Glengarry

The area fit us like a glove.  I got involved in all sorts of community groups such as The North Glengarry Economic Development Group, The North Glengarry Investment Club, Chair of Property Standards.  My neighbour Alison Wilson, became a best friend.  People I admired and adored included Jean and Blair Williams, Sue and Bill Gilsdorf, Aidi and Annie St. Dennis, Gwen Morris, Flip and Robin Flocton, Nancy Ripley. Nancy passed on in 2014.

Alison and I would cross country ski with a group of girls in the winter and hike in the summer, stopping to have tea at someone’s country home. I was happy.  I had my community of friends. I had come home.

I found so much joy in the kids, my new friends and the beauty of the farm. It was certainly these pleasures that carried me through. Even after all these years together, Don and I, we couldn’t get it right.

The Chickens

What’s a farm without chickens?  We picked up some Arkansas chicks and they laid blue and green eggs.  We mixed them up with a brown rooster and the eggs were then all different colors, pink, brown even sometimes white.  The color of the hen determines the color of the eggs. 

We put the chickens in the solarium, which was at the end of the former chicken coup, where they could be warmed by the heat lamp and could cozy up in the empty flower bed crates.  I thought they’d be safer there than in the chicken coup which was a bit open onto the yard and some fox might get them.  In the remembering of it I realize how ludicrous my request was to my neighbor, Alison. I asked her how to clean the chicken coup floor, because there was linoleum in the solarium and it was getting rather dirty, even though I had covered it with sawdust.  Alison didn’t know what to say because chicken coups had dirt floors and she never cleaned hers.  That’s what you get for living in the country when you come from the city.  

One day Don came in with a dead frozen chicken.  He reminded me of Monty Python who was returning a dead parrot and flopped the stiff corpse on the counter.  He explained the chicken had fallen out of the solarium and had gotten stuck between the wall and some fencing and froze to death.  Poor chicken.

UFO's

UFO’s

When we moved to the farm, I had just read “ The Interrupted Journey”.  It was a story about how a couple had been abducted by a UFO and how they had to be hypnotized to recall what had happened to them. I was fascinated and convinced that they existed. Now it was my turn. We were in the country, isolated, just perfect environment for a connection with aliens.  I mentioned to Don that we could put a message for them to come to us in lights on the roof so they could find us. He said that’d be okay as long as we didn’t tell anybody.

I was intense.  I was receptive and I just had a feeling it would happen.  Well, one night I was driving our full sized van along a dark and secluded country road.  There was a brilliant light  that filled the van which disappeared just as quickly. It came again and again.  As I gripped the steering wheel, I thought victoriously to myself,  “This is it! They’re here!”  My breathing became shallow as I drove slowly along, in anticipation of what might happen next. 

When I got home, much to my disappointment, I realized the back door of the van wasn’t closed properly and it opened and closed on the bumpy road causing the interior lights to go on and off.  Waa!

Oh, but it happened again!  This was the real thing now.  Again I was driving the van on a back road in the country, and the light came back, in a similar way, brilliant light and then blackness.  I was full of expectation!  They found me!  I only hoped they’d be kind.  I drove along for several minutes waiting to see them.  I furtively looked left and right, checking for a space ship.  In my delusional state, it was difficult to see the obvious, that the full moon was low on the horizon and every time the trees dipped, the moon light shone through. The realization was crushing.  Rats.  There were no other episodes and the aliens never did find us.

The Camero

We went shopping for farm vehicles, cars that could get through the snow that we could rely on. The first two purchases were a full sized van and a Camaro. We went to the dealers with the best of intentions.  The van was questionable as a farm vehicle for the family.  It was light weight and fish-tailed on the snow covered roads. However, that was what Don thought we should buy that day at the dealers.  Then he laid eyes on that red Camaro and I knew he was a goner.  A Camaro?  For the farm? This was the beginning of a long series of cheap cars we bought over the years.  I think at one time we had five of them that cost us a fortune.  We’d have been much better off buying a nearly new SUV for all the money we spent.

Back to the Camaro…I could not master this vehicle. In the winter, I found myself spinning off the icy roads, much to my horror.  One time I ended up in the ditch and another, about a hair from some farmers fence. But it was the day I was travelling over the bridge to the States at Cornwall that really did it for me.  I ended up on the other side of the road and back again. I was so shook up, I felt I was on borrowed time that there wasn’t an oncoming truck.   I went into the customs office and asked for a coffee while I demanded an explanation as to why the roads weren’t sanded.  Well, they didn’t work on the weekend, they explained.  I told them flat out there’d be a serious accident this day because of that.  I got back in the car and did my shopping on the American side.  When I returned, there had been a terrible accident on the bridge which they were still cleaning up when I returned.

I went straight to a car dealership in Cornwall. I’d had it. I told them I didn’t care what they had, just give me a car that could stay on the road and take the Camaro for whatever you can give me. They came up with a mid sized car. It was burgundy. I didn’t really care what it was as long as it could stay on the roads. I transferred all my groceries to my new reliable car, and headed back to the farm.  As anticipated, Don was not impressed.  He sent me off the next day to get the Camaro and return my new purchase. I can’t believe we let the boys drive that car in the winter.  Dealers told me subsequently that it was really a summer car in our climate.  Don insisted I didn’t know how to drive.  I was all bottled up; I didn’t know how to deal with him.  That Camaro stayed on the farm for way too long. Today, it sits in some field at a Rod’s farm.

