Pedro Jr. | Fulcrum Contributor
Photo by Tina Wallace
When I saw that the Fulcrum began publishing about my father again, and of course when I heard about the return of the Panda Bowl, I was far too excited. I could not miss out; I had to be part of this. Why, you ask?
When I was but a little panda bear, my father Pedro told me all of these stories about how he’d traveled to Guatemala, the Andalusian plains in Spain, and most importantly, to Lansdowne Park in Ottawa.
In Ottawa, he said he was a candidate in the presidential race at Carleton University in 1956. He told me he’d gone skydiving during the Panda Bowl, been abducted by Queen’s University, and taken hostage by the Pedro Liberation Front (he tried to explain to them that he wasn’t in need of liberation). My father was the freest a panda could be. I asked him why he retired in 1979.
“Son, there are few things in life richer with meaning than hard work,” he said. “There are even fewer whose reward is comparable.”
I still don’t get what he meant by that, but I am now incumbent to his legacy.
