it left a deep impression upon me, and from that time I have always willingly paid a full tithe. I have always been greatly blessed financially all the days of my life through little effort of my own and have never felt tithing or fast offerings or other donations to be a burden. I attribute my attitude to that first loving discussion about tithing with my branch president so long ago.

As a boy from 10 to 17 years of age, our family drove to Michigan each year and then to Utah in the summer months to visit family. The trips formed a huge triangle across North America that required many hours of driving. My father could stay up late while the rest of the family slept and would drive late into the night. I would accompany him in the front seat during these long trips, and he would talk to me about many things; but the talks that I remember most vividly are the stories about his mission in Germany. I could tell from those discussions how much he loved the German people. I could tell how much his faith grew by the experiences that he shared. I could tell that for all the wonderful things he did for the people in the mission field, the person that gained the most from those experiences was my father. And he passed on those amazing lessons to me, the next generation. From those conversations, I learned what it meant to learn by faith.

Once, as a youth, I attended a stake priesthood meeting with my father. During one of the talks, I noticed that my father had tears in his eyes (he almost never cried about anything). I discerned that the talk, which must have been about looking after the fatherless or similar topic, had made him think about one of my friends (who did not have a father) who often came to our home and had been meeting with the missionaries. I asked him if he had been thinking about that friend, and he said, “Sure I am.” My father taught me to feel deeply about the most important things in life.

When I was almost 16 years old, I suffered a painful injury in a trampoline accident. Weeks later, my injured knee had improved little. I could barely hobble around on crutches, and I was deeply discouraged. The physiotherapist insisted on painful treatments that sometimes prevented me from attending school due to the pain. One night, my father came to me as I sat in the living room of our home listening to music. He told me that on the way home from a meeting that evening, he had felt a strong assurance that my knee would soon improve. He wanted to let me know. That was it. A few days later, in a physiotherapy session, some tissue gave way in the knee, and I could walk again. After that my progress was rapid and soon I was able to walk normally again. My father’s inspiration came to me in a deep moment of discouragement.

As a young man in my teen age years, I lost interest in spiritual things. It became difficult for me to attend Seminary every morning. My father offered to drive me to the Whyte Avenue chapel every morning for a period of time, while I was in this spiritually difficult time. He would often bear his testimony to me in an informal way during the time we would be in the car together. I tried my best to ignore or to discount his words, but there was one thing I could never ignore – the fact that he took the time to drive me to those early morning meetings. He showed me that he loved me and cared enough to sacrifice his early morning time for me.

After missionary service, the time came for me to make some difficult decisions about my career path. My patriarchal blessing impressed me to choose psychiatry, but many in my entourage did not agree with such a decision. My father’s influence was key at this crucial time. He was a social scientist and had always presented me with an open vision toward these and related fields. He had told me that as a young man he had thought about becoming a psychiatrist and had worked for a summer at the psychiatric hospital in Evanston, Wyoming, where he had learned many things about people and suffering. This openness and enthusiasm for learning in the social sciences and related fields greatly encouraged me and gave me the faith to change my career path to apply to medical school with the intent of becoming a psychiatrist as outlined in my patriarchal blessing.

My father has taught me too many things to record in this brief account, but in the long years since I have left home and started my own family far away from my parents, he has been a steady guide to me – not so much in what he has said, but in how he has lived his life. He has shown me to approach ageing with courage. He has taught me to love my wife with my whole heart. He has shown me how to stay busily occupied with worthy projects. He has instilled in me a reverence for the sacred, and a lifelong love of opera and history. He has shown me what matters most to him – staying close to the Lord and serving in the various ways that he is capable. He has shown me that it is possible to engage in difficult ideas and problems and maintain an active faith in God. He has shown me that one can acknowledge the faults of religion, religious leaders, and the problems of the historical record, while remaining an active participant in the Latter-day Saint faith. He has shown me that adhering in the long term to the faith of our fathers brings sacred blessings that can only be understood over time. He has taught me that living with doubt and uncertainty is the human condition and should not be eschewed but cheerfully embraced.