The Beast in the Woods

We were from the city and a bit naive, one could say.  The night was black.  It seemed to start immediately after the definitive line of light created by the back yard lights. I had on my nighty, a long flowing white thing. Don and I were listening to some animal meeting his maker in our back yard, beyond the light, in the darkness.  Well, Joan of Arc here decided to save this poor animal.  It sounded like a baby and I know rabbits can sound like that when they cry. I walked out to that line of light and as soon as I stepped over it, I heard the worst sound I have ever heard. It was loud and guttural, threatening and deadly.  It was so close I must have been nose to nose with the beast, but I could see nothing. I immediately backed up over the line of darkness and bee-lined it to the house.  I made it.  But in retrospect, there were many reasons why I shouldn’t have.That was a really stupid thing to do. If Don were to tell the story, it’d be he that braved the night.  But it wasn’t. It was me.

The Chain Saw Massacre

We were hardly in the door when Don discovered the lawn tractor.  He’d beetle around on the three or so acres.  Some of the branches were a bit low when he was on the mower and we discussed cutting one or two.  I loved the trees in the  back yard so much.  I could see the trees and gardens from all the windows in the back of house, from the dining room, the kitchen, the living room.  The peacefulness of it fed my soul. So the day I came home and saw that Don had cut  all the lower branches off of all of the trees, I was devastated. Now my beautiful gardens looked more like a Bell Telephone pole park.  It seemed all the beauty that I had fallen in love with, was gone. I couldn’t speak.  I could see that a man and a chain saw are a dangerous combination, especially when it is a new experience with lots of temptation around… i.e… branches, trees, etc.

Don zoomed up on the four wheeler and casually asked if I wanted to go for a ride.  Go for a ride? You’re acting like nothing’s happened and you’ve just murdered my trees?? I was speechless.  I can remember some pick up truck driving into the drive way.  I asked the guy if he wanted a couple of chain saws.  I threw them in the back of his truck and he drove off.  When Don found out his chain saws were missing, he was not pleased and suggested I get them back. I made a deal with him that if he wouldn’t cut anything down that we didn’t mutually agree on,  I might consider getting the saws back. I did and he didn’t.

Finding the Farm, '87

Don drove his bike to Ottawa from Pointe Claire.  On his return trip, he took the back roads and ended up in Glengarry.  He fell in love with it. He was looking for a place to stay for the night, but everything was full.  Man, he thought, how can such a small town as Alexandria, be full? He learned it was the Highland Games weekend and there wasn’t a bed in town.  He went to the local hospital and asked if he could sleep in the waiting room. They said no, he couldn’t.  He said, Okay, I’ll sleep in the ditch and come back in the morning with pneumonia.  They conceded he could sleep on a couch provided he was out by 5 a.m.

Don had a pilot friend, Rod Poitras, who lived in Glengarry too. We went to see him and subsequently, we visited many country homes and farms, but none was to capture our hearts like ‘Mondesire’. Two hundred acres, farmland, forest, a river, a lake, a sugar bush and miles of trails.  The house was renovated by Mr. John Patton, an engineer, who was the director of Petro-Fina. We were confident that his work needn’t be questioned.

The house was a rambling, 4500 sq. ft domain.  Five bedrooms, two bathrooms, a mud room as big as a large kitchen, a very big upstairs outdoor patio and two living rooms. The gardens surrounding the house were beautiful as were the magnificent mature trees.  There was a large old barn-board barn and a chicken coup with a solarium. Oh, it was gorgeous.  Don and I knew right away that this was it. So we bought it for the following year. 

Everything worked out perfectly.  We sold our home in Pointe Claire, Quebec, and moved to the country in Ontario in 1988.  This was home. It was another new start, another chance to make things work.  

Kids and Don's Shaninigans / Damon and the Baseball Mitt

Kids 

I recall one day when Brandon was about two and a half, I was in the middle of changing him and he got up and went downstairs. I was on his heels, but not fast enough.  He had disappeared out the front door with only a t-shirt on.  I ran around the corner and asked a passer by if she’d seen a toddler on the fly; she said he went that-a-way and pointed around the next corner. I caught him. He was fearless and never changed much as he grew older!

Tyson often visited an elderly gentleman down the street. One day he took his friend Carl with him and said to Carl, “I want you to meet my friend.”  When a really cute girl had moved in across the street, Tyson knocked on the door and said, ‘Give me a kiss.” He was about six.

Don’s Shenanigans

I thought Brandon had broken his back.  He was screaming blue murder after falling off the top of the van onto the bare pavement on his head. He was four years old. Don had put him up there to brush off the snow. Brandon was very cooperating as it must have been exciting for him to be so high up. The snow, unfortunately, hung over the side of the van and when Brandon pushed it, it gave no resistance and down he went. I was livid at Don, but he insisted that Brandon knew what he was doing and he knew the snow was overhanging the roof.  I was so upset. Brandon could have died. What do you say to someone like that?

I am not inclined to be hysterical, but I was on this day when all of us went on a bike ride. It was follow the leader. Don rode on, barely looking back.  We got to a fence that went along the rail way track.  The ice cream parlour was directly across and Don decided we would jump the fence and cross the tracks to get an ice cream cone. As he piled the kids over the fence with their bikes, I started yelling at them to come with me.  No one was listening.  I was terrified a train would come.  There was a large bend in the tracks with trees blocking our view.  I was distraught.  They tumbled over the fence and I had no choice but to go with them and try and protect them.  We made it across the tracks with a train zooming by as soon as we crossed.  I was incredulous.  Anything I said fell on deaf ears.  I stewed about it for a long time. 

It was a similar feeling I had when Don put the kids in the trunk of the car for a joy ride and drove around town.  I pointed out that there was carbon monoxide in the trunk, that if he had an accident, they would be hurt, that maybe it was illegal.  But Don did as Don wished and he did it anyway. They all survived, but I didn’t know that at the time and anguished over it terribly.

