My Father, George Rubin,
Serving the public for 37 years at
Metropolitan News Agency
1248 Peel Street,
Montreal, Canada
He was my father, my friend, my mentor,
My eyes on the universe.
Pop taught me just about everything I know.
He was hard-working, wise, kind and oh, so loyal !
He was modest;
He hated conflict,
But tested,
He was very brave.
I was always by his side.
I see myself as a child -
Running to greet my Daddy,
When he came home from the dress factory,
Or from Farnham, where he served
In the Canadian Army reserves.
I was "knee high to a grasshopper" then,
But I remember how I loved him.
Pop took me for long walks
And talked to me about everything.
He bought me comic books at Wilensky's,
He took me to the movies and second hand book stores.
Pop read Pinocchio to me
From a 25 cent Dell Pocket Book.
He read to me -
Abou Ben Adhem, by Leigh Hunt,
Trees, by Joyce Kilmer
If, by Rudyard Kipling.
He told me about Georges Simenon,
And Edna St.Vincent Millay.
He planted a love of literature
In the Garden of my Life.
Pop took me for rides on Montreal's Golden Tramway.
He pushed me on the swings on Fletcher's Field in summer,
And pulled my sled up the hill in winter.
He took me to the band concerts held in the gazebo
On breezy summer evenings.
He helped me learn to ride a bike
Rented from Rose's bicycle store.
He made me memorize the multiplication tables,
And he kept me far ahead of my class in spelling
And composition.
When I was eleven, he started to teach me the business -
Rolling pennies and operating the olde cash register:
Newspapers from all around the world, magazines,
English Bone China and Fine Irish linens,
Bookkeeping with a pen and ledgers.
He taught me how to order lunch
At the Harmony Buffet Restaurant on Peel Street.
At seventeen, Pop taught me to drive his maroon Kaiser.
And I remember -
One evening, when I was a child,
While we were walking in the country,
We emerged from a dark wooded area into an open field.
Suddenly Pop said, "Quick ! look up !"
And for the first time, I saw the Aurora Borealis !
What Splendor !
Before my wondering eyes -
Waves of music were being written across the sky -
In technicolor !
He was my father, my friend, my mentor,
My eyes on the universe.
He taught me just about everything I know.
And I miss him terribly every day.
Phyllis Carter
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