Rosemary

Rosemary

I was ten years old and my mother felt I was too old to keep getting dolls as presents.  I didn’t agree with her at all. Her idea just made her last doll gift to me all the more precious.  It was so beautiful; she was almost like a real baby. She had short curly red hair.  Her arms were just like skin, soft and malleable.  Her little fingers squeezed mine, I’m sure of it.  She’d look at me with those big blue eyes that opened and shut when I tilted her head, and her long lashes went up and down.  I called her  “Rosemary’.  You could say I loved Rosemary. Very much. In my world of aloneness, she was the receiver of my affections.  She was so cuddly.

I lost Rosemary when we moved home from France when I was eleven. My memory is vague as to the exact time, but I know I was longing for her.

It was many years later at the family cottage, that my aunt mentioned she had seen Rosemary at the bottom of the lake.  I was horrified.  But I figured that my cousins, who were young at that time, and mischievous, had taken her from me to play a joke and just pitched her in the lake. 

I grieved my Rosemary for years.  Somehow, knowing where she was offered closure and I lived on with the fond memory of her.  I have tried many times to replace her, but I don’t think they make them like that any more.

Camping

Camping

Even as a kid I appreciated being able to travel the world the way we did. I was so grateful and felt so blessed. Even with a couple of wretchedly wet camping experiences, I could still say this.

When we were camping on the beach at Nice, it was raining.  It was one of the many times my dad had to get out in the rain and put the tent up.  Karen, being pretty solid and strong, would help him.

My parents slept in the tent with Susan, all zipped in nicely, and Karen and I slept in the outer part under the over-hang, on cots.  There was no floor, just the sides of the tent and the canopy. The rain was pouring in one side and flowing out the other. I was freezing.  My mother says from  her cozy sleeping bag, “Put your sox on!”. I replied, “I have my sox on.”  She furthers, “Put on your sweater.”  I answer, “I have on my sweater.” “Put on your coat.”  “I have on my coat.”  At which point she feels she’s done her motherly job and goes to sleep. I eventually slept myself, but I woke up, sleeping bag and all, in a puddle outside the tent. My mother had to get up at this point and fix me up.

When we were on the Italian Riviera, I almost drowned.  We were again camping on the beach. I enthusiastically ran into the sea, straight into a big wave which made its way into my lungs.  It gagged me and I can still remember the strong taste of salt.

Crash of two CF 100's

Two CF 100’s crash on the Base

I was in the PX [that’d be the food store], buying my favourite fries and gravy when all of a sudden there was an impact on the earth and the ground shook under my feet. The lights dimmed and flickered. The only noise, after the ominous thud, was the sound of change raining down on the counters as if someone had hit the jackpot.  Everyone froze for a second or two, expecting someone to explain to them what was going on.  

People took to the streets in panic. I followed the crowds towards the smoke in the sky. That’s where the hospital was.  A fire? An explosion? There? That would be too horrible. What was it?

I found a safe place to witness this horrific scene as it unfolded before me. I sat on the steps of the church across the street from the hospital and watched the fire blaze. 

We were later to learn the tragic news that two CF 100’s had collided in mid air. The pilots ejected and survived, and the planes crashed into the ground.  One landed in a farmer’s field, making sacrifice of a Holstein and the other, on the hospital, which was burning before my eyes.

I will also always remember the stories of heroism of Dr. Chisholm who held up the burning walls of the maternity ward so the mothers could escape.  While he survived, he suffered disfiguring burns.

I took the bus back to the PMQ’s and told Mom what had happened.  Since we didn’t have any telephones, the wives of the pilots had to worry and wait for news if their husbands were alive or not. There was a phone at the office  which was useful if the office were open. I didn’t know if these fretful wives used the phone that day.

The Kid's Club

The Kid’s Club in France

Kids are weird. A bunch of them decided to form a club. If you wanted to be part of it you had to be initiated by holding your foot in a red ant hill and let the ants crawl up your leg.  No thank you. I had a few select friends who liked bunnies and hopscotch.  I didn’t like the kid’s club.

My Parents

My Parents

My parents were still teenagers at heart, drinking, partying and smoking.  Anytime there was a party at the Base, they’d be there.  They kicked up their heels at house parties to the tunes of Bill Haley and Little Richard.  They knew how to have a good time. We were just along for the ride.

What effect did they have on me as an adult? Well, once I got over the resentment I had for them, especially towards my father, I figured I fell into the realm of ‘The test of fire makes strong steel’. In the adversity, I built character. My father became insignificant.  He had proven himself to me and I had no use for him.  The fact that he left the country when I was18 to retire in Spain for 35 years did not endear me to him. I was always felt I missed out on that special father-daughter relationship, but it just wasn’t in the cards for me. I feel he stole some joy out of me. 

