This morning while in and out of sleep, I was thinking about my father: Richard Warren Shannon. My father was quite a guy. He was born in El Centro California in 1922. I never met my grand parents on his side of the family. I had heard different things from my mother. From what I gather Richards father died in a work related accident. I don’t know those details. My family might but they rarely contact me what with them being very busy and me in another part of the country. It’s hard.

Occasionally I hear from them on Facebook. Earliest photo we have of dad was of him walking the streets of Vancouver circa 1940. Back then people like the squeegee kids in big cities would snap photos of you and try to sell them. Dad would have been 21 years old. For all I know he might have been heading off to the recruitment center to join the RCAF. The family knows the history of that photo more then I do. Dad’s part for the war effort was flying cargo planes back and fourth from Nova Scotia to England. He never was in combat. From about 1945-1952 he got a pipe fitting trade, while driving Vancouver Transit married my mom and had me of course. What became of Richards mother, I do not know. Nor do I know where Richard attended school though if he did here in BC there should be records. I recall we moved around a lot in the 1950’s before settling down in the 1960’s in Coquitlam BC. Dad built a speed boat from scratch and sold it. He played tennis occasionally with his best friend Phil Poulin. In the 1960’s dad expanded our single family house and put in a basement. Dad and Phil had season tickets to the Vancouver Canucks (when they were affordable) for a few years. In 1971 he sold the house and moved the family to a condo just off of North Road as it bends down towards Port Moody. Being a Union man in the 1970’s Richard was always in and out of work. Dad at the age of 50 decided there was money to be made in Fort MacMurray’s oil patch. He moved there for a few years and the family followed to Edmonton in 1973. I was 21 years old at the time. When I came to move to Edmonton in 1978 dad was all but done with Alberta. The year later my parents moved back down to Coquitlam to retire. Dad would have been about my age now. He raised a family of 5 kids that are doing fairly well. Except for my brother Rick who passed away a few years back. Dad and mom retired and lived I hope a comfortable life from 1980 until dad was hit by a car in 1996 and was in a coma he never got out of. That would have been march 12^th 1996. Dad died at the age of 74. He was a good man. We were not a upper middle class family. My brother Mike is still with his wife and they have two grown up children of their own I’m also on Facebook with. Mom passed away December 3^rd 2000. Both parents were cremated their ashes spread out to sea.

I love you dad, where ever you are.