Best of Maclean’s: A daughter's discovery

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A daughter’s discovery

My dad worked as a furniture salesman and drove a Rolls-Royce. It was only after his death that I learned about his secret past.

In the 1970s, my dad, Jean Claude Garofoli, was a local celebrity businessman in Hamilton, Ontario. He had long, black, permed hair, and while the other dads wore brown suits and striped ties, mine rocked bell-bottom jeans and T-shirts and rode a motorcycle. He was an alchemist who could turn nothing into something with clever storytelling and slick salesmanship. His personality was captivating, like Kevin Kline meets Eugene Levy.

Dad owned a shopping plaza with a car dealership and a furniture store, where he financed colour televisions, stereo equipment and appliances with 10 cents down. This was unheard of at the time. Somewhere along the way, he became a gemologist, selling jewellery for cash as a side hustle. He had a certificate from the Gemological Institute of America on the wall behind his desk.

He went by the moniker “Funky Garfunkle” in his advertising campaigns. In addition to running his businesses, he worked as a concert promoter. He brought acts like Pink Floyd, Johnny Mathis, Paul Anka and Bob Hope to town. He was the only person in the area to drive a Rolls-Royce, and famous people often stopped by our house.

I grew up with my parents, my older sister and my older brother in the picturesque town of Grimsby, Ontario, just east of Hamilton. I thought we were a nice, normal family: my mom worked at the furniture store, and her stern Ukrainian mother, who we called Baba, commanded us like an army general. I didn’t know the difference between a Rolls-Royce and an Oldsmobile. Our home was filled with museum pieces—shrunken heads and Egyptian artifacts. My dad once casually noted, “If you need to hide money, put it in art, jewels or antiques. Cops don’t know the difference between a child’s finger painting and a Van Gogh. You can cross the border with a mil in jewels. Just wear them on your neck.” My schoolmates’ fathers clock-punched at steel mills or worked in offices. Mine came and went with the predictability of a sycamore seed helicoptering in the wind.

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