At difficult periods in my life, the darkness I felt as a child would haunt me. Life’s challenges would be exercises to resist going there emotionally.  It was always there, like part of my blue print. Most times I would succeed in averting it, other times, not so successful.

My mother had the ability to carry on regardless of what others may think and to act in her own best interest. These traits were almost opposite to my make up.  But I studied her and wished I could be more like her because she was always happy, wasn’t a complainer and always made the best of any situation.

Karen and Susan

Susan and Karen

It was during this time in France, that my little sister, Susan, came into the picture. She was adorable with her blue-blue eyes and curly locks.  Everyone loved Susan.  She was always happy and so cute and besides, everyone saw her day after day tied up in the front of the apartment building, playing with toys and sometimes bugs.  My mother would lean over the balcony and check her out.  We joke that she lowered cookies on a string but I can’t be sure that is true. I think its true.

My parents would take her to the pubs in St. Avold and feed her beer.  The French aren’t as tied up as we are when it comes to drinking. Besides, she was so cute propped up on the bar table. 

Susan did have one disaster.  Not to do with drinking but with cigarettes.  She was  about one and a half years old playing in her play pen just within reach of an ash tray.  No she wasn’t smoking!  Just imagine a toddler pulling out her morning cigarette! “Think I’ll have a Gitain”.  No. The French weren’t that liberated and either were my parents.

After she ate a couple of butts, she passed out and turned blue.  A friend of my mom’s rushed the two of them to the hospital at the Base. After they pumped her stomach, she came around.  

I adored her. She was my real life doll. All she can remember about me is that I tricked her one time into eating burnt popcorn. Such is life.  You do the best you can and when you mess up once, that’s all others remember.

Karen was in my life but mainly to beat me up. She was always mad I arrived in the family.  Sometimes she would hit my arm so hard I couldn’t move it. I’d say, “Mom, Karen hit me and I can’t move my arm.” From what I can remember, that was the end of the conversation. Karen was strong and well built and I was a little wisp of a thing.

Dreams and flying

Dreams and Flying and Space Trips.

It seemed easy to me when I was going to sleep at night, to soar into the heavens.  I’d drop off a planet and fall into space. Sometimes I would want to float in the air and I would look at myself from a different corner of the room. 

I used to think of my mother’s voice and I would hear her as if she were in the room with me. I had all these abilities when I was young. I recollect thinking at one time, that others weren't doing the same things, so I stopped. 

The Farm

The Farm

Our PMQ building was on the edge of the PMQ development, situated on top of a very high hill that sloped to a valley like a green carpet.  In the valley was  a little town called ‘St. Avold’. 

Many things were observed on that greenery. Sheep grazed, kids swatted golf balls and cars wound around on the road circling the hill.  One day when we were looking out the window of our apartment, we watched an old lady walk down the hill through the little apple orchard to the side. She was all dressed in black but when she stopped to relieve herself, she revealed shocking pink bloomers.  What a kodak moment that was!  

At the bottom of the hill there was a beautiful old French country farm house with three charming young daughters. I felt so privileged to know these girls and to be able to play with them on their farm.  They only spoke French and I had no French at all. I was going to an English school the military had set up in the PMQ’s. It took me the whole time I lived in France to be able to understand them. This was the beginning of my passion for French.

They had chickens on the farm that would run freely in the yard.  Much to my horror, the chickens even ran around after their heads were cut off.  It was nothing for my friends to witness this as this was just the normal beginning of preparing dinner. 

They also had rabbits in the barn in cages.  I had had a pet rabbit that got too big for me and I asked if I could leave it with their rabbits and they could take care of it for me.  It was dark in the barn and all the rabbits looked the same. As the months became years, I became less and less sure which rabbit was mine and suspected it had made it to the pot as rabbit stew. But I couldn’t be certain.

The worst thing I ever did, I did on that farm.  I stole an egg from one of the chickens in the chicken house. I carefully carried the egg up the hill, coddling it in my hands.  When I got to our third floor apartment, I carefully laid it in the oven and turned the oven on.  I was sure I would have a baby chick!  Hours later, nothing happened.  It was so hot when I took it out of the oven, I thought I’d killed it when I opened it to find a hard boiled egg. 

I never really got over stealing from my friends nor the added injury of perhaps killing the baby chick.  I feel guilty about this to this day. This experience marred an otherwise wonderful gaggle of memories of my French friends and their charming farm.

