Once upon a time, I took my first overseas job in Cali, Colombia. My dad, up for just about anything as always, agreed to come for a visit during my first extended holiday over the Christmas break. We would have three weeks together to travel around Colombia and see what there was to see.
Dad flew in a few days before the break started, so he had a few afternoons to explore the city along with my wife. He unpacked that night...one pair of pants, one pair of jeans, a bathing suit, a few shirts, and socks/underwear.
"Where are your shorts?"
"I didn't bring any."
At that, my incredulous, what-are-you-doing voice kicked in. "You came all the way to Colombia, a country with a primarily tropical climate, and you didn't bring shorts?"
"No, I'll be fine," said Dad.
So the next day, my dad and my wife went out exploring the city and the neighbourhood. This was more of an adventure than it would seem. My wife didn't speak Spanish at that point, and whenever my dad (never much of a language man) tried to say anything, a French word long lingering in the recesses of his brain would pop out. He was more likely to say 'merci' than 'gracias'. In those days, not very many people spoke English in Cali, so ordering a meal was a bit of a challenge for them.
On top of that, Cali was a very dangerous city at the time. The Cali cartel was on the run and their many employees were at loose ends. With less stable work available, random crime, already quite common, had increased substantially. I warned both to be very careful where they went and made plans to see them for dinner. They spent the afternoon checking out places, found lunch, had some coffee and were waiting for me when I got home.
By this point, Dad had perhaps realised his packing mistake.
"It's hot out there," he noted. I pointed out that he might be more comfortable in shorts and asked if he wanted to buy some before we left for the coast (where it would be even hotter) a few days later.
“No. It’s okay. I can’t be bothered.” Typical Dad response. He wasn’t cheap, but he was more than willing to put up with a little discomfort before buying something he didn’t need. Especially since he had made the mistake of not bringing shorts, it was somehow something he should do - forego a bit of comfort to make up for the silly error in judgement of forgetting something. Buying shorts to replace the ones he didn’t bring to a country where the average temperature was around 32C every day was the easy way out. Being uncomfortable for a few weeks was a way of making up for his bad packing.
I left the room and returned with a pair of scissors. “Here. Let’s make you a pair of cut-offs. We can take the jeans [which I didn’t particularly like anyway] and make you some shorts.” This was the way around dad’s feeling that he shouldn’t pay his way out of a bad decision. Dad readily agreed. A few minutes later, Dad stood in the living room in his new shorts. The effect was something like an old boy. Perhaps a bit like Bob Denver as Gilligan, but they looked good on him.
We spent the next three weeks travelling around some of the most remote parts of the country. Me being me, we didn’t make a lot of concessions to comfort just because Dad was 70. We stayed in some clean budget places and some real dives. We flew twice but also covered huge distances on dirty uncomfortable buses. We ate some great meals but also found quite a few places where the only choices were ‘chicken, meat, or fish’, each option fried to tasteless oblivion. We also swam in beautiful Caribbean coves, lounged in mud volcanoes, hiked jungle trails, and read in swaying hammocks.
My dad, happy and easy-going travel companion that he was, never complained once. The worst elements of it all actually became fodder for long-running jokes between him, my wife and I. Upon our return to Cali, my wife and I kept the shorts and recorded all those jokes in permanent Sharpie marker. When we next saw my dad, we presented them as a gift. Unsentimental as he was, my dad kept the shorts for 18 years, all the way up until he died.
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