You all know, of course, that My Beloved died almost a year ago. While she was still with me, we didn’t celebrate birthdays to any great extent, but we always did something special for our wedding anniversaries. So, my choice this year was to go and visit eldest child, daughter Sharleen, and her family in Montreal and do or have something on April 9th.
If you are a Facebook adherent, you may have read this issue of From Time to Time, but for those who do not use FB, this and two subsequent posts will be new.
I used to accomplish the seven hour drive from Halifax to Edmunston very easily. With my Darling wife, Beryl, by my side. On April 1st, I did it again – just as easily, with Beryl in the passenger seat saying, “Silva (our car), I think you may be going a bit over the limit.” With the same result: a momentary decrease in speed.
I had to make three pit stops, but that’s OK for a 91-year old. And I made an atrocious error in where I was at one point. I told Karen on the phone that I was approaching Moncton and there was a huge hold up in traffic, which took 45 minutes to get through at 8kph. In actual fact we were approaching the NS-NB border, where a very large protest was going on over the new 3c/litre Carbon Tax the Fed Government implemented on April Fools’ Day. Why I said approaching Moncton, I have no idea. I know, you are all going to say it is old age and he’s losing it. If that’s what you think, OK, but if you don’t get a Birthday card from me, it will not be because I just forgot to send you one!
On arrival at the Travelodge in Edmunston, the delightful Marium (Mari as in Mary, mother of Jesus, and ium is the Islamic ending – the two faiths can get together – neat, eh?) signed me in and recommended a couple of restaurants. The one I chose, L’Ecluse, turned out to be spectacular and I understand why she goes there often. The setting is almost indescribably beautiful. But it’s obviously not indescribable, as I will show you. Imagine a river, a wrought iron pedestrian mini-Sydney harbour bridge, but two of them, using a mid-stream foundation to provide the fulcrum point where the two meet, painted a cheerful green and, later, as the sun sets, beautifully lighted. Your eyes then turn to the equally well-lit restaurant and you see three glass domes, each large enough for four people to sit and enjoy a meal comfortably. Unfortunately, I was not one of those persons and so, I was shown to a very pleasant table inside the restaurant, right beside a window through which I could see the bridge and the domes. Unfortunately, my phone died at that point, so I am unable to show the inside of the restaurant or the menu. However, I asked for a glass of red 9oz (why is a glass of wine always in ounces? Why not mls?). And, after reviewing the quite extensive menu ranging from fish and chips to Gai Pad Khing, sauteed sliced chicken with mushrooms, peppers, cabbage, carrots and onions in a fresh ginger sauce, I chose the seared tuna. It was so yummy, I could not have chosen anything better for a finish to the end of the day’s journey. Based on a rice bowl, it contained sliced radish, tomatoes, black olives, a little lettuce, some watercress, which I haven’t had in a restaurant since leaving England 70 years ago, some sort of small crispy wontons and six very delicately seared tuna pieces, leaving it as sushi inside, all in a tasty aioli sauce. Some restaurant; some meal! (Nova Scotian for it’s very good.)
I told my server, I would be back when I return from Sharleen’s. A bit of a restless night saw me looking for my shaving cream. Not! Yesterday morning’s review of Wednesday weather around Riviere du Loup, which I would have had if I left as intended on Tuesday, made me change my mind and I was then in furious packing: meds and essentials, asking Jackie for forgiveness for not being able to take her out for the dinner I had promised (she was very gracious and forgave me). The fact is, she will have gone to Newfoundland to join her husband by the time I get back and the pair of them have been such good friends since we moved into our apartment, I won’t get to say goodbye. Then I found this morning I had not packed my shaving cream, so I went to the IGA and bought a can, only to discover I had also forgotten the razor!!! No, don’t say it again: remember I was in a great rush and also remember what I said near the start of this post about you not getting a birthday card. Onward we go in a few minutes.