Mac

Mac

The story of my life in France would not be complete without mentioning Mac Prescott. I fell ‘in love’ with him the day I saw the back of his head on the big green kaki bus going to the base.  He was my life line.  I followed him to his base ball games.  I watched him in the boys play ground every day at school.  I sat beside him on the bus.  I thought of him all the time. 

I was only 7 so I didn’t know what to do with all this luuvvv  nor did I know how to talk to him.  When I left France I was eleven, but my ardor for him lasted for years. The last letter I received from him, he too had returned to Canada and the family bought a bull dog.  He named it after me.

I never thought I could marry any one else at least until I saw him again. But how would that be possible?  We lost touch and life brought us further apart as time went on.

Years later when I was packing up my locker at Carleton University to bid my final goodbyes, something extraordinary happened.  As I walked down the empty hallways I passed a student coming in the other direction.  I remember yet the sound of my heels clicking on the cement floor and echoing off the walls.  This student  was carrying an armful of maps so I couldn’t really see his face and I passed him by.  Then I froze in my tracks, turned around and said, “Mac Prescott?” 

It was he!  I was incredulous.  How could that be?  How could I possibly have known it were Mac? I hadn’t seen him since he was eleven. We exchanged niceties, how are you? What did you study? Where are you going? Then we parted.  I wanted so much to tell him what a crush I’d had on him in France, but I didn't know if he felt the same way or not. I saw him two more times that week serendipitously, once at a discotheque and at another time at a restaurant. We didn’t speak; we just waved and acknowledged each other.

Years later, around 2004, there was a 2Wing reunion in Ottawa for the air force ‘brats’.  He wasn’t there, so when I got home, I put an alert out for him on the 2 Wing Brat site.  A year later, I got the email I’d been waiting for.  

We wrote profusely of our experience and about our feelings for each other when we were kids in France.  We kept in touch every year just to catch up and say hi.  This is the first year I didn’t hear from him and he doesn’t answer my emails. (2014)

The Forest and Ravine, The Bunkers and The Mines

The Forest and Ravine, The Bunkers and The Mines

I don’t remember having a lot of toys, but I didn’t need them as there were wonderful radio programs full of stories for kids, ‘The Shadow’, ‘The Teddy Bears’ Picnic’, ‘Dick Tracy’, to name a few. 

One of my favourite pass-times was playing in the ravine in the forest beside the PMQ’s. There was a large fallow field lined with high bushes that you had to cross to get to the ravine.   The old bunkers that dug into the hills were my palaces and I fantasized of a different life. For a while, I could be a princess, the bare walls lined with gold and the dirt floors covered with fine tiles and tapestries.  Everyone would wait on me.

The stories I heard about the field mines left over from the war concerned me just a little.  Even though it had been ten years since WWII ended, mines were still being found all over the country, some by children playing in fields. When they stepped on the mines, they would blow up and kill them.  Even though I knew my parents were aware of this, I didn’t talk about it to them because I could’t bear the idea that my fantasy world would be forbidden to me. 

So between the ages of seven and eleven, my happy worlds were the  trips on the military bus to the base, Mac, and the magical forest and ravine.

Metz, Grotenquin and 2Wing

Metz

At first we lived in Metz, near Paris, for a few months.  I have vague memories of a small class room with diminutive desks and few students.  I could never get enough of the intoxicating scent of the large pink roses that traipsed over the walls and gates everywhere. The impressive Globe Hotel sticks in my mind.  Maybe I passed it every day on the way to the small classroom through a sea of roses. Mom says we ate there often. Maybe that’s why I remember it yet.

Grotenquin, 2Wing

My dad was actually supposed to be at  RCAF Base 2 Wing in Grotenquin.  The only trouble was, the airforce didn’t have accommodation ready. So Metz was a holding tank till they had some place for us to live. 

They finally engineered accommodation for the fledging families who were first to arrive at 2 Wing. They installed trailers for us, which were positioned on the airport tarmac, on what they called ‘buttons’.  These buttons were circular and had been used to park aircraft.  Each button had a number and the trailers were placed along the edge, forming an incomplete  circle in each button.

It was summer.  It was hot. There were no trees. We were all crammed inside the small space for sleeping and eating.  My mother was pregnant with Susan.  ‘Butch’, the bratty kid next door, would chase his mother around their trailer with a stick while his mother cried out, ‘Oh Butch, put that down Butchy’.  Even at that tender age of 7, I could figure out, what do you expect calling a kid ‘Butch’?

My father emptied the ‘honey bucket’ each evening.  He would go to the toilet in the trailer, haul out this pail and walk out of the trailer into oblivion.  I never knew where he went, but he always came back with a clean bucket for a fresh start the next day.  I thought it was a job only for fathers. I was glad I wasn’t a father.