Damon and the Baseball Mitt

It was a sunny summer day in Pointe Claire and Damon and Tyson  were playing in the park.  Damon was about ten years old and Tyson, nine.  We lived in a big house that looked like a fort, until we painted it white, and then it looked like a princess must have lived in it.  It was located only a half a block from the neighborhood park, so it was easy for them to meander down the quiet street to go there and play. It had all those enticing things to delight a kid: slides, sandboxes, swings and a jungle gym. But on this day, the park held another treasure.

Damon came bounding home as if he were on a cushion of air, a foot off the ground, full of excitement and holding something in his arms as if it were something that would break into a million pieces if it were to fall.  He was cradling it with a sense of ownership that silently said, 'This is MINE". I think Tyson got the message that this was not an object that would be borrowed, but, sharing was allowed so they played with it in the back yard until it was time to come in and help get ready for supper.

Don and I were intrigued by this new find.  "Hey, Damon, what have you got there?"  "Its a baseball mitt, found it in the park."  "Oh really?  Let's have a look".  I took the large, well made, Rawlings baseball mitt into my hands and felt its smooth leather and imagined how estatic the child owner must have felt when he received this for his birthday or Christmas, or for some special occasion. How they must have longed for it and then how they must have felt to actually get it!  Did they go shopping for it especially?  or was it wrapped up with paper and bows and ribbons and was it a surprise?  One thing for sure, it was brand new and hadn't even been broken in  yet. I looked in all the nooks and crevices in between the stitches to see if I could find a name or a phone number or any information that would reveal the true ownership of this masterpiece. But there was nothing.

You could see an expression of doubt creep across Damon's face like a mask or a veil. Whatever was going on, he didn't like it much.  Just to be clear, he said, "I found it.  So I can keep it, can't I?"  I tried to make him understand, "Damon, someone has lost this and it must mean a great deal to them". "But", he protested, "there is no name or number so I don't know who it belongs to."  "Well", I said, "after dinner you're going to have to go door to door and ask if  anyone has lost it. Remember, Honey,  whatever you do in life, the same comes back to you.  If you find the rightful owner and return the glove, one day, when you lose something precious to you, you may get it back, but if you keep it and don't even try to find the owner, then that day may have a different outcome."

So after supper, Damon reluctantly, but dutifully, made the rounds in the neighborhood, knocking on each door as he had been instructed.  Each time he knocked, he felt apprehension and a sense he was going to be disappointed and each time he felt a sigh of relief when they would shake their heads and say "No, that doesn't belong here".

Then, unlucky for Damon, but lucky for little Richard, the inevitable happened.  The door opened and Damon saw a woman and a young boy standing there.  Even before he spoke, he knew he had found the home of the glove because of the look of amazement and surprise on their faces.  "Oh you found Richard's glove!! This is so wonderful!  He just got it for his birthday and has been crying for hours since he lost it.  He thought his father would kill him when he found out he'd lost it.  We just can't thank you enough!!" Damon handed over the glove.  The door closed. Damon felt downhearted. He thought to himself that he should feel the same as he did before he found the glove, but he didn't. His experience as the owner of the glove, however pleasurable, was brief.  His short-lived joy was gone. But it was starting to be replaced by something much more meaningful.

He  started to walk slowly back home along the sidewalk, kicking any little stone in his path. A smile came to his lips.  Yes, the joy of owning the baseball mitt was momentary, but the pride he felt in himself for pleasing that young Richard and returning the glove to its proper owner was a feeling that would stay with him forever. His pace quickened and his smile broadened.  It just felt like he'd done the right thing.

But that's not the end of the story. This all happened in 1985.  In 1991, Damon found himself with his Dad, in a far off  island where Napoleon Bonaparte had lived, in a place called Corsica. Damon had just made $400 laboring on the house we had bought in France. That was a lot of money in 1991.  With this hard earned money, he decided he would spend it all on a fancy camera, a Cannon 'Rebel'  and which he had brought with him to Corsica. He was so proud of this camera.  It had all the up to date features and he was so excited about it.   Damon and his Dad had gone  to a small bar-restaurant to grab a bite to eat and when they left, Damon froze when he noticed he did not have his camera with him and realized he  must have left it hanging on the chair he was sitting in.  His Dad went back immediately to fetch it for him while he waited in the street. When his Dad came back empty-handed, Damon's heart sank.  He felt sick.  His father felt sick.   It was gone and there was nothing they could do about it.  Damon's Dad suggested Damon go and ask the staff again.  He thought they might have some compassion for him.  Damon was pretty shy then and this was a very difficult thing to ask.  Well, he went in and with teary eyes, explained where he had left the camera and how he had spent all his money to buy it.  But, no, no one had seen it.  Then one kind- hearted waitress took pity on him and said she would check in the back.  Damon was so sad, it was like he forgot to breath.  You can only imagine his relief when the waitress appeared with his camera cupped in her hands. "Is this it?" Damon's smile must have almost touched his ears.

With a great amount of gratitude, Damon sincerely thanked her.  He put the strap over his shoulder and cradled it, much like he had cradled that mitt he found in the park years ago. He couldn't help remembering that baseball glove and thought to himself, I'm really glad I returned that glove to little Richard. Life, after all, does reward us for the good we do to others. Damon never lost his camera again and as far as I know, he continued to do good to people and life gave it back to him in spades.

Mary Kay Years

It was really only meant to be a trip to visit an old friend in Halifax.  But, over a week later, when I returned home to Montreal to Don and our two little boys, I realized my life had been altered forever.

When I arrived at Deirdre’s house in Halifax, I didn’t expect to fall passionately in love with her car. But I did just that. It was a pale pink.  It was shiny. It was a trophy on wheels. Breathlessly, all I could think of, was “I want one!”

I was hardly in the door and I was firing questions at her.  “Where did you get THAT?”  “How long have you had it?” “How did you get it?”  “Where can I get one?”

She had earned it as a Mary Kay Director.  What it entailed was drumming up a herd of salespeople, becoming a Director and attaining a certain level of group sales.