G.E. Jarvis

Thoughts on a father who loved words

Kelvin Thomas Johnson

Thoughts on a father who loved words

June 20, 2020

My father loved words.  All of them. 

I don’t know when I first understood that, but he did.  He loved words, all sorts.  He loved their meanings and how they worked together to create and bring colour to life.  Books, poetry, grammar-- all central to his love of words. He loved words to the end.

Words.

Funny as a child to consider this passion and recognize I didn’t share it. 

I loved numbers.

 Math, science and all things related to them, not words. I don’t think I ever picked up a book just for the love of reading. Oh sure, I read--textbooks and articles, but I had no passion for poetry or books.

Kelvin's Journal
I love his handwriting.

My father loved to put words together.

His love poured out onto pages to form poetry and prose.

His earliest efforts, stories for his children.

Those words now lost, but in the moment of creation full of the tall tales of farm animal, of which he knew a great deal.

Each of his children a different character in his farmyard menagerie.

Although too young or interested in the plots, the animal’s adventures were special because they were meant for us.

English GrammarLiliane Haegeman & Jacqueline Guéon

One of my father's well loved and often studied books

Sitting at the feet of the Hobbit chair (fondly named because it was the place where he read Tolkien’s saga to the older children) he entertained us with stories of the farmyard gang including Catherine the Cat and the laughter provoking Titmouse.

Few siblings still remember the details, but all delight at the memory of snickering with the mention of the “tit-mouse”. The great thing about words, which my father understood is that they can keep surprising us. It took me 51 years to finally look up the word titmouse, only to discover it is actually a bird.

titmouse
(tĭt′mous′)
n. pl. tit·mice (-mīs′)
Any of several small insectivorous songbirds of the family Paridae of woodland areas, especially members of the genus Baeolophus, such as the tufted titmouse.

one of a multiple of dictionaries in our house

Dictionaries are full of words, as were all the books that filled the built-in bookcases in our home.

Books entered and left the house as if they were just part of the regular goings and comings.

Books carried back and forth from libraries in laundry baskets and knapsacks.

The house always filled with books.



Books of poetry brought my father great joy.  During one of our last visits, he asked me to read to him.  I choose Robert Frost from the books that had been brought along with him to the nursing home.

I began with Robert Frost’s Birches.

“When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy's been swinging them.”

My father' tree - climbing ladder added later. 

Images of my dad as a young man swinging from trees formed in my mind’s eye and remembrances of trips to Barnwell filled the room. The family homestead, just three large rooms with an outhouse in the yard. Such humble beginnings. The ditch out front filled with rain water-- a novelty for a city girl, along with the the solitary gigantic climbing tree in the back yard. The tree, not one a city girl would know how to climb or even dare to try after hearing of her father falling out.  All images brought back to life in Frost’s words.

Words, mixing with memory, knowing it would be our last time together, and not knowing how to say goodbye. Lost for words. Words. Words.

Trying to say the words-

“So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
And so I dream of going back to be.
It's when I'm weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig's having lashed across it open.
I'd like to get away from earth awhile…

Words, recognizing the frailty of life, its messy business, it’s lashes and its pain.

Words,  I can’t finish the poem. I close the book as if not saying the words will change the outcome. Dad knows the words too well and wonders why I have stopped mid verse. I simply can’t read the words.

“I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.”

Words.

“Words don’t have meaning, people having meanings for words”. Funny how some words find their meaning long after the giver is gone.

This love of words now lives in me. Different perhaps, but a love none-the-less.  Grateful that WORDS brings back to the mind memories and with those memories an outpouring of love to fill the heart.

Catherine

Postscript
2020-06-20

As A Father Sees Love in Time and Eternity
for Catherine and Eric
written by Kelvin on their wedding June, 1992

“….And to your hearts lay this
Sure word of prophecy:
No love is lost
That springs unbidden,
Though the labour of your life
Be all the cost.”

My father, Richard Johnson 2020

I interviewed Michael to see if he could tell me what his dad looks like, what he is good at and what he likes to do.

Michael said that his dad has grey hair, is smart, can programme and likes to watch the news while he is laying in bed at night with the kids.