July 13 I last wrote to you. It was the day My Beloved died. Memories – sort of
You know – no you don’t unless you have travelled with me and My Beloved- but My Beloved would talk to Silva, our Chrysler 300, circa 2013 and all the others of our previous cars. She might say, “Silva, I’m sorry he hit the curb. Whenever we leave the bank, he cuts that corner and hits the curb, doesn’t he. He’s not treating you very well, is he?” or, more often, “Silva, I think you should slow down a bit: 140 in a 110 zone might be a bit fast.”
But, talking to an inanimate object was not limited to our cars. No. My Beloved frequently talked to one of the many stuffed toys. On making the bed and knocking a stuffed Smiley off the headboard, I might hear an exclamation such as, “Oh, Smiley, I’m so sorry. Here, back you go. Are you OK now?” Or, it might be something like, “I know I put my pencil down somewhere [addressed to no-one in particular] Where are you, pencil? Pencil, where are you? [addressed to, obviously, an animate pencil]“, which I have never heard reply to tell her where it is..
Or, another day, it might be, “Hey, Bun-bun, how are you this morning?”, addressed to her little stuffed rabbit wearing her little dress she had sewn for her when she was six or seven. I’m still not sure whether Bub-bun is male or female, because often both of us would would address her as him. It seems the dress makes him her. Whatever, Bun-bun always has had pride of place in the centre of the headbboard. He/she was/is very important – and still is to me. I think I will have to put the question to Bun-bun and see if I get a definite answer.
These monologues were not just occasional: they occurred frequently. Sometimes I almost wondered if, when I asked her while showing her that gorgeous Ceylon Ruby ring, if she would marry me, she looked at the ring and said, “I love you so much, oh, yes, yes” meaning the ring not me. Well, seventy such happy years later, I know it was I she did really mean.
I also remember the times, several probably, when in bed and kissing her good night, she would say, “Oh, that was a bit rough tonight.” Of course she was addressing the beard, not me. And beards are peculiar things. Basically I do not like them, particularly on gorgeous women, but there were times when we lived in Winnipeg and we would take a month’s vacation up at Victoria Beach on Lake Winnipeg and I would not shave for a month. A red haze would appear after a week or so, but by the end of a month, there was no real beard. It just looked like I hadn’t shaved, which, indeed, is what it was. No thickness, no style at all. Not worth the effort while making myself look terribly lazy for not shaving.
I try to take a four to five kilometre walk at least four times a week. that wears out walking shoes. So, a few days ago I went to Sport Chek with the intent of buying a new pair of Skechers, a brand I have come to respect. When I walked into the store in Bedford, I was greeted cheerily with, “Good morning!” I was directed to the far corner of the store and there I found a goodly set of walking shoes, Most name brands have shoes at outrageous prices, but with Skechers I do not seem to have a problem, as they are always moderately priced. A lovely young lady helped me select a pair, but I said I needed 10 or 10 1/2 (note to self, why can’t WordPress format fractions properly as WORD does?). She told me there were no halves, but she would go in the back and bring both 10 and 11 sizes. On her return, I immediately chose the 10 and went to the check-out. Deal accomplished. I told them to keep the old pair and I walked out of the store in my new shoes.
As I am walking towards the car, I find myself saying, “What we are walking on is pavement – wet pavement”, and “That silver car over there is ours.” Suddenly, I realise I am talking to my inanimate shoes!
And later, after I park Silva in the Sobey’s parking lot and start walking toward the store, “And this is one of the large stores we frequently visit,” and “this is where we go inside,”. Well, I got no reply from my new acquisitions, but it made me think, “Hey, Darling, are you behind my pointing out to my new shoes how comfortable we are talking to each other, even if you don’t reply in a voice I can hear?
I’ll try to post a story more often in the future.
Heartfelt and good wishes to all and sundry – take notice if you are talking to your shoes today!
This morning My Beloved was not breathing well, so I laid my head alongside hers and told her how much I loved her and that it was time for her to let go and she could go with my blessing. Just go, Darling, just let go. Jesus will be waiting for you. Go, Iddles, go. A half minute later, she left us to be with Our Father in Heaven.
