Man of nature
My dad worked for his entire career as a forest ranger. Overall he enjoyed the job, partly because he was never really a people person, partly because he always had a keen interest in the world of nature. He is retired these days.

Although not very good at initiating conversations, he is polite enough to try. Often he will start a conversation by asking to the species of a particular bird or plant. The conversation will most often continue along the path of him informing the listener of the species and of any characteristica that separates it from similar species. These conversations have always been a bit annoying to my wife who *is* a people person but who more or less fits all of nature into the broad categories of plants, birds, and animals.

When my sister was married this summer, my dad held a carefully prepared and somewhat awkward speech. Being naturally uncomfortable at the centre of attention, he clung to his comfort zone by focusing the speech around the animal kingdom. It was short but memorable. He first told the anecdote of when my brother-in-law saw a mole for the first time. Being from Norway, where moles don't live in the wild, he had apparently imagined something the size of a small beaver. The most awkward -- but still animal related -- part of the speech was when he tried to assess the amount of camels that he would have had to give away when marrying away a 34-year old daughter (her age) compared to a younger one, had he lived in another culture. I think he concluded that it was definitely a good thing that he didn't.

Well, it was an entertaining speech.
(spinoza, Thu 25 Nov 2010, 12:54, 1 reply)

cringe factor 9!
Your dad sounds like a frustrated genius-y person. Better him tell strange anecdotes than get pissed and punch on with the in-laws. Lovely telling of the story.
(boozehound is drinking your bar dry, Thu 25 Nov 2010, 22:09, closed)