On that point, Michael says that when there are laying there, Richard will read 1/2 a page, Michael will read 1/2 a page, but sometimes his dad falls asleep and has to be woken up.

Richard is also good at chess.

(- taken from an interview with Michael Johnson)

For Father's Day - #12 Fizz-Fuzz

5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 35 (fizz-fuzz)

Doral liked games that could be played anywhere – in the car, on a picnic, as an ice-breaker, or a game like this one that could be done after the dinner were done.

I have to refresh my mind with the rules of Fizz-Fuzz every time I play.

It is not so much the rules, is that I have to figure out all of the possible combinations that are going to trick me.

In this game, five, all multiples of five or if 5 is an integer, are called Fizz.

Seven, all multiples of seven and if seven is in an integer (like 17 or 27) are called Fuzz.

7, 14, 17, 21, 27. 28, 35 (fizz-fuzz)
... and remember to reverse directions each time ...

On the word Fuzz, we reverse the order of who speaks next, that is, if going clock-wise, then it is back to counter-clock-wise.

In this game our family does a few practise rounds before beginning the game in earnest. Then if a person misses, they must sit out, so this game is way more interesting in the practice rounds than when players drop out. In fact, I don’t think we ever play this game in that form. We are always doing practise rounds.

What is the fun of a game if someone has to sit out – except a game of hockey of course. This game is well described at Dr Mike's Math Games for Kids.  This site uses Buzz instead of Fuzz. It doesn’t matter, so long as people are having fun.

Arta

(#12 of 15, to be continued)

For Father's Day - #11 Family Home Evening

... Doral owned a number of vehicles in his lifetime ...

When we were a younger family (pre-teens) we played games every night.

An evening would begin with Doral laying on the floor, knees up, putting a child on his feet which were still on the floor, having that child lean back on his legs, then putting his arms on their shoulders and raising his legs, tossing that child back and forth over his head, then back again to his feet.

All of us who were too big for him to toss, would gather around, remembering that fun from our own childhood, pleading for just one try. I would be sure I was light enough for one last toss.

When our church came out with a Monday night programme called “Family Home Evening”, Doral wasn’t very happy. He thought every night should be family night and that is what he continued to do … no correlated programme for him.

... no vehicle more loved than one ready for the hunting season ...

When Doral would pull a quarter out of his pocket, we knew Hide the Quarter was about to begin.

He would give money to someone to hide while the rest of us where out of the room, lined up on the varathane-stained linoleum floor of the hallway.

We would enter the living room, look for the quarter and when we found it quietly sit down, so as not to give away its location.

Always someone would gasp when they saw it, or holler, or their body would tremble with the task of keeping the quarter’s location secrete.

When only one or maybe two people were left who hadn’t found it, all of us would call out warm, you’re getting warmer, hot, hotter, hottest – you are burning, or cool, getting colder if the person was moving away from the hidden spot. One of the more memorable places Doral might hide the quarter would be on the top of his bald head, or maybe on top of his ear if it was his turn to do the hiding. His other good choices were on the mantle, between the laces of his shoe, or best of all, held in his eye as if it were a monocle.

Then we played Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, lining chairs up between the couches, getting everyone into position, and then the knee and hand-clapping began. Sometimes we added in the other books of the New Testament, like Acts, Corinthians and Philippians, but that was too hard for the younger children, so when they played it was just Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and their was a numbering system, one, two, three ... that came after Maythew, Mark, Luke and Johnson.

Many of the games Doral played with us were about making alliances with each other. In this game we were quick to see if a long-time holder of Matthew spot could be displaced. We would throw the next turn quickly back to Matthew, so they had to look around the circle and see if they could find someone who might go out instead.

Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Corinthians … the names of the books were burned into my brain circuits.

Arta
(#11 of 15, to be continue)

For Father's Day - #10 The Pool Table

We had a pool table. When Uncle Loran had no more use for it, it came to our house. Green chalk, a triangle for billiards, the 8 ball. I wonder why I didn’t play pool.