To all who are fortunate enough to have known My Beloved, you all know that she was the backbone, the strength, and the heart of our family. And of our business.
For 77 years, she loved me, helped me, encouraged me, and supported me. She was the love of my life. She was my forever best friend.
She was a shining example of motherhood to our 5 children and so many others who looked to her for guidance, advice, and love. She will be living on in the tender hearts of all of our grandchildren; of whom she was so deeply proud.
She volunteered for a local church. 13 years as treasurer, and 20 years as treasurer for an adult education board. And for ever helped where needed, particularly with children.
Thank you, God, for showing me those lovely legs which caught my eye on a Youth Group dance floor 77 years ago.
To My Darling Beryl, My Beloved, My Iddles, I love you. Carry my love with you in your heart as I will carry you in mine until we meet again.
Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others. — Cicero
So, as you all likely know, we sold the house overlooking St. Margaret’s Bay, the house in which we had lived after coming from Montreal for thirty-six years. And we found an apartment.
Or, to be more precise, our great friend, Karen, latched onto it and with the vacancy rate of zero she acted and three hours later a deposit had been made. By her!
This is where gratitude comes to the forefront. Without Karen and her other half, Peter, My Beloved and I would not have known how, nor would we have been able, to get our house downsized.
We had ‘STUFF’.
How were we going to get rid of all this ‘stuff’, we wondered. Hey, a large SUV and a pick-up truck was the answer (or should that be ‘were the answer’). Karen, together with hubby, Peter, became our saviours: from January on, every Monday became a get-rid-of-‘stuff’ day. They loaded ‘stuff’ (not once did they allow either of the 89-year olds to help load or even carry any ‘stuff’) into their SUV or the pick-up truck to take ‘stuff’ to various charities, to a friend of theirs, Tom, who runs a business selling odds and ends, or, failing to donate or sell, to the municipal dump. Without them, we would have ended up calling 1-800-got-junk and, at the way they load their trucks, so much waste space is in them, designed, I’m sure, so they have to do more loads. And they would have bankrupted us before we moved.
So, do you know how much ‘stuff’ you can accumulate over a period of fifty or more years? I say fifty or more, because it turned out that we had brought ‘stuff’ from a move from Winnipeg in 1974 to Montreal and carried on some of that ‘stuff’ in our move from Montreal to Boutiliers Point, Nova Scotia, in 1986. All unopened. As this is likely our last move, it wouldn’t be fair to leave the old Winnipeg ‘stuff’ to our kids to deal with. Or could that be pay-back of some sort? More importantly, with limited storage space in the new apartment, we were not going to carry ‘stuff’ into our new apartment.
Every so often, probably more often than every so, I’d call on Peter to help with something that needed strength, such as lifting a carboy or two of wine from the floor to the table, or to put together the mass of wires incorporated in my ancient stereo agglomeration which a grandson had taken apart and transported to the apartment and now needed to be put together. We throw, without abandon, gratitude to Peter and Karen.
Now more and a HUGE gift of gratitude goes out to…… …….the stars of the move….. ……daughters Tanis and Jenny.
Tanis came up with hubby Robb for over a month during April and May. She is one of those people who cannot stop working: just watching her for a day tires me out so much, I sleep through the night. Which is unusual. She did a little gardening, but as we were not going to be in the house for more than a few months, she helped Karen and Peter clear out ‘stuff’. Meanwhile, Robb completely stripped and re-stained a solid oak bookcase and replaced a glass window in it. As such a beautiful job, it now takes centre stage on one wall in the apartment living room. He also repaired and painted a kitchen stool, which over the years, was showing its age. Now it looks rejuvenated. Just like me!
They all went and we had a break from the hurly-burly. As we watched Tanis and Robb drive off down the driveway in their self-converted van, you might have heard a great sigh sounding like “Aaaah!” Except I missed Skye, Jenny’s wonderful dog.