I was smitten.  

When I got off the plane on my arrival home, I couldn’t wait to tell Don about my new love.  I asked him if he was up to it and he gave the green light.

There was nothing that could possibly get in my way.  I had my eye on the target and that’s where I was going.  I became a consultant and three months later I was standing at a podium with my Director,  Deirdre, at my side congratulating me on becoming a Mary Kay Director.  My new born baby Brandon was at my feet in a basket.  I had three more months to qualify for a pink car and I did it!  That led to another car, a pink cadillac, six months later.

In those nine years, I met Mary Kay, went to her house in Dallas for training, attended many motivating seminars and developed five directors which made me a Future National Sales Director.  I learned so much from her and her philosophy.  I believed she brought me up in ways my own childhood failed to do.  I was launched with new confidence and abilities that influenced me for the rest of my life.  This era was energized, successful, fun and satisfying. In the end I had to thank Deirdre for introducing me to the Mary Kay opportunity.  

Deirdre  did come from Halifax to Pointe Claire once to ‘help’ me train my consultants.  In retrospect I saw that she came to take advantage of them.  She had discovered ‘colors’ and was charging to determine what group of colors or ‘season’ they belonged to.  She spent the two days in my bedroom, holding swatches of material up to their faces, collecting their $35.00. 

At the time, Brandon was just a baby, about 4 months old.  Deirdre had a contagious disease that she had passed on to all her children so she thought nothing of cuddling Brandon and kissing him. I had to ask her to stop, which highly offended her.

During these Mary Kay years, we tried to sell our house.  It was a fort.  Five stories from basement to top, five Bedrooms, three bathrooms… it was a great house.  We put it on the market for $150,000.  We had no response.  We lowered it and lowered it, finally to $75,000.  No response.  I resigned; that’s it; we’re here forever.  Since that was the case, I decided to put in a new kitchen, paint the yellow brick exterior, white, put a new grey-pink roof on, pink shutters, new white steel door and brass fixings everywhere.  This would so match the pink cars in the driveway.

I held training classes in the house with my directors.  This was serious business.  Things started to become unravelled when Don was to take care of the kids, but instead they would run around the house in their pyjamas while Don watched TV.  This was very disruptive to my training and I surmised then and there that if he weren’t prepared to contribute to my business, then he couldn’t reap the benefits of that nice monthly pay check. I certainly couldn’t do it by myself.

Once all the repairs were done to the house, we tried again to sell it and got $200,000, reinforcing yet again that everything is illusion.  This allowed us to buy the farm in Glengarry and so, we moved on, leaving behind pink cars and $5,000 monthly cheques.  I left my career, my car and my foster Mary Kay family behind to face new challenges and a new life. It was all good.  I was trained for this.

Although it’s hard to remember all the details of life in Pointe Claire, I’ve tried to share with you some highlights.  Those were the years the kids were growing up. I had Brandon there, when Tyson was four and Damon, five. It was in Pointe Claire that I had my nine year career with Mary Kay Cosmetics. It allowed me to be with the kids whenever they were home from school.  Even though I was very busy, I made sure we had all our meals together and that I read them a story every night before bed.

Sending the Kids to Camp with Marijuana

The church I was taking the kids to for Sunday School was offering a summer camp program. We enrolled Damon and Tyson thinking this would be a good experience for them.  We hastily threw together the things they were required to bring for the week away.  We added our old camera that had been hanging around for  years. We put a new film in the case and packed it up.

Weren’t we to get a call a few days later from a beleaguered Damon. “The camp councillor found marijuana in the camera case!” I gasped.  Friends had given us a small amount of pot when we got married and we never used it.  We had hidden it away carefully in the camera case and totally forgot about it.  It came flooding back to me but I couldn’t tell Damon that.  “Tell them its oregano; its oregano, Honey!”  I don’t know exactly what happened when we got off the phone, but I’m pretty sure the councillor took care of it as we never saw it again! 

Fire Ball

There was a terrific thunder storm outside, with lightening and thunder.  I knelt on the couch with the kids and watched through the picture window. Suddenly, a huge ball of fire leapt through the window, across the room and out the back patio doors.  How could anyone ever film this?  It was a phenomenon recorded in books, but I don’t think it was ever photographed.  Amazing! A good reason not to sit next to a window in a thunder storm.

Lights Out

It was dusk, a time that necessitated turning on the lights.  Well, none of the lights worked.   It wasn’t unusual to have a power failure in Pointe Claire.  We thought it was just another power outage in the area.  We got wood in for the wood burner, got the kerosene lamps ready and extra blankets for everyone’s bed for the cold night ahead. We tentatively expected the neighbors to come to huddle around our wood stove. As it got darker and darker, we noticed the neighbours in the back still had their power. I went out on the street to investigate who lost their power and noticed everyone but us had power.  This was a mystery.  We had paid our hydro bill?

Slowly the recollections of the day came back to me.  I was working in the garage and rolling up the garden hose. I recklessly threw it over the hook on the wall, and went on my  business.  It turned out that ‘hook’ on the wall was the main power lever for the house and by throwing the hose over it, I inadvertently switched it off.  Power problem solv-ed.

"Where's My Bugs?"

One of my endearing memories of Brandon!

I was buzzing around the kitchen finishing up making crunchy granola.  I hurriedly filled three bowls and gave them to the boys who were playing in the back yard.  I continued with my business until dinner time when I summoned the boys in with their empty bowls.  Brandon still had quite a bit of his granola left.  I placed his bowl on the counter and absentmindedly nibbled on it as I prepared dinner. I hadn’t had a taste and this was my opportunity to sample the results of my cuisine.  