Men played pool. They seemed to enjoy it. I couldn’t get a kick out of holding a pool cue in my hand or brushing chalk on the tip of the cue before taking a shot. Or loosening my wrist and smoothly running that cue back and forth a few times before letting the cue strike the ball.

Was it the camaraderie around the table the gathered boys and men down there? Once Ramsey Walker told me that as a youth he was dying to play pool at our house. He asked Doral if he could come and play pool on Sunday? Doral said, “You do what you think is right. “

I wonder what would have happened if Ramsey had come over at pm Sunday at 8 am and played until 8 pm, (taking a break to go to church, but that would be the only break) believing that this would be a way of leaving behind his daily labours as the scriptures suggest to do on Sunday.

Probably Doral would have done nothing, … but laugh inside.

But Ramsey wouldn’t have known that.

I didn’t like the game of pool when Doral would have to go get new tips for the cues, spend time gluing them on, grumbling about “you kids for knocking them off”.

I could never figure out who was the “you kids” group, collective blame for mistakes and accidents made by men and boys while playing pool, I guess.

For Father's Day - #9 Card Games

Doral's son, Glen
Glen knows how to play most of these games.
As well, he can ghost Doral's voice when he plays.

Doral taught us to play cards and to play with cards.

Here are some of the games:

Four Robbers

With a deck of cards in his hands, Doral would have taken the four Jacks out. Then he would tell the story that the robbers went to rob a mansion, each going in at a different floor, and so he would put each of the Jacks into the deck of cards at a different place. Somehow an alarm was sounded, Doral would hit the top of the deck and out of the top of the roof, (i.e., the top of the deck), the Jacks would pop, one, two, three, four.

On How To Spell the Numbers on a Deck of Cards

I would sit by Doral and he had that elusive deck of cards in his hands again. He would tell me he could spell the deck. Then he would say (while flipping over cards), A–C–E and then up would flip an ace; T-W-O, two and the next card he would flip over would be a two, and so forth to the end of the deck, Q-U-E-E-N, queen. I could not figure out how to do that until I was much older and went on an internet search. However, my sister, Bonnie, figured it out as a teen and then showed Doral how she could do it. He was very interested in how she figured it out. That was one of the adult moments for me when I could see that Doral was really fascinated by how other people’s brains worked, not just his kids, but he was interested in the thinking of everyone he met.

Cribbage

Doral played cribbage. Often he would drop in at Floyd Albiston’s. They would sit and place three games of cribbage or so. Then Doral would leave.

“A good game,” he told me, “when your children can do combinations up to 8 and 7 for example.”

This is not a good game for me. People do Muggins me so often that they start to feel sorry for me.

I have been left behind the stink hole many times. Still, I will play cribbage. Just not well. It is one of the games my father taught me and for me it is about the relationship and not the win.

Oh Hell

When Aunt Erva came to visit we played two games, either “Oh Hell” or “Who’s Got the Queen”. I can’t remember the rules for Oh Hell, but I can remember practising the inflection of that phrase when I was alone. Nobody could say it quite like Erva or Doral. To practise, drop your voice and get a guttural sound in the second word.

Who’s Got the Queen

This is a simple game but Doral added a whole new layer to it. He could get rid of the Queen, but he could also drop it as a taunt on someone who had a winning score, thus changing the odds against them winning.

He had a good sense of timing in this regard.

Nines

Two folk know how the game runs, two or more. But some don’t. So the fun is for them to figure out what signals the others are giving so that they know the answer as to which card has been turned around, or if what is laid out are books, then which book has been touched.

To play the game, arrange 9 cards on the table in 3 rows of 3’s.

1. One person who knows how to play the game leaves the room. Those who don’t know how to play the game turn one card around.

2. The person now re-enters the room. The main player asks, is it this one, is it that one, etc. 3. The clue is blatant once you know it. If you don’t know it, you get to think of all of the ways clues could be given.

(The Answer): Since there are 3 rows of 3, on the first question, when the main player asks, Is it this card?, he always points to the place on the card where the object that has been turned wouold be, if it were drawn there as 3 sets of 3. Now he can always point there, or just the first time, depending on how long you want the game to go on.)