The trailer period didn’t last long, as my mother was still pregnant when we moved to the PMQ’S [Permanent Married Quarters].  These were a gaggle of several, maybe ten,  four story apartment buildings, each with their own letter. I think ours was ‘C’ block. They were  located 17 kilometres from the Base at Grotenquin. 

The military supplied large kaki green buses to transport us back and forth to the Base for movies, skating, swimming. I have indelible memories of the fun we kids had on that bus I just loved singing the old camp fire songs.  

The Base even had a grocery store, hospital, church, and bowling lanes. It seemed they built all this for us in a farmers field.  There were few trees.  I recall the merciless heat of the hot sun pounding down on me as I went from one activity to another between the buildings.

I also remember well the huge blue sign outside the guardhouse at the entrance to the Base. It was a fresh sign RCAF BASE 2 WING GROTENQUIN with a jet painted on it, probably a CF 100.  This sign had historical significance and led us to an adventure, a coup, about 35 years later.

It was 1955.  Television had not arrived here yet.  No one had a phone at the PMQ’s.  There was one phone in the office which was located in one of the buildings and it was only open some of the time. No iPhones, no electronic games, no computers, no TV. What did we do?  Well, we were brought up by the out method… “OUT!”

To France: The Great Ship

Chapter 3

France: (ages 7-11) 1955-1959

The Great Ship 

Ships were still the main method of trans-Atlantic passage in 1955.  Air travel was just getting off the ground, so to speak and not a viable option for the military to transport families at this time in history.  I was only 7, but I was thrilled we were going on the big ship, The Homeric of Canard Lines. 

We left from the port of Montreal and arrived six days later in France at the port of Le Harvre. What I remember most about the experience on that big boat were the dinner mints on the table outside the dining room.  I’d take a handful of them and savour them as their soft creamy texture melted in my mouth.  It was an unfamiliar liberty.  

Another indelible memory is the scant railings on the decks. The hungry waters broke into enormous waves along the side of the ship.  They were way too close.  There seemed to be nothing between me and that deep foreboding ocean.   Mmmm, easy for a parent to rid of an unruly child.  Just a little push and that’d be it. I found it quite horrific. I stayed well away and tried to behave myself as best I could.

My parents told us of icebergs that were huge underwater, but just showed little peaks on the top.  They explained they were very dangerous for ships because ships could hit them even when they were far away.  So that is why I wasn’t ecstatic when an iceberg was sited.  Everyone on deck didn’t seem to know what I knew as they were waving excitedly and smiling. I never got sea sick, but this experience scared me deeply and all I could think about was who was going to be in the life boat with me.

The vast expanse of ocean gave me the impression that we weren’t really moving at all. I wanted to believe the adults who insisted that we would see land one day, but by day four, I had serious doubts. Waves, waves and more waves. From one horizon to the other, nothing but water. I could see me growing old on this boat.  I was starting to wonder where we would get our food.

Then one day, everyone was on deck again, pointing to land on the horizon.  I couldn’t see anything, but it wasn’t many hours later that I, too, saw it. Our long journey came to an end when we debarked at Le Harvre in France. We made it. The ice bergs didn’t get us and I didn’t get thrown overboard by angry parents.  We were in France, our new home for the next 4 years.

The Early Years 1948-1955

Chapter 2

The Early Years: 1948-1955

It all started in the General Hospital in Ottawa on April 5th, 1948 where I was born, the daughter of Ian Bowles Fripp and Gertrude Elizabeth Thompson. I arrived a few scant months, thirteen to be exact, after their first born, Karen Elizabeth. Karen sensed my arrival was not a good thing for her and I don’t think she ever really got over my sharing the spotlight that she had learned to love and think of as her own. 

My parents already had a baby, so you might say the blush was off the rose with my arrival.  I realized this, years later as an adult, when I saw the birth announcement on a yellowed piece of newsprint about three quarters of an inch by one and a half inches: “Born to Elizabeth Thompson and Ian Fripp, a girl. General Hospital”.  As in ‘The postman delivered the mail’.  The lack of ardor was stunning. But the announcement was framed in a little black frame.  This effort convinced me that they really did care after all.

I know they truly were delighted with my arrival.  How do I know this?  My mother told me.  She also mentioned that my father’s father, Herbie, thought it would be okay to have another baby so soon after the first, if it were a boy.  My great grandfather on my mother’s side, Dr. Robert Law,  thought my mother should consider not having this baby because the babies were just too close for her comfort.  Back then there wasn’t a way of determining the sex of the unborn baby. And that’s how my life started, sort of like an accident of fate.  

