My Dad Is A Fisherman

My dad had this penchant for telling stories about how he walked miles to school barefoot, because slippers were too precious to use up just by walking. He'd make jokes about selling dishes deliberately smoked with burning newspaper so they can be passed off as "agaw sunog" as a teenager. He also told me how he got jailed for vagrancy one time during the Martial Law days because he snuck out of the house to visit a beerhouse while fetching water late at night. There was also this story about getting jailed during his early days as an Engineer in KSA for lying in the bed of a prince just to know how it felt like. He told me those, among many other rather unbelievable stories that I learned to take with a grain of salt.

My dad also told me he used to be a fisherman before he went to Manila to study in college. He explained to me how to tell the time using nothing but the stars, an idea that I still can't begin to comprehend many many years after. I've actually forgotten about him being a fisherman until very recently, during one of our few times that we spent together. That time, we were talking about the recent Sulpicio ship sinking while eating steak (yes, not the best topic to bring up while eating medium rare meat). My uncle who was also from Masbate joined us during that meal. My sister had brought the topic up because she was concerned the spilled chemicals might reach Boracay, where she'd be spending honeymoon after her wedding.

At that point my dad and uncle went into rapid fire discussion about how far the location of the capsized ship was from the beaches of Boracay. They talked about the islands around Romblon and Aklan like they were damn streets. "If you turn right after that coast, you'd already be facing Boracay," I heard my dad say. "It's not far from " but the Habagat winds are strong there." "The currents of will carry the chemicals away, not toward Boracay." I actually lost track of what else they talked about, but the same way House talks about diseases we don't understand, it still sounded awesome. My dad really knew the shit when it came to using a boat.

I smiled. My dad's a fisherman and an engineer.

And he's fucking awesome.

What can YOUR dad do?