Just a fun quick party game to warm up the crowd. I have seen this done with 9 books laid on the carpet, and person says he can do it if someone will just touch a book – then the person who goes out can do it by just sniffing the book and then going around and pretending to identify by scent.

I think I have taken longer, telling how to play this game, than it takes to play the game!

Arta

(#9 of 15, to be continued)

For Father's Day - #8 A Potpourri of Gags

Wyona and Doral
... after an evening fishing ...

If you knew Doral, you would known these gags:

Did you hear about the cannibal who passed his brother in the bush?

Do you know how to cure a cold?
     If you do nothing about it, a cold takes 14 days to runs its course.
     If you take antibiotics, you can cure it in a fortnight.

Doral would say, “A little boy is going past a fence. He sees a sign. It says, don’t fish here. The little boy says, I don’t know.” (Then we would have to guess the meaning of that riddle.)

What is the best way to stop a baby from bawling?
     Answer: A bust in the mouth

Why do firemen wear red suspenders?
     Answer: To hold their pants up.

Arta

(#8 of 15, to be continued)

For Father's Day - #7 The Sounds of the Track Meet

I live across the road and a few blocks east from the Foothills Stadium where high school track meets happen in June. As I was walking today, I was listening to the different sounds of the birds at they chattered back and forth. I was also wondering what sound was missing. It was the sound of the announcer at the track meets, since those have been cancelled for this year because of COVID-19. I can always hear those sounds in early June, all the way from the competitions to my house.

Front Row LtoR: Darla, Doral
Back Row LtoR: Moiya, Bonnie Edna Rae, Arta, Wyona

Doral taught all of us how to throw that discus

For as many children as Doral had, that is the number of times he was out teaching us how to compete in track: broad jump, high jump, discus, sprints, and how to pass the baton in a relay.

When spring came we began to practise in earnest with him.

He would have one of us borrow a discus from the school athletic department for the evening. 

That is how I learned how to hold the discus -- with him and he was careful that I aimed toward the back field and not at the house.

That field behind our house? Who has a meadow for a backyard in the middle of the city?

We did.

How many crocus picking parties were held out there? How many pussy willows brought into the house? How many stems of lady fingers did I gather in that field. And best of all, during the late summer nights, bottle in hand, I could chase the elusive fireflies, hoping just once to fill my one of mother’s mason jars with enough fireflies that I could read by them for the rest of the evening in bed.

Who can’t remember being taken to the meadow behind the house and having Doral show them the correct form for the discus, those warm up swings, and then taking a few tries with a discus we had brought home from school.

A discus is one piece of athletic equipment Doral didn’t own, but he knew enough to have us borrow one from the school so we could practice at home.

Arta

(#7 of 15, to be continued)

For Father's Day - #5 Good Mormons Don’t Gamble or Play Cards

Doral and Wyona in Malaysia
Doral was always fascinated with doing
something unusual, in this case, having
a visit with a monkey

I must have heard from the pulpit that good Mormons don’t gamble, or play cards, at least thry don’t play with face cards.

I came home from church and checked with Doral. He said what the speaker meant is that that pious Mormons don’t gamble or play cards.

When Doral said the word pious, he would take on a long face with no expression interlock his fingers and then roll his thumbs one around the other. I knew I didn’t want to be one of those, so it was OK to play cards.

That was fine.

I knew we could still be good Mormons and played cards and even gamble, afterall, Doral went to the horse races. He even owned race horses – remember Shuswap Sal, and going to the race track for the afternoon with Doral? That was all fun.

"Oh Hell" and "Who'se Got the Queen" were common group card games that we played at home. I don’t know what fun this could have been for Doral, playing with all of his teen-agers, but it was fun for him. Wyora would be putting little ones to bed, the older ones of us stayed up and played cards. She might join us later.

In fact, sometimes Doral and Wyora would have people over, large groups and the adults would play Rook and eat snacks long into the night. I know what I did the next morning. I would get up early to see if any Bridge Mix had been left in the candy dishes on the table. I usually found something there, as well as what might remain from a large chocolate bar on other nights. Thus, I learned to be the first one to make their bed. I grew up thinking all married couples had a chocolate bar under their pillows. At least I hoped that would be so.