Dinner ready, I call the boys. Brandon takes one look at his bowl and yells, “Where’s my bugs?” I scrutinized the bowl only to see ants on their backs, beetles without legs, flies wing and legless.  Allch!  Just the thought I’d eaten them made me retch.  I yelled back, “What are you mad at …?  … I’m the one that ate them!”

Choking

Brandon was about 14 months old and still learning to chew on a hard diet. This day he was having difficulty swallowing on an apple. He always managed to succeed; but this was different. He was choking. I grabbed him and put him over the sink. No matter how I tried, I couldn’t do the Hiemlick method hard enough to clear the apple out of his throat.  

A few days previously, Don had rented a video from the library for our 16 mm projector about the services of the Fire Department.  Much to our surprise, they did First Responder calls.  Don put their phone number on all the phones. When time was running out, I grabbed the phone to call them. It was only for the fact that the number was on the phone that I was able to call them.  I could never have looked up the number in the phone book in this state of panic.

I called the Fire Department, explaining the situation and I swear they were in the front door before I hung up the phone.  Fireman Tottle, [which I understood as his name Firemantottle] snatched Brandon up, now blue, over his knee, hit him on the back and stuck  his little finger in his mouth. Out popped the obstructive piece of apple.  Brandon immediately turned pink.  They took him into their fireman truck and transported him to the hospital for an Xray.  He was just fine. Every year after we would go and thank Fireman Tottle for saving my son.  One year we went and heard the sad news that he had passed away.  I had a plaque made for him, acknowledging his heroic deed, and presented it to the Fire Department. That was the end of our connection with Firemantottle.

The Buick

The Buick

My Great Aunt Franny [my mom’s dad’s sister] owned a super powerful Buick Skylark. an 8 HP…  It seemed out of context for her.  She would take it to the garage and the attendant would drive it to the bay and when he stepped on the gas, the gar would hit 80.  Well, it went shockingly zesty anyway. When the car got old, Franny gave it  to Mom.  Mom loved that car and when it started to have problems, she teased that she wanted to bronze it and make it into a guest house at the cottage. Much to Don and my surprise, we came out of the house one day to see Mom’s old Buick with a big ribbon wrapped around it. She was giving us her Buick Skylark. We much appreciated the gift, as any young family would love to have a car given to them.

I remember yet the day we took the kids to Toronto from Pointe Claire in that old Buick.  Once in Toronto, it started to make unusual noises and I suspected it was in it’s death throws.  We were stopped by a police officer who asked appropriate questions like, who were we, where were we going and what was wrong with our car.  We answered we were on our way to the scrap heap and we were planning to purchase a new car imminently. He was satisfied with that and let us go on our way.  We did just that.  We were sad to see the old car go, but the new Oldsmobile ’88 adequately assuaged our grief.

Nonna's Visits

The Boa

Mom would visit wherever we lived and she often came to Pointe Claire with her Nonna gene. 

One time Mom came to babysit Tyson when he was about five months old.  Tyson’s kind and sensitive character came through even at this age.  He rarely cried, but he cooed. He was such a good baby.  I was sure Mom could handle him and he wouldn’t give her any grief.

She took him to Ottawa to visit her good friend Lois Langevin.  Robert, Lois’ son, lived at home, but had left for a few days, leaving his Mom in charge of his boa constrictor in the basement.  Lois worried that it would get out, but Robert assured her that this was impossible.

When Mom arrived, she put Tyson down in the upstairs bedroom for a nap.  Since she didn’t want him to fall off the bed, she put him comfortably on the floor and left the door open. She then joined Lois in the bright and sunny den that looked out onto the back yard and pool.  There they sipped on a glass of white wine and got caught up on their news.

After a couple of hours, Lois invited Mom to have a look at the boa in the basement.  Mom was nervous just thinking about it.  Needless to explain their horror when they saw the cage was empty. 

They raced up stairs, dreading what they might find.  Much to their relief, Tyson was all in one piece, still sleeping on the floor. But where was the boa and what were they going to do with it?

They found it in the next room slithering up on the curtains.  They closed the door, picked up Tyson and gingerly went back to the den.  Mom neglected to tell me about this until  years later.

The Police and the Fire Department

Another visit entailed the Fire Department and the Police when Brandon went missing.

Brandon was two.  I had brought him for a long walk that day to the shopping centre about one kilometer away.  That evening, he didn’t want to go to bed, but we insisted he stay in bed anyway.  Mom had gone to bed earlier and was sleeping in Damon’s room.  When we turned in at ten, Brandon was no where to be found.  We woke Damon and Tyson up to help search the house, but to no avail.  I was worried he left the house and went back to the shopping centre.  I started my search on our street, checking each car, thinking he may have crawled in and fallen asleep. The air was still and mist hung around the street lights.  It was errie. 

Feeling that time was of the essence for my missing child, I called the Fire Department and they started a search on the main roads. The police were alerted and came and checked our street out.  They searched the house and even looked in the cupboards with their flash lights in the room where Mom was sleeping.  I was desperate.

One of the policemen saw a lump at the foot of Mom’s bed, under the covers.  He didn’t want to wake her up, so he asked if we would check it out.  Well, guess who had fallen asleep under the covers!  There Brandon was, fast asleep. 

Forgetting Damon

We had arranged a rendezvous point in Ottawa where Mom was to pick up Damon and take him back home to Thornbury with her.  Well she forgot.  When Mom got home, we asked her how Damon was doing.  There was this long breathless pause as the synapses struggled to connect. “Oh no. Did I forget?”  she said in a very guilty tone. We teased, “You didn’t forget him, did you?  Do you think he’s still waiting for you on the street?”  She had a hard time living that one down.  Damon was about 12.

Life on Marlin, The boys and the Jansons

Devoted to My Boys

My worst nightmares were that I was alone and didn’t have any children.  I would wake up to my dream. I counted my blessings every day.  They were what kept me going.  They were my source of joy. When they were tucked in bed and kissed and hugged good night, after story time, I would go downstairs and line up their little shoes and think to myself, “What a blessing that these little shoes are filled!” 