Then we met up again at Tanis & Robb’s son’s wedding – Tanner and Kelly – near Washington, DC, on 13 June 2022, in a lovely old barn called The Sweeney Barn, Manassa, Virginia. Even a contingent from Europe came. But this is not about how lovely and wonderful was the wedding of a grandson, but about other ‘stuff’. More important ‘stuff’. Well, that depends on your point of view.
It wasn’t until a few weeks later that Jenny and Tanis set out from Atlanta in Jenny’s Jeep and arrived here for almost the two months of July and August. I’m sure we thought that Tanis and Robb might have a divorce over the time she was spending here – but it seemed that Robb was enjoying the new responsibility he had been given by Jenny, that of minding her 18-year old son, Jack, and ensuring that he was fed and was attending his summer job. Did I say Robb was enjoying this? Hm!
Tanis has had a number of house moves over her last forty years, so she is totally an expert in packing individual items, such as cups and saucers and delicate crystal or clocks. In fact, anything. And after moving day, her professionalism at packing was evident: each item had arrived and was unpacked safely. Not one piece was damaged.
From time to time, an old school pal of Tanis, a Wannabee Child No. 6/Daughter No. 5, by name of Sharon, came and showed us that Tanis isn’t the only person who can not sit still – unless she’s crocheting towels and other items or quilting. She, too, is very deserving of our gratitude for all the amazing help she gave. She had to come from Oxford, some 160 klicks distance, about an hour forty in her SUV – or truck, depending on circumstances. Now, although she is a Wannabee daughter, we love her as if she were a real one.
We had agreed with the purchaser of our house that we could have another summer in it, a summer during which we had four of our kids and their families and assorted girl- or boy-friends, come and have a last look and stay at a house they all knew well. And they helped move ‘stuff’.
So, who were they and when? At the end of July, Shar and Mike with their son, Kyle, daughter, Sabrina, and her boyfriend, Daniel, arrived and stayed a week during which time, we had a celebration of grandson Darren’s life. But not only was there much ridding of ‘stuff’, but Shar and Mike bought and Shar created a stunningly beautiful trellis on the apartment, the foundation of which is an ivy. It will last through the winter, but most of the other flowers and herbs have already been brought indoors, awaiting their return to the balcony next Spring, but are now beautifying the apartment inside.
Darryl and Stef brought along Dylan, his girlfriend, Maddie, and daughter, Taylor, at the beginning of August for ten days. They did a lot of shuffling of ‘stuff’ and bought (although to this date half of the gift hasn’t arrived – a table and) a set of four great adjustable chairs for the balcony, which have been used frequently.
Unfortunately, Tara and Mike and their daughters, Falin and Catlyn, were unable to come and spend time moving ‘stuff’. As a nurse in charge of the Wound Ward in a hospital near Los Angeles, and having been to the wedding, she could not take more time off.
Every so often and, again, more often than every so, Tanis, Jenny or I would call on Chris and Donna. Oh, we owe them so much gratitude for all of the times we called on one or the other to put together an Ikea table or install cupboards or build shelves or any other odd man job. And the fact is that he did each of these jobs in no time whatsoever. He’s a whiz!
There were other friends , Ron, Ken and Gloria, especially, who helped in different ways.
All of this help was done out of loving care for My Beloved and me. We can never show them enough gratitude for the huge stress of which they relieved us, the panic attacks amounted to very little for a word or two from one or the other of them sufficed to settle us. And the fact that the move went so smoothly was due to the organisational powers of some of them and the efficient way in which others carried out those organised plans.
And the result of all these months of planning, getting rid of ‘stuff’ and moving in is that we are now able to relax in our new apartment, which we love, and which we now call home. I often wondered if I would ever be able to call another residence ‘home’, but a week or two ago, I came in from an evening meeting and, as I walked into the apartment I could see the lights across the other side of the Bedford Basin, which includes a swath of Dartmouth, and I said to My Beloved, “That view is so resplendent, this is home!”
Thank you, thank you, thank you! Dear relatives and friends, you have earned and certainly deserved our everlasting gratitude.
As many of you know, we have sold our house and will be looking for a new abode.