I was an affectionate baby and I had a placid disposition. So I wasn’t too much trouble for my Mom.

After my parents were married, my father left the airforce to become a full time student at Carleton University. The babies came and he found being a student didn’t work well with having a family so he left Carleton to sell ‘Filter Queen’ vacuum cleaners.  

However, this career came to a grinding halt the day he strew corn starch atop the rug to demonstrate the virtues of his product to my mother’s bridge club.  In spite of her pleas to stop, he continued.  Well, it turned out that she was right. There was no way the corn starch would come out of the rug despite his vigorous efforts with his superior product.

My father applied and was accepted back into the Service. 

My father’s military career was to have an enduring impact on my development. Moving every two years, I learned to be very adaptable in dealing with new situations. The resilience I developed was one of the advantages, the primary drawback being lack of roots. 

My father’s military career started in Ottawa but soon got us on the road when he got his first posting to Centrailia. My earliest childhood memory is when I was 5 years old and in kindergarten. My parents are scolding me for biting the teacher.  I vehemently denied it because I knew what they’d to do me if I admitted it.  But it was true.  I did. 

This was akin to the story my parents told me about the visit to the post office when I was two.  A nice gentleman squatted down before me to say how cute I was, adorned in my smocked dress. It was at this moment that I chose to kick him in the shins. My mother was acutely embarrassed.

Keep in mind that I was really a very loving child.  I don’t know for certain why I did these bad things, but I have a good idea that I was reacting to something and acting out.  

I have few memories of living in Centrailia. One I do remember is when some kid threw concentrated bubble soap in my eyes. It really hurt. It was one time I remember feeling  my mother’s concern.  

Another time was when I was learning to ride my bike.  I fell off on to the gravel on the side of the road and landed on my face.  My skin was scratched all along one side of my body. I was unconscious and I remember waking up on the couch in our living room to my mother crying, ‘My baby, my baby’.  So I knew she loved me. But, unfortunately for me, she didn’t seem to feel the same way when it came to defending me from my father. 

Two years later we moved to Portage La Prairie in Manitoba.  The images that stick in my mind are the mountainous snow drifts along the drive way and the house being buried in snow. I remember the cold in the winter, the wind. I remember the heat of the summers being so hot you could fry an egg on the sidewalk and you couldn’t walk on them in your bare feet.

My mother didn’t work then, but she was industrious.  She had the job of making ends meet.  That’s why she made a snowsuit for me out of an old quilted raincoat.  Looking back on that now, I think that was pretty clever.

She was a genius at the food budget.  Our fare consisted of a Béchamel sauce on eggs, on tuna, on salmon, on peas, on carrots and on onions, all served on toast; fried baloney, spaghetti and ketchup, (that became an all time favourite), liver and onions; hamburger in pasta, in tomatoes, in Spanish rice, Shepherd’s pie, chilli and spaghetti;  eggs in sandwiches, fried egg and onions, omelettes, cream sauce and eggs, pickled eggs, and the famous egg-in-the-hole: egg in a hole in the bread and fried.  It was a favourite too.  

We had a wonderful roast beef dinner on Sundays.  That’s when my Dad would rush at the end of the meal to soak the blood of the roast in bread.  I don’t remember any one else wanting this, so I don’t know why he was so covetous. I found it absorbing the way he delighted in this ritual.

After two years in Portage, we were to get a posting that would be the highlight of my childhood.  We went to France.

Spare The Rod and Spoil The Child

Spare the Rod and Spoil the Child

Who would expect these teenage like kids, my parents, to know anything about parenting?  They must have been part of a generation who got married, had kids and just hoped for the best, not really having any idea on how to build relationships or bring up a kid. Maybe things have gotten much better. At least these days people get married when they are older and hopefully are a little more discerning.

Patterns repeat themselves and continue to do so until the cycle is broken.  My father only knew a strict dad and so he was strict too.  Being in the military didn’t do anything to heighten his sensitivities, either.  So it was, “Do as I say not as I do”, and, “If I tell you to jump, don’t ask why, ask how high.”  Or, “If you do that again I’ll knock your block off.” Or better yet, “I’ll kill you.” How about, “I’ll knock you into next week.” Yes, these were the words that reverberate through the memories of my childhood. 

Since the age of two, I was spanked and punished for doing things that my father was sure I did intentionally.  One time when I was two and Karen was three, Mom had just got us all dressed up in our little smock dresses to go out.  Well, I wasn’t quite toilet trained and I had an accident in my pants.  My father was sure I waited for the moment I was all prepared to relieve myself and so gave me a beating to teach me a lesson. 