The Jansons

There were other families on the street with kids, the Dahls and the Scobbles. It was then we met our neighbours, Jay and Tamara and their three kids, Andrew, Jackie and Pieter. We became very close friends. We made time for each other and our friendship grew over the years. We fit well as couples.  I never remember having one disagreement the whole time we were friends.

One Hallowe’en Don and I got on our knees with sheets over our heads and knocked on their door. Tamara was all sweet and friendly until Don grabbed her boob.  She was speechless at the cheekiness of kids today.  She was flustered as she grabbed a handful of candies to drop in the pillow case Don was holding.  As she did so, he seized the opportunity to do it again.  I, of course was in the background trying not to laugh.  When she recognized my giggle, she fell on the floor laughing.

I remember the time my mother was visiting. After she went to bed, Jay and Tamara and Don and I partied on.  We ended up on the street having an egg race on a tricycle. They were giggling at my long white dress trailing behind the little three wheeled bike.  My mother heard the laughing in her upstairs bedroom and thought, ‘Who is making all this racket?”  When she realized it was my laugh, she thought, “Oh, that’s Christine; isn’t she having fun!”

The Jansons would come to the cottage with us on many occasions.  One winter we braved a trip with all the kids.  We left the cars on the road and skied in with our provisions. As we were leaving the car site, Don was prepared; he was packed up to the gills with a very large, heavy nap sac on his back, full of tinned food. He was wearing his Arctic down-filled coat that he wore on a survival course in the military in the Arctic somewhere. It was an over-kill as it was raining. The snow under our skis and toboggan was getting sticky. Nonetheless, Don braved on, calling, “Follow me!”  just like a great white hunter of the North.  At that very moment, the words hardly out of his mouth, that he keeled over on his back.  He couldn’t move and I was laughing so hard, I couldn’t help him.  I wondered what he was going to do for an encore.  I was hoping he had something.  That was good.

When we got to the cottage, there was a lot of commotion as we scurried to get the fire going in the wood burning stove. Brandon had done something to the dog, so he was sent upstairs to his bedroom for time out. As the fire got started in the fire place, the smoke went up the chimney, but I could smell another kind of smoke.  I tore the fire extinguisher off the wall and ran upstairs with Don, Jay and Tamara behind me.  The curtains were on fire and the mattress was smouldering.  Brandon was about 7 at the time and he was experimenting lighting the matches when things got a little out of hand.  He didn’t want to call out for fear of getting into more trouble.  We got the fire out and all of us dragged the mattress through the hall to the other bedroom and pitched it over the balcony onto the cold snow below. That was a little too close for comfort.

We spent many happy times with the Jansons, not only at the cottage but also at the farm, where we moved after Pointe Claire. We had every New Year’s together with all the kids; they always preferred to party with us than with their friends.  We smoked and drank and partied on. When they were young, we would put the clocks back an hour to celebrate New Years with them and then put them to bed and party on.  They caught on to this ruse rather early.  In the end, they stayed up with the adults until the wee hours of the morning.  I loved bringing them with us when we were with friends;  I thought it made for good memories.

It was very sad and a great loss to me that Tamara passed away from lung cancer in 2005 at the age of 56.

Brandon Birth, 1981

It was in this house that Brandon came into the family.  Super Baby. The pregnancy was text book as was the delivery.  It was the precursor that was a little unusual.

Don was in my bad books the week I was to deliver, so I called upon my mother to accompany me in the delivery room. Don ended up being present anyway, so we had quite a party going on.

When labor started, Mom and I trekked off to the hospital.  I sat up in the hospital bed with my long shiny dark hair cascading down my back, doing my nails and chatting with my mother, looking like anything but in labor. The doctor came in and announced, “You’re not in labor; you’re going home.” Well, it just so happened that the next day was Friday 13 and there was no way I was having a baby on such an unlucky day.  In my state I was figuring his/her birthday would be Friday 13 every year.  Women don’t think too clearly when they are in labor. So I argued that yes, I WAS in labor and I wasn’t going anywhere. I was going to have this baby tonight. I was going to will it to be born before midnight. The doctor said all right, but he was leaving for the night and going out for dinner because he didn’t believe me.

They gave me an enema, just in case.

There was a heart monitor next to the bed to monitor the baby’s heartbeat.  Well, my mother bores easily and when she’d had enough of listening to the baby’s heartbeat, which was strong and healthy, she asked, why not we listen to hers?  Hers was pretty good too. Then it was my turn.  First of all, we couldn’t find it.  When we did, it sounded like an old motor boat dying out, then coming back, limping its way to shore.  Baboom.  Stop. Baboom. Stop.  We started to laugh hysterically, while I tried to ask, “Am I dead?” At this point  I really wished they hadn’t given me the enema. I had to control all that while laughing so hard.  A doctor stuck his head in the door wondering what was so funny. He didn’t smile, but wrote something on his clip board. (two nut bars?)

Mom was getting worried now. She ran out of the room looking for a cardiologist.  How does one get a cardiologist just by wanting one? but she did, she got one. Mom wanted my heart checked NOW. He came with his chart; didn’t say anything but kept writing notes on his clipboard, in between darting glances at me.

It wasn’t too much longer that labor really started to get serious.  Mom panicked. She ran up and down the halls calling for a doctor.  Seems they were all in the delivery room delivering babies. She approached a janitor and asked him to come and help deliver my baby.  He informed her, “I’m just the janitor.”  Understandable error on her part, since he wore a familiar blue outfit, like a doctor.  The broom should have given her a clue, however.

They had a delivery room for us when the moment came. Brandon popped out screaming. Doctors were called from every corner of the hospital to see his amazing lung capacity.  He had the body of a football player.  He was magnificent. 