Once I remember asking Doral, “Dad, do you know how to play poker?”

“Yes. I know how to play poker. Playing poker has a lot to do with reading other people’s faces and fooling them with your face. I will teach you how to play the game. I have to warn you that you have to be careful when you learn a game like poker. You will forget that time exists. Night can turn into day and back to night when you are playing poker. You can forget to eat.”

“You have to be kidding? Where did you learn?”

I can’t remember the where and when of the rest of his story. But I have stopped typing to go back and find out where he wrote that in his Life History. (p 41-42)

The one night of poker with dad in the our family kitchen was enough for me. I must have played all of my cards wrong, for I didn’t get a taste for that game.

On other games, Doral would tell me the secrete of how to win. He said that in cribbage, the chances are that both players will have even hands. How a person wins is by pegging, which is not so much a matter of chance but of being on the watch for your opponent to count their h and incorrectly.

We spent a lot of hours at home playing Rook – mostly five-handed with only two in the kitty. And we always showed the kitty, giving others the chance to see if there were counters there.

Wyona played a lot of bridge in Malaysia. When she came back and said she wanted to play that game, Doral was already good at it. In fact, that is the game that we played when he knew he was dying. Wyona and I would go over to Moiya’s and take all of our children. Then the woman who was the dummy would hurry around taking care of getting our combined children food or seeing that they had games to play. The dummy was no dummy. She jumped up and peeled vegetables, got soup going, punched down bread, changed diapers, gave drinks of water to toddles, found and filled lost bottles – the dummy, three generic dummies – no dummies at all.

(#5 of 15 - to be continued)

Arta

For Father's Day - #3 The Burglar Bold

Doral couldn’t hold a tune. But still he sang songs for us like The Burglar Bold”. When I checked the internet to find songs he sang to us, they are more tuneful than the melodies he sang for us. Best to say he could take a tune and make it into twentieth century atonal music and not even know he was doing that. I can enjoy Sam McGee, the Grandad of Guitar Pickers,

But  when Sam sings, it is a completely new tune for me.  I can’t sing along with him.  His isn’t singing the tune I learned. For me Doral’s music was heady stuff – his melody the was picked up by my ear, one that was trained to place every note on the musical staff of my mind. I acquired the unusual ability to sing his song perfectly, mirroring his off-key voice with every phrase.

... she took out her teeth and her big glass eye,
and the hair all off her head ...

Doral would pantomime the lyrics as he sang. 

He would take out his false teeth on the phrase, “she took out her teeth”.

And he would act as though he were gouging out his own eye at the line were she takes out her big glass eye.

Doral swooped it out with his index finger and I could see it flying across the room, bounce, bounce, bounce and into a corner.

I can see him taking a slow, dramatic swipe of his hand over his own bald head as he sang that she took “the hair all off her head”.

And then he went on to sing the rest of the song sans dentures, twisting his lips, the upper one to the left, the lower one to the right, sometimes pressed both lips inward or maybe both lips thrown to one side of his mouth in a cone, winkles around his lips, terror in my heart to the end of the song, holding one last dramatic pause, and then … he …. became grandpa again, putting his teeth back in his mouth and letting the dramatic moment lift.

As I grew older and watch him sing this song to my children, another kind of terror ran through me, wondering if someday I would be taking the teeth of my mouth, me, an old white-haired woman, hair already swept back from her head, but running my hand over it to model baldness, gums writhing, singing about old maids and handsome you robbers and unwanted alliances.

Here are the lyrics our family sings, thought I don’t know why I am posting them, since they are burned into everyone’s memory:

I’ll tell you about a burglar bold who went to rob a house.
He opened the window and crept right in as quiet as a mouse. 

The burglar looked about him. The folks were all asleep,
And so he said, “By jiminy, I think I’ll take a sleep. 

So under the bed, the burglar crept, he crept right against the wall
He didn’t know it was the old maid’s house or he wouldn’t have been there at all. 