The physical abuse started around this time.

Both my grandmother and my god father found my father’s treatment of me deplorable.  My god father, Eric Kenny and his wife, Joey were close friends of my parents.  We grew up knowing their kids, Dixon, Deirdre and Naomi.  They wanted to adopt me by the time I was four.  But my parents wouldn’t give me up.  

I grew up to be  totally convinced that I was adopted.  They didn’t love me. How could real parents treat their kid this way? I don’t remember my father having a conversation with me, but he was quick to back hand me if I said or did anything that didn’t meet his approval.  They wouldn’t treat their real kid that way.  Karen was their real kid. 

By the time I was twelve, I grew to hate him in proportions not right for that tender age. I had learned to refuse him the satisfaction of my tears.  I promised myself that when I grew up, I would kill him.  I wasn’t strong enough yet, but I fantasized that when I was older, I would somehow be that much stronger and I’d just knock him off. Revenge would be sweet and righteous. I had no way of winning now because his force was mighty.  He may be more powerful, but my will was greater.

When I was 15, my birthday present was no more beatings, with the strap on my hands or bottom or just flailing, nor with the wooden spoon or with his back hand swing. 

I never did get around to writing my father off, but I swore I would never feign a happy childhood with either of my parents. They would live with the knowledge that I carried a heavy emotional burden during my childhood and I was miserable.

After I left home at 17, I passed through about 10 or so years, resenting my parents and how they treated me as a child. I had tried to forgive my father, but the words were empty. I couldn’t get it into my heart.  However, after years of pleading the suffering victim, I got sick of hearing myself go on. Then something happened. 

I started to see the problem was within me. The only way I could truly forgive my dad, and my mom for not defending me, was to relinquish the victim mentality and take responsibility for my life. I was the only one suffering the hurt.  They had gone on with their lives and probably never thought about it.  I saw I was wasting all that energy on self pity and I was done with it. I was able to truly forgive them both and in the doing of it I discovered, “I forgave  the prisoner and set the prisoner free and the prisoner was me.”

Once this shift took place, I could understand that my parents were really kids when they had us, trying their best and wanting the best for us.  They just didn’t know how to do it.  I began to see them in context of their lives and not just mine. 

My mother was brought up in a hotel in New York and hated it.  Her mother was a glamorous, bright, feminine but unmotherly, socialite who worked as a hotel social director, and her father was a hotel manager. She quite hated it.  Fortunately, she spent some of her childhood living in Ottawa with four uncles and an aunt. There, she was spoiled, adored and indulged in.  So Mom learned to be the centre of attention and never, completely, learned how to be a doting mother.  

My father had a short father who certainly suffered from the small man complex.  ‘Herbie’ favoured my father’s older brother, John, who was the ‘white haired boy’.

Thus my father never felt accepted by his dad and some of the stories he would tell would raise the hair on your neck.  For example, Dad, an ardent animal lover, had to shoot his own dog because the dog was suspected of having rabies.  Another time he had the chance to go to Florida with his best friend.  His father punished him  for some forgotten mishap and wouldn’t let him go.  My Dad certainly suffered from the influence of his father who had committed transgressions against him and left him with unresolved frustrations, insecurities and a nasty persecution complex mixed in with feelings of inferiority.  

My Dad’s mother adored him though.  This would explain Dad’s attachment to older women later on in his life.

Don’t get me wrong. Mom and Dad were a great couple.  They loved to laugh and party and people loved to have them around. They were attractive, fun and charming. Its just that the kids of these kids were just an appendage to them, orbiting their busy lives. Children were to be seen and not heard.

My messed up name because my parents were like teenagers.

It wasn’t long after that that these kids, barely out of teenage-hood, had a baby; that’d be my older sister, Karen.  One month later, I was conceived. 

I don’t think my parents ever grew up, right up to the time of their divorce 25 years later. They certainly hadn’t matured much when I arrived. I know this to be true because of the way they named me.

Parents-to-be have nine months to pick one boy name and one girl name. But did my parents have this necessary and essential task accomplished? Noooo!  A good time to them, was when my Mother first held me in her arms.  However, she was not inspired and  couldn’t think of one. This was unfortunate because the regulations at that time, stated a name had to be determined and registered with the government before leaving the hospital.  So my mother looked up into the air and picked the first name that came to mind.  Joanne.  So it was Joanne Fripp.

By the time they got home, my parents decided, in their as yet undeveloped wisdom, that I wasn’t a Joanne at all.  I looked much more like a Christine. The other name that came to her was a name she lived with all her life, that of her mother.  Dorothy.  So I became Christine Dorothy Fripp.  

