Raymond Bardan

Michael Bardan wrote for the Eulog but it was truncated because it was too long:  Just picking one or two things that my dad taught or help me with would be doing him a disservice.  He hardly ever said the words NO when I asked him for a hand.  Granted when I hung up with him on the phone, I’m sure he cursed me out.  From working on my house or fixing my cars to sewing my renaissance costume and even helping me out with some poetry.   He could do it all or he at least made things look easy.  As my pops would say, I am a jack of all trades master or none.  I recall my Escort breaking down at the bottom of seven hills, I of course called him.  He came down with some tools to help fix the issue but the job required supplies that he did not have.  It did not stop him.  He looked around the street, found some string, a used hose and a few other fancy things and was able to get my car started, put back together and we drove it home where he had the tools the fix the problem.  I coined him the name MacGyver because that’s exactly what he pulled off.  From that moment forward he did just that.  He would create something out of the ordinary.  My dad always took part in any activity I wanted to play.  In baseball, he became a coach and mentored my sister and I.  I remember my dad picking on me when my sister received the call first and made it on the minor league bears.  I pouted and ran under my bed.  Shortly after that, the phone rang again.  It was my turn to make the same team as my sister.  My dad never let me live that down.  In boy scouts, he became an assistant scout master and followed my brother and me throughout our time as scouts.  He went everywhere with us that we wanted to go.  He taught me how to drive and it was not easy.  I recall him saying, you need to pretend that this is foot ball and every car out there is trying to tackle you.  I know I will teach my boys the same thing when I show them how to drive.   When my dad was younger he and his brother went fishing lot. I recall many memories that my dad would wake me up and say do you want to go fishing.  I would jump out of bed no matter how tired I was.  There are so many memories and stories of my dad and me going fishing.  I especially enjoyed the ones when the fishing line would snap, my pole was almost bent in two, it was right in front of me and it was this big but it got away.  Today, I tell those same stories as well.   On one Memorial Day, I took Brayden fishing with my dad.  My dad and I were around to help Brayden reel in and catch a fish.  Brayden was so excited and I know that this trend will continue down the family line with father and son going fishing and sharing stories about “the one that got away.”  Mason and my dad enjoyed hanging out at the house and my father would chase him around and tickly him until he begged for him to stop.  It was such a joy to watch my dad act like a kid again.  My dad was my rock, my foundation and without him I feel unbalanced.  But in time, I will use the lessons he taught me and pass them down to my kids.  Because the values and support he handed down to us make us who we are and those pieces of him now live in us.  

Other thoughts to elobrate on:  Open MIC night at Ricks Music world, Grays Ice Cream, dairy dip in tiverton, building the go-cart, 2 story doll house, skit - what crawled up and died mister, that will be two bits (was taped using a tape recorder), bike riding all over the place, breakfast at little bear or after we went fishing, Fort Barton hikes, acorn fights at fort barton, paper swords made out of newspaper and duct tape, rubber band and match book fights, New Hampshire trips (retrofitting his 12 passenger van into a mini hotel where we slept at night, Squiding on the newport navy base pier, Fishingg at weyerhauser, scuba diving, fishing off the break water (big rocks jumping inbetween), making piggy banks with different colored plexy glass, rowboating in tiverton (driverway near staford pond), family get together with Uncle Frank and his kids on Mount Hope ave, Sewing easter pouches, my renasiance costume, denise's doppy costume,  Trick or Treating in portsmouth in the 80 Chevy van using pillow cases, watching dukes of hazard and incredible hulk, walking the train tracks, late night tennis with uncle frank on bay street, coaching baseball, playing hide and seek in the apartment, building blanket forts, fort barton hunting photos of kids, boat rides at Saudy Pond in the rubber raft and row boat, row boating all around mount hope bay, crossing the break water past stone bridge where dad was affaid we would get stuck because the motor was not powerful enough, swimming at the beach area at Saudy Pond, family dinners at Crowthers - dads favorite waitress, intellivision and TI 99 4A, Kennedy park during the snow, snowmen on the bases, kennedy park fireworks, shoveling with dad and costume, paintball gun barrel sleeve, hackey sack and pouches for my stereo face plate for Rich, throwing lucky up onto the larg snow mounds.