My father was many things to many people. Jay has told you about some of them, and I can talk about only a couple more today. One was his sense of humour, [which Jay has already mentioned]; another was his love of the earth - the literal earth we walk on, and the planet Earth in all its natural beauty and variety. (The former brought him to a lifelong career in geology; the latter led him to travel extensively after he retired - to all the continents, as an “eclipse-chaser” --the perfect excuse to travel with groups of interesting, like-minded people and see out-of-the-way places.)

My father had a wicked sense of humour, at times one might almost call it black humour. He could deliver devastatingly funny lines in a dry way with a straight face, which he would maintain even when you looked at him in a kind of shock, thinking, “could he really have meant ...??” If you didn’t get it because of the straight face (no he couldn’t possibly have meant that, it must me), he would be disappointed you had not savoured to the full his entire performance.

Consequently, one of his favourite poems (in the sense of the one he most enjoyed rather than most admired) was the following, and I hope it brings back to you his unique sense of joie de vivre:

Love to eat them mousies
Mousies what I love to eat
Bite they little heads off
Nibble on their tiny feet.

(This is a poem by B. Kliban, cat lover and maverick cartoonist. My father was a cat person to his fingertips, and especially partial to big, orange cats.)

He was sometimes ‘black’ in the Irish sense of melancholy, as well. He read extensively in many areas, including the fate of the environment. One of the last books he read, with great attention and appreciation, was a biography of one of his heroes, Farley Mowat, a near-contemporary with whom Dad shared a history of WW II service, a love of wilderness, an enjoyment of parties with lots of people, and a black pessimism about the future of our planet.

Mowat was blunt in his assessment of our stewardship of the earth: “More and more I come to the inescapable conclusion that the creature we are is nearing the end of its tether. As I get older, I revert to my old interest in biology, but with Man as the prime object under the microscope. In fact, were I a god, and a betting one, I’d lay no odds on him.” My father shared this assessment. It was his deep, passionate concern for the earth that the family selected the David Suzuki Foundation for donations in Dad’s memory. Let us keep faith with him and temper our own pessimism enough to fight as hard and well as we can for the planet Eric loved so much.

Mark’s additional paragraph:
"Shortly before Eric retired, he bought a 50-acre piece of property near Spencerville [an hour’s drive from Ottawa], which turned into one of his biggest past-times and reflected his enduring passion for the outdoors. He built a small structure in a natural clearing, which forever became known as The Shack. Years later, he installed an old trailer closer to the road where he and Evelyn would stay on their overnight excursions. It was not unusual for Eric to log nearly 100 trips a year from Ottawa to The Property and back, and he spent endless hours clearing brush, setting bonfires, building fences, visiting neighbours and kicking back to smoke his pipe and empty yet another thermos of coffee. The Shack and The Property are still very much a going concern and are frequently visited by his children and grandchildren. Last May, Eric went for a stroll to the back fenceline, sometimes using his cane, other times twirling it in his hand as he made his way down the path. He last visited The Property in September. He loved the tranquility and peace that he found at Spencerville, and it will remain a treasured part of his heritage for many years to come."

Although he was at heart a loner, in relationship with others, Eric was a kind person, who liked to do things for people for the pleasure he got out of seeing their pleasure. If you needed a lift, he was there. If you needed a good meal or a bed for the night, he was happy to oblige. If you needed some possession he no longer used, he’d insist on giving it to you. In his last years, he tipped taxi drivers and waiters outrageously, to their sometimes incredulous delight, on the grounds they needed it more than him. He liked music with a beat and a good melody, and would get up and dance, waving his cane, when the mood struck him.

The day he died, one of his fellow Rideau Gardens residents who had heard came up to me, and with affection, said, “he loved to read .... and he loved to dance!” She encapsulated two important sides of his nature in that simple statement.

Alastaire