Embarrassing?
Over the past four years, Mike Crowl has been writing interesting and embarrassing anecdotes about us, his family. As one of the clan I feel it’s time to get our own back.
Mike Crowl was born in May five decades ago, and lived the
first three years of his life in that small island to the west of New Zealand,
Australia. He started learning to play the piano at the age of 8, and his main
claim to fame in this area is playing for Kiri Te Kanawa. He’s always talking
about it.
At the age of 22 he went to London where he married our Mum.
He is now approaching the big half-century.
In his life so far he has done some amusing things. Since he’s
paid us out, I should include a few of his embarrassing moments. Shall I mention
the time he ran for one of those double-decker London buses? It took off as he
was grabbing for the rail, and he found himself dragging along the road,
tearing holes in the knees of his trousers.
He claims to be adept with his hammer and other handyman
tools. But my mother recalls many a time listening to Dad banging in nails and
suddenly hearing a yell of pain, after (I’ll put it charitably) a near-miss.
Or what about the time he asked his bank manager what he was
doing in a rival bank? No wonder the bank manager gave him a funny look. He was
in fact heading into his own office in his own bank. Dad had forgotten where he
was.
There was also a time Dad was left alone on a stage in front
of a crowd when the singer he was playing for forgot his words and walked off
without a backward glance. Dad didn’t know whether to carry on playing, by
himself, or pretend he wasn’t still there.
After speaking to one of the nuns who taught Dad to play, I learned
that this brilliant piano player didn’t like practising. This nun said of Dad: ‘He
was a nice boy. He didn’t like to practise but he used to bring me flowers –
although he made sure he brought them without any of the other little boys
seeing him.’
Although Mike Crowl’s family is picked on the most for
material in his column, they’re not the only ones. His friends and
acquaintances must also watch what they say, otherwise these poor unsuspecting souls
may find their words printed in Column 8 the next week.
We kids have learned to try and keep our mouths shut,
however, and lead vapid lives.
Sometimes I wonder why we are here. Why did my father have
us? Is it just to provide ‘ingredients’ for his column? (I wonder also about
the names of two of his daughters – why are they named after two of Dad’s
ex-girlfriends?)
Furthermore we have to cope with English teachers using Dad’s column as part of a test or unit study.
And lastly, there is the difficulty we have with inquiries,
such as: ‘So who was Mike talking about in his last column?’ or ‘Was that you
your Dad said was taking too long in the shower?’ As well as all the people
forever asking: ‘Is Mike Crowl YOUR Dad?’
When I was writing this letter, my Dad saw the notes I was
taking off his earlier columns. Luckily my life-saver of a mother used one of
her diversionary tactics and grabbed the piece of paper before he could get
hold of it.
I’d like to thank my Mum and Grandma, my brothers and
sisters for adding all their little bits to this. Also all those other people
who supplied their special pieces of gossip. And my English teacher, who helped
me to put it together properly.
PS: Happy 50th birthday, Dad!
In my defence:
I only played publicly for Kiri te Kanawa, as far as I recall. It was a competent performance on my part, no more.
I can still hammer a nail better than my wife, one of the few woodworking things I can do better than her.
It's true that I didn't like practising piano much, but I played it a lot because I could sight-read very well from quite a young age, and so felt practising wasn't really a necessity (!)
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