Also, as many of you know, for twenty years we spent four or five months of the Canadian winter in the delightful city of Palm Springs in California, where we, usually, except for the one year when we had flooded impassable roads, had lovely warm days.
That all ended in April of 2017, four years ago, when both My Beloved and I had some little issues requiring the use of a knife. Perhaps I should say scalpel, but whatever it was, it meant we couldn’t leave for extended joyous days in the sun.
And then CoVID-19 paid a visit to this planet.
The past four winters have been spent here in Nova Scotia and, to tell the truth, the first three of them were respectable, or at least, proper, tolerable. I must admit that ofttimes while in Palm Springs, I have been guilty of Schadenfreude in that I would scoff at my winter-bound friends back in Nova Scotia having to shovel snow. So, it seems that this fourth winter is pay-back for my naughtiness.
Weekend after weekend would see my snowploughing guy, Monty, come with his tractor to rid my driveway and parking area of the dreaded atmospheric water vapour, frozen into ice crystals and which falls on my property as light white flakes comprising drifts a metre or more in depth.
Don’t think that because the cars look relatively clean that I exaggerate. Oh, no, that’s because Monty’s son came and brushed off the worst before his dad came to clear around the cars. After all, what would be the point of ploughing the parking clear and then dumping more on the ground?
Now three successive weekends meant I dished out sixty bucks a plough. That’s more than a good Mexican meal for four at JJ’s in Palm Springs. With vino tinto.
Before we write of the fourth weekend, which is the one in which I am writing this, let me take you back to Thursday. The day started all right: a good clean shave, no nicks. Breakfast of grapefruit and eggs on an English muffin, well-buttered. But, somewhere during the course of the morning, there was the ominous sound of water splashing on ceramic tiles. Oh, no!
Opening the doors to the music room/joint sunroom (what the Brits might call, in their inimitable way, a conservatory), revealed what an ant could call an Olympic swimming pool. The niagara (lower case n intended) was cascading at a rate of ‘can-I-keep-up-with-it’ by wringing out towel after towel (actually the same towel) and squeezing the one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms into a bowl. I lost count of how many squeezed atoms filled a bowl and how many times I carried the bowl to the sink to empty.
It wasn’t until My Beloved said, wouldn’t a mop be easier? Of course. Where was the mop? Oh, it was in such bad shape it got put out with the garbage as part of our downsizing.
Into the car and drive to Redmond’s (aka Home Hardware, but all locals still call it by it’s founders’ name). As I was looking at their selection, granddaughter in Seattle videoed me. Ah, she’s such a lovely young woman whom I love deeply, I had just taken the call when, simultaneously, our new owner of the house, Darrell, called to ask for photos of the sunroom and of the roof over it. I had to abandon Cierra. It has to be explained that our deal with the house is that the closing is the end of April, so we, My Beloved and I, are still responsible for the house until then. About two months ago, a similar flood had occurred and, at that time, Darrell had asked me to phone him if it happened again and while it was happening. So I had phoned him before starting squeezing towels after towel. Darrell is a developer, so has trades at his beck and call. Except this was a miserable day and they may be tied up somewhere else. Of course.
I couldn’t find what I wanted for a mop in Redmond’s, so went on to Canadian Tire. There I saw Margie, a cashier who is there all weekdays, but not on weekends. Hi, Margie, can you point to where I can find a mop? Margie, as happens if she is not serving a customer, walked me down the aisles past electrical and plumbing and camping and other categories until, yes, there were the mops. Who uses mops these days when there are such great accessories as water vacs? The mop will have to do.
Back home mopping was commenced and my arms, hands, and back certainly said thank you for getting a mop. Just after the snow on the skylights had melted away, niagara slowed to a lovely country brook.
A knock at the door and there was a face I recalled from the past. Matt, our sometime grass cutter said hi and asked if this is the house that has snow on the roof to be removed? He told me he now worked for Raymar, the family company soon to be the owner of our house and he had three helpers with ladders. Around the side of the house they went and started tackling the snow.
Young Matt had a shovel larger than I could ever have handled and he was lifting ