A Happy Father’s Day Story
- Leonard Wibberley
- Jun 14
- 3 min read
By Kevin Wibberley, Leonard's son
6/14/2025
I have enjoyed being a father and I enjoy being a grandfather. However, on this day I don’t think of my own fatherhood, but of my father.
Like most men my age, I miss him and wonder if we were equal in age would we be friends. I think so. Quirky things happened to him and he had a great sense of humor. I’ll illustrate.
We were on a voyage in his boat from California to Hawaii. We were ten days out and we hadn’t seen much of the sun, so we were sailing a compass course of Southwest. No GPS then so we didn’t really know where we were. Finally there was a sunny day. He was excited. He was going to navigate using the sextant.
He took the sextant case from storage and put it on the table. The boat lurched and the case fell on the floor. My father had a very extensive cursing vocabulary. He cursed the boat. He cursed the sea. He even cursed himself.
I had to hold back my laughter or I would have become the object of the next round of cursing.
He settled down and opened the case. Sextants are fragile and if the mirrors are off a little you wouldn’t see it. He blew on it, as if his breathe was going to make it right.
I laughed, which wasn’t nice and I got that look we all know. He handed me the chronometer, which was set on Greenwich Mean Time. He came topside and sat on the top of the cabin, sextant in hand, to shoot the angle from the bottom edge of the sun to the earth’s horizon. Not an easy task on a sailboat.
Finally he called “Mark,” and I noted the time to the second.
He was excited. He took the data down below and using the navigation he had learned in a class, worked on finding our longitude and latitude.
About twenty minutes later he popped up out of cabin and exclaimed, “I have placed us on the planet!”
“How close are we to Hawaii?” I asked.
He hesitated and then said, “We are… in the middle of Norway.”
We all laughed and then the helmsmen asked, “What’s the compass course, Captain?”
His answer, “Southwest.”
Yes, I’m sure that we would have been friends.
Postscript:
I have read this to a few friends, and they curiously ask me how we found our way to Hawaii.
Hawaii looks small on a map. The Archipelago spreads out a large distance and it is mountainous. On clear days, I could see jet planes and their trails. I assumed they were probably going to Hawaii, so I would check our course with the jet trail.
I never told the Captain. He was a novelist, and I think he enjoyed being lost. It was an adventure.
Love,
Kevin M. Wibberley,
First Mate and dishwasher
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THE MAESTRO AND ME
Lessons in Violin and Life with Julian Brodetsky
With his trademark wit, Wibberley shares stories that shaped his journey with the violin—from his beginnings as a young student in London to his transformative studies with Russian maestro Julian Brodetsky in Los Angeles.
Wibberley paints a vivid picture of the profound impact Brodetsky had on those around him, including Wibberley, whose life was forever changed by this unique maestro-student relationship.
Leonard also writes lovingly about introducing his young son Kevin to violin lessons with Brodetsky, sparking Kevin’s lifelong love for the instrument and similar ones like the mandolin.
The Maestro and Me is both a memoir and a musical instruction manual—a must-read for musicians of all ages and levels, music lovers, and anyone who values the transformative power of friendship.
Find The Maestro and Me on Amazon here.
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