Week 2 - On mistaken identity

"Hey, are you Junior?"

My dad Ray was born and raised in Whitney Pier, and joined the Air Force back in the Sixties.  His military career lasted about 30 years or so, and took him (and by extension, the rest of the family) all over Canada and the world.  He'd take a job at the RCMP Headquarters in Ottawa after leaving the service, then move back home to Sydney upon his retirement.

Everywhere else, he was Ray.  But here in Sydney, to his family and friends, he was Junior.

Dad taught me a lot of things as I was growing up, like the value of hard work, the art of patience, and some of the most creative swear words ever uttered.  I got into modelmaking because of him; he taught me how to build my first model kit when I was six, and encouraged me as I continued to build models over the years.

He never set out to be a great man, and was content to be a good man.  Which, I think, makes him a great man.

He passed away suddenly in October of 2023, and I was devastated.

When I decided I was going to open a hobby shop last year, I struggled to pick a cool name for it, right up until I was filling out the registration paperwork.  There were a lot of car-related puns that came and went.  Then, it occurred to me; if I am opening a shop dedicated to modelmaking, shouldn't the name reflect where my love of modelmaking came from in the first place?  So, I named the shop Junior's Hobbies, after my dad, Junior.

So, no, I am not Junior.  But I am his son, which is still pretty cool, if you ask me.

-Donnie