Marlin Crescent 1978-1988

When we moved to our new multi-split house on Marlin Crescent, it was the beginning of a new era. Maybe we could start over.  Maybe things would work out better in this nicer house. It was very exciting and full of promise.

Farewell Prince Charles

The people across the street on Prince Charles had four teen aged boys. They lived in a house about the same size as ours.  

It was the day Don said to me that we could live in this $17,000 house forever because the mortgage would be paid off and it’d be cheap living, that I realized he really thought we could be like those people across the street.

Three weeks later the house was sold and we bought a much larger house in a much nicer area.  It was a five story house in ‘Priests’ Farm’ in Pointe Claire.  We paid $52,000 for it. This move opened the way for opportunities that were yet to come.

Chapter 12

Saying goodbye to Elvis

Elvis Presley died in August of 1977 when we were still living in this little house on Prince Charles.This was the same year Tyson was born so he was only five months old and Damon was a year and a half. I was an ardent fan of Elvis, and when I heard this news, it was as if I heard that a dear friend had passed away.  I never did see Elvis in the flesh and I felt I owed it to him, or at least to myself, to pay my respects.

So off I went to Dorval airport to catch a plane to Memphis,Tennessee, leaving Don with the two babies.  

When I got to the airport, I picked up a newspaper.  It had the news of Elvis all over the front page.  When I settled in my seat in the airplane, I glanced at the headlines, “One hundred thousand people crowd the gates of Graceland.” Maybe I forgot to mention along the way that I was suffering from mild case of claustrophobia. The doors of the plane were shut and the plane was backing up.  The flight attendants were giving the safety spiel when it hit.  I could just imagine being squeezed in a riotous crowd with no way out. One hundred thousand fans, pushing, making an escape impossible.  

I had to get off the plane.  I waved to the stewardess and explained I was having a complete meltdown and I had to get off.  She whipped up to the cock pit.  The plane stopped and returned to the bay.  She escorted me to the door making sure I was all right.

What a relief to get off that plane.  As I entered the gate room, two girls ran into the gate room, crying. I asked them, “What’s wrong?” “Oh, we just missed the plane to Elvis’ funeral!” I heard myself reply confidently and with vigour, “Oh, no, you didn’t.  Its right here.”  And with that, we all three of us raced to the closing air craft door.  I felt completely different now that they were in the picture. This did a 180 on my claustrophobia.

The stewardess looked at me in a puzzled way, as if to say, “What? You again?” I had some convincing to do to get back on the airplane, answering as positively as I could to her “Are you sure?” questions. She actually acquiesced and the three of us sat down. I behaved myself for the rest of the trip.

A large crowd stood outside of ‘Graceland’  singing ‘Love Me Tender’ as the white limousines slowly curled from the driveway up the Avenue taking Elvis to his final resting place.  The crowds weren’t as bad as the newspaper portrayed; people were dispersed all along the road for miles.

I felt satisfied that I was able to say my good-byes to Elvis.  Fate had a part to play that day for me and for the two girls.

Ghosts at Prince Charles

Ghosts

I believe that house had ghosts.

One night we were having a family dinner with Don’s sister Barbara and her husband Dick and Don’s parents, Joy and Claude,   Before dinner we had invited Carmen to come over with her baby, Ryan as Wayne was away and we thought she’d enjoy getting out of the house.  

Half way through dinner, we all heard someone whistling a tune.  We all stopped eating and listened.  We thought it was Carmen and Ryan as the timing was perfect. We got up from the table and searched the house.  We didn’t find her.  Somewhat satisfied that the noise didn’t come from her, we sat down and finished our dinner.  We were all pretty perplexed about it.

The most traumatic experience I had with ghosts in that house happened one night when I was alone in bed. Don was away, which wasn’t unusual.  The kids were just a twinkle in their father’s eye. I was totally alone.  I had the bedside light on and the phone  was right there on the bedside table. The bedroom door was slightly  open.  Outside the bedroom was darkness.

I thought I heard someone coming up the stairs. I heard one step creak, and then another.  I stopped reading and held my breath to see if I’d hear it again. There it was again. With each step, it got nearer. I froze. My blood stopped flowing in my veins. I was afraid to breath that they might hear it.  The steps kept coming. But slowly.   I thought of calling the operator (as this was before 911), but I couldn’t move. I was literally frozen with fear.  The steps came to my bedroom door and then started to recede. They creaked all the way back down the stairs.  And that was it. Gives me the creeps to this day even just talking about it.

Eloping, Damon and Tyson

By November I was getting uncomfortable that our relationship lacked commitment, so I proposed to Don.  He didn’t say no but he didn’t say yes either. I dragged him to the Minister at the church for consultation. He wasn’t exactly kicking and screaming but it wasn’t clear how he felt, the irreverent bachelor. He rationalized we could get married by the end of this year and save on taxes. It was December.  We decided to make it quick, and planned to elope just before Christmas.

Of course no one knew about our plans.  It was a secret. My mother had just arrived in Toronto after leaving my father for good in Spain.  She was exhausted. Don’s mother, Joy, had issues with a heart condition.  All in all we felt we were doing every one a favour by not disrupting them and I was saving my parents a lot of money.  In their situation I thought they probably didn’t have any to spare on a wedding anyway.

The night of the big event, we invited Don Farion and Jackie to be our witnesses.  Farion could hardly believe that Murray was going to bite the bullet and abandon his freedom. He offered to be our official chauffeur and drive us to the church in his Mercedes.  

We called upon other friends of ours, another pilot friend of Don’s, Wayne Choptain and his wife, Carmen, to come along as part of the wedding party. They were on their way to curling and also did not believe that their buddy, ‘’81’, was going to tie the knot. But they came  just the same, in their curling attire on the way to a practice.  Carmen was eight months pregnant.