I don’t think it even occurred to them that this wasn’t a legal name and that they should maybe let the government know about the change.  It wasn’t until I was 21 and applied for my birth certificate that I learned my name wasn’t Christine Dorothy Fripp at all; it was Joanne Fripp. So from that time on I carried my legal name and became Christine Joanne Dorothy Fripp until I was married.  Then I became Christine Joanne Dorothy Fripp Murray.

My name changed many times after that.  I eventually dropped ‘Joanne’ legally and became Christine Dorothy Fripp Murray.  I dropped my married name, ‘Murray’ when I didn’t need it any more and then thought I’d drop ‘Fripp’ as well, and my legal name became ‘Christine Dorothy’.  

Since all these name changes happened in the same time frame, the government did an investigation on me, thinking I was somehow on the lam for some illicit reason like drugs or some such.  It all got straightened out and my name was secured, Christine Dorothy.

My Mother couldn’t understand why I settled for ‘Christine Dorothy’.  She thought if I were going to change my name, I should change it to something more exciting, like ‘Paris’ or some such.  I explained patiently that I didn’t actually change my name to something else, I actually just used the names I already had, and readjusted them a bit.  She said ‘Christine Dorothy’ sounded like a nun.  I blurted in frustration at her that she named me and that’s what I was stuck with so that was it and we wouldn’t talk about it anymore.

Through all these name changes, I never forgot who I was, although my mother often introduced me as “I’d like you to meet my daughter, whatever her name is……”

My Parents Marriage

Chapter 1

My Parents' Marriage.

In those days, in the forties, there was no birth control and teenagers had to deal with their surging hormones without having sex.  That is why kids got married early. Any time after 16 was socially acceptable to wed, although late teens or early twenties was better.  Too much longer, say at 28, and the young lady would be regarded as a ‘spinster’, an ‘old maid’. 

My parents fell in love when they were 12 so it was a long wait to get married at 17 or 18.  But the war came along and wedding plans had to be postponed until my dad came back from action. Four years later, at 20 and 21, they tied the knot. 

My mother was Catholic and because she was marrying a Protestant, the church excommunicated her.  

She’s very much the type to say, “You can’t fire me. I quit!” 

Insulted that her faith rejected her, she turned her back on it and never thought about it again.  I’m very glad she did this.  To be raised Catholic is to grow up with haunting guilt and unfounded fears of God and of the ever after.  I was happy not to have to deal with any of it. 

I could never understand, however, that the Catholic church excommunicated my mother for marrying a Protestant, but not for marrying her first cousin. Catholics today are much more fortunate as they get to go to Heaven if they marry outside of their faith (or even if they marry their cousins).  Just rotten luck for my Mom that she missed this window of opportunity by being born in the wrong era.

The wedding took place at the lodge at Mont Tremblant, a ski resort in Quebec.  Both my Mom and Dad were active in the ski world up there and it seemed the perfect setting for their wedding. It was small, just family and close friends. So small and out of the way, I got the feeling of ‘clandestiny’; but I may be wrong. My Mom’s Dad and his sister, who was my Dad’s Mom, were there with their spouses, my Mom and Dad’s aunt and uncle. I still get cross-eyed trying to figure it out.

My Life in a Poem

My life in a Poem

I was born in Ottawa; I was one of two,

Anything my sister had, I got when she was through.

Since we weren’t rich or spoiled, luxury I never knew,

But life has taught me plenty, as we moved each year or two.

Best thing the air force ever did, it did when I was seven;

We stayed four years in sunny France, came back, I was eleven.

When we crossed the ocean, t’was four our family

When we came back to Canada, we two sisters now were three.

When we left France, I left behind, the first true love I had.

He was my real life darling, to leave him now, how sad.

I never would forget him, and there is no turning back,

I never would forget him, that cute little guy named Mac.

So it was to school in Ottawa, north, south, east and west,

But it was Woodroffe high school, that was the very best.

Friends and teachers, clubs and books, the memories are cool,

But it was Art, who stole my heart, for five years in that school.

Then the ring made my heart sing, the wedding it drew nigh.

My father’s voice said “it won’t be, you must first get your degree”

And Art he passed me by.

I spent three years at Carleton, then back to France I went,

This time with sister Karen, hitch hiking, Spain to Kent.

We came back home in seventy full of new found knowledge

But it was not enough for  me;  I went to Teachers’ College.

There were no jobs on graduation, much to my distress,

What was I to do? I know! I’ll be a stewardess.

It was rather unexpected, while I was flying high,

Came an offer to teach French, I bid my job goodbye.

