When I was 15 and Kim was 13, Dad decided to teach us how to defend ourselves, specifically how to punch.

Ever since we’d come to Vancouver about six years earlier and as we approached teen-hood, Dad had started giving us advice about something called “the pecking order”, how some kids are going to try to bully us, and how we’d need to defend ourselves. Dad always had a real serious intensity about him when he talked about that sort of thing. In fact, he usually sounded angry. It had happened to him, and he didn’t want it to happen to us.

My Dad was not a small man. He was over six feet tall, weighed probably about 220 or more, and knew how to use his fists. As a boy, I believed there was no stronger or smarter man anywhere (this idolatry got adjusted down as I grew to become my own man).  I want to compare my Dad to John Wayne in terms of physical presence, and to Gregory Peck in terms of intellect and his thoughtful, serious tone. Dad was often quiet and friendly in public and tended to keep to himself. Those who did speak to him seemed to treat him with respect. I never felt afraid walking next to my Dad.

I think he’d learned how to fight as a kid in Prince Rupert, and he’d definitely learned a bunch of judo and hand-to-hand stuff when he was in the army in his twenties. We’d seen him use his fists up close and personal a few times too.

For our punching lessons with Dad, he spent time with each of us in the livingroom. I remember him telling me how to stand with my feet apart, one a bit forward of the other, and how to cock my fist, which meant making a straight line right down my forearm, right to my knuckles. Throwing it meant drawing your arm back at your side like pulling a bow, and when you throw it at your target, turning your hips and legs into it for extra power.

He didn’t teach us how to block or move around – it wasn’t a boxing lesson – just how to punch. He stood in front of me with his bare hands up like two targets, saying “left, left, right!”, and I got to take my shots, gauging my success by the cracking sound my fists made on his leathery palms and the sound of his voice egging me on.

Once in a few shots, he’d pull his hand back and shake it and make a pinched face like the hit had stung a little, but he was still smiling and encouraging. “Ooh, that was a good one!” he’d say.

Those hits made me feel proud and strong. I think that was the whole point.