Taking place at night, the event had a romantic and exciting mood about it.  I never remember seeing the church in the daylight so I never knew what it looked like on the outside. This was relevant because, years later when I took the kids there to Sunday school, I didn’t even recognize it as the church Don and I were married in.  Then, one day, I looked up at the big cross in alter and gasped, “Wait a minute!  I was married here!”  I don’t know what everyone thought about that comment!

At the church, we had to sign papers for the bride and groom and the witnesses.  The Minister had Wayne and Carmen sign the bride and groom spot… an honest mistake considering her condition. It was all straightened out and we went back home for a great dinner prepared by Farion, who also was the photographer. [Farion passed away around 2008 from cancer. He had quit smoking a few years before.]

We were now married.

We had Damon and Tyson in that house.  It was small with two bedrooms upstairs under the ‘A’ shaped roof. The basement was unfinished.  The back yard was fenced, separating the house from the street behind and a gas station. The train ran at the end of our short street. The best part was the airplanes that flew overhead.  We were so close to the runway, that you could see the landing gear of the planes as they flew over the house and one would swear the roof was part of the runway. I suspected it should have had run way lights on it. All to say the house was in a pretty noisy location.

We almost never had a first child.  We eloped in December of ’74 and decided to take a quick trip to the Bahamas in March calling it our ‘honeymoon’.  I was to meet Don at the airport, he in from a flight and I arriving with our suitcases from home. I was excited about our little get away.  When I sighted him coming to our meeting place I ran to give him a hug.  His reaction was one of shock and disgust.  “Never do that when I am in uniform,” he stated flatly.  I had an overwhelming urge to turn around and go home and let him go on the trip by himself. But I didn’t. That was the trip I conceived Damon.

Freeport and the Condo

We were pretty green at that time.  We thought we wanted to buy some real estate down there, but we had no idea what we were doing.  We almost bought a piece of land. Thank god we didn’t… what would we ever have done with it!  We weren’t fully aware that the Brits were getting kicked out of the Islands and the natives were taking over, or how that would impact the local economy.  

We met up with an amiable real estate agent who showed us a bachelor condo on the third floor.  If you squinted, you could see the ocean.  It was on a canal and had a place we could park our boat… if ever we were to buy one, that’s where it’d go.  We weren’t quite sure if we wanted to buy it or not until he gave us a few glasses of Jamaican rum, and we signed on the dotted line. How were we to know it was a drug infested building? 

The owner got rid of it like a hot potato at a very good price for us. As luck would have it, the building changed hands many times and became one of the nicest condos in Freeport.  We rented it out for years until Don took it over after our divorce.

Damon Arrives, 1975

I was thrilled when the pharmacist called to tell me the rabbit had died. My dreams were coming true.  I was going to have a baby.  It wasn’t what Don had in mind just yet, but he was largely responsible for not reading the instructions properly on the foam bottle.  

I had a perfect pregnancy with no morning sickness nonsense. I was so afraid of getting fat, I only gained 17 pounds. 

When the first pangs of promise started, I was upstairs in the water bed, which at that particular moment, had just sprung a leak. It had to be emptied immediately. Don got the garden hose and ran it down the stairs, through the kitchen and out the window.  Sister Karen and here husband, Brian were visiting and sleeping in the living room at the time.  They got up to see what all the ruckus was about.  They stared sleepily at the garden hose as Don explained my water had broken.

Damon was quite content to stay in his womb.  It took 23 hours for him to make the trip into the real world. I thought I was going to die.  I tried making deals with God, to sell my soul to go back to being unpregnant, but he wasn’t listening. When Damon finally made it, I forgot all about it and cradled my bundle of joy. 

Tyson, 1977

When the pharmacist called this time, I didn’t want to tell Don.  Damon was only 5 months old and I thought this would be a little over the top for Don. At this rate, we’d have a dozen.  But he was bemused.  I had another untroubled pregnancy.  When the time came to deliver, Don and I were packing up cards, books, puzzles, expecting another 20 hour ordeal.  Well, Tyson was in a real hurry and popped out after only one hour of labor.  I almost didn’t make it to the delivery table.  He was quiet right from the get go.  I had to carry him around the house to give him the attention he never asked for.

Before Tyson could talk, he could empathize.  We had a friend who swam every day from her cottage to our beach.  One day, Tyson, about 18 months old, went into the bathroom, got a towel and brought it down for her as she got out of the water. He walked like his legs were made of elastic bands. He was so young.  Even then, he was always thinking of others.

Don

It was the formative years of our marriage.  Never having been married before, I didn’t know what to expect and either did Don. I’d say we made pretty much of a mess of it.  We were on two different channels.  But if one doesn’t know what normal is, how does one know its not working? I bargained for his attentions, but it just didn’t change. No amount of bartering was going to budge him.  As a young bride, I just knew my heart was breaking. I was hurt; I became lonely, despondent, depressed and later resentful and angry. But this marriage was going to work, I was determined. Especially since Tom’s mother told him not to go with ‘city’ girls.  I was a ‘city’ girl and had dropped him.  I was going to show her what I was made of! 

Don could be sweet and thoughtful on occasion.  Once he bought me a pair of old fashioned picture frames that I was longing for.  I was royally impressed.  Once I found an agora sweater I really liked; he bought me two. He did the same a few times and it always impressed me. I thought maybe he did love me a bit.

However, the night I was choking on my dinner and Don continued reading his newspaper, I knew this wasn’t going to be a romantic endeavour.  When I asked him why he didn’t help me, he unbelievably answered, “Well, you were still breathing.” And he was right; I lived to tell the tale. But I was devastated. Any incidences like this in our marriage are vehemently denied by Don.  But they affected me deeply and I’m certain I didn’t imagine them.