[SPOILER] Overture - the dad + Red cliffhanger?

[windbrand]

Spoiler, as title tag says.

Who exactly is the dad of the player character? What was the note in the beginning of the game about? The entire game just seems so unrelated to this "mysterious note", I mean the character just seems to forget entirely about this location that he's supposed to visit in the letter and instead takes a field trip to a mine.
Also besides being some mine worker, how did Red survive 30 years in that mine (in the letter it says 1970, and the game year I believe is 2000), seems impossible? How did he get stuck inside the incinerator? And if he wants to die why not just hang himself or something instead of waiting inside an incinerator and waiting for someone to activate it? I mean being trapped alone in a mine, there must be a dozen ways to suicide, and all of them are better than locking yourself inside an incinerator.
I haven't played Black Plague yet, so if these are revealed in BP just say so but don't spoil anything. But if they won't be revealed in BP then can someone explain these?