About nine o’clock the old maid came in, “Dear me, I’m tired,” she said.
She didn’t know there was anybody there, so she didn’t look under the bed.

She took out her teeth and her big glass eye and the hair all off her head.
And the burglary had about fourty-eleven fits, as he shook under the bed.

From under the bed the burglar crept, he was a total wreck,
The old maid wasn’t asleep at all and she grabbed him by the neck

She didn’t scream nor holler, but was as cool as a clam.
And said,”Pray Saints, at last I’ve found a man.” 

She took a pistol from under her pillow and to the burglar said,
“Young man, if you don’t marry me, I’ll blow off the top of your head.' 

The burglar looked about him. There was no place to scoot.
And so, he said, “By jiminy, madam, for Pete’s sake ... shoot.”

(#3 of 15, to be continued)

Arta

For Father's Day - #2 Adam was a gardener

Doral with Teague, Tonia and Marcia circa 1976
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Doral would tell stories as we would drive along in the car.

Raucous stories about his practical joke playing relatives, stories about jokes play by them on him, stories about jokes played on him by them.

We begged for the stories, naming them by incident: “Tell us about Frank shooting the white horse; tell us about Amanda hiding in the newly dug grave; tell us about the cow pie under the hat, and so he told them over and over again as we would drive.

When he was tired of storytelling he would sing to us:

Adam was a gardener, and Eve she was his souse.
They got the sack for stealing food and went to keeping house.
They lived a very quiet life, and peaceful in the main,
Until they had a baby and started raising Cain.

 And we joined in the chorus

Young folks, old folks, ev’ry body come,
Come and join our Sunday School and have a lot of fun.
Please to check your chewing gum and razor at the door,
And you’ll hear some Bible stories that you’ve never heard before.

Then dad would start on another of the 12 verses,

God made Satan, and Satan made sin,
God made a hot place to put Satan in.
Satan didn’t like it, so he said he wouldn’t stay.
He’s been acting like the devil ever since that sorry day.
And we would join in the chorus --

Doral created a love of religion in me with those songs.

That was the devil in him.

All of the verses of the songs were about transgressions.

I loved what seemed like the transgressive act of singing them.

(#2 of 15, to be continued)

Arta

Doral Came Out of My Mouth

Question for people who have swum here?
How many water covered sections to the end of the ramp?

Sometimes Doral Pilling’s words come out of my mouth.  

My parent tape from him must be loud and deep.  

When his words pop out of my mouth because I am not attending to the difference between what is in my head and what I say, I laugh.  

Sometimes I shouldn’t laugh, but it feels fun to have his words in my head, even if he is gone.  

That is what I am laughing at:  how some parental ideas are imprinted!

For example, Moiya and I were having a chat about her aches and pains.   At least that is how our conversation started began.

She said that yesterday her arm got so bad that tears were streaming down her cheeks, so she decided maybe she should take some Tylenol, something she never does.  The Tylenol worked for her.  Today the pain is gone.

I know this spot.
Just to the right and back 3 yards is an
Italian plum tree that I planted long go.

Small green cherries on the tree to the west of the ramp.

I added to the conversation, that I want my body to do certain things, like tend my younger grandchildren.

Thank goodness their parents know not to leave them with someone who might just go to sleep in a chair while she should be watching the kids.

Moiya told me that she needs an afternoon nap sometimes even though she is 11 years younger than me.

Her voice might have underlined 11 years as a bit of a taunt, for I longed for the years that difference represented. 

"Sensational Lilac"
... a gift to me from Shirley Treleaven ...

We talked about some pictures she sent me, some wonderful pictures of the lake – the place I want to be.

I told her I have some jobs I must do here, before I go to the lake.

And I am still not stable enough to walk on the dirt roads. 

“Hard,” I said, “to take care of myself.  And you are the same. It is so hard to take care of myself instead of taking care of others.  You have your diabetes to take care of.”

“Oh, I haven’t been doing that,” she said.

“If I were busy, that is the first thing, I would quit doing, too,” I intoned, “watching my diabetes.”

She laughed. 

Then Doral left.

Photo Credits: Moiya Wood