I met a handsome man named Tom, not a doctor or a preacher;

Just found him looking rather pale, next to my French teacher.

I was in the city and it became a drag,

So it was that time again, time to pack my bag.

Look out Europe, here I come, this time, no destination.

Decided it’d be Champery, saw a sign in a train station.

Switzerland is really pretty, the Alps are tops you see,

Got a job, as luck would have it, in the Hotel Champery.

A year later I returned, to the city of Montreal.

I met anew Don the pilot, he was my all and all.

We were married six months later, but with a wedding couldn’t cope.

So in our enthusiasm, we decided to elope.

We had three sons, ages one to five, in that city of Pointe Claire,

Damon, Tyson, Brandon, three boys we loved so dear.

In environmental issues, I had found my niche.

Passion flowed to save the world, I worked with ‘Greenpeace’

Fourteen years of Cadillacs, Mary Kay and this and that;

Time to move to Glengarry, a new place to hang our hat.

Through all the world that I did roam,

When I found Glengarry, I found my home.

Teaching, strategic planning, Property Standards, to name a few,

Investment Club, chair, secretary, t’was so much I did do.

Took a course in facilitation, they called it ‘Open Space’,

Tried it on my baseball team, and we came in first place!

I liked taking photos, and writing stories too,

Was a photograph-reporter for the Gleangarry News.

Ah! Time to move, another chance, to go back to Paris, France.

In ’89 a time sublime, we packed our bags one more time.

We stayed three years and traveled, saw the best of Europe then.

The kids learned French, we all made friends, and we’d do it all again!

Were ten more years in Glengarry, what precious years but few.

They were the last Tyson was with us, there was nothing we could do.

Physics, math, computer science,  you could say he was a brain;

But it was for  his spirit that the “Award’ was in his name.

The other boys went off, to chase their visions and their dreams.

For Damon it was flying, for Brandon, movie themes.

Now the house was empty, there was left but me;

The boys were gone and so was Don, so I was fancy free.

Life gave me a new beginning, for the stars now I could reach.

And what do I do, between me and you? I move to Wasaga Beach!

For my Mom and sisters, I left my Glengarry.

Life is full of surprises, of that I was going to see.

With the loss of Tyson, my step brother thought it’d be,

Nice for me to go to France, France across the sea.

So I spent the next spring season, in Provence and Italy,

With Ian teaching artists, me feeding them pate and Brie

‘’Twas July when I came back, to buy a house so wee.

 An apartment in the basement to supplement my fees.

The first thing I accomplished, in that house thats not a ‘looker’,

Was end the writing of my book, called ‘The Happy Cooker’.

Although the book was finished with lots of vim and vex,

I was not prepared at all, for what was to happen next.

My father lived in Spain, you see, for 35 years or more.

Now he wanted to return, to this far-off, forgotten shore.

He sold his house and bought a ticket, for his wife and he to fly

To Montreal or Toronto, how was he to know she’d die?

So I went over to retrieve him, a sadder sight was never seen.

He came back with me to my house; the basement was for me.

The two of us were doing fine taking care of one another;

Then my mother’s husband died. Where was she to go? Oh Brother!

Ever not to be out done, fate had yet more in store.

Her husband died, although she cried, she asked Dad to move over.

So our family was together, after all these  years gone by.

Mom and Dad in my house; how life can be so wry!

Dad could not remember what a coffee or a toast is;

My Mother couldn’t move as she had osteoporosis.

They meant well, and they tried hard, but work was not their ‘fortay'

After several months of this, I knew we had to ‘abortay’

A move was necessary, a house or two I bought.

Became a property manager, a new home for them I sought.

Now every one is happy, at least that’s what they claim.

Each of them in their own home, and me alone again.

Damon married Tyson’s nurse, and when they got together,

They had three fine wee children, made me a grandmother.

I moved back to Montreal, after 6 years over there,

To help my friend Jay Jansons fix his home up in Pointe Claire.

When that was done and finished, I was ready to move on;

I went to my apartment, from Montreal I was gone.

I was back in Glengarry, the home I hoped to find.

I was to see its not the same, as the place I left behind.

I couldn’t see my grandkids, because of their mother’s wish.

This broke my heart, and then some, as they were sorely missed.

I didn’t think, I could take more, of life’s cruel blows to me.

When Damon drowned I really thought, ‘I can’t even be.’

Alone in my apartment, life’s burden was too heavy,

For me to carry by myself, then Damon sent me Peppie.

Now we are together, and the earth we often roam.

We take cruises go to Florida, and write when we are home.

Between home, the cottage, Tampa, we are pretty happy;

We take life’s hardships and make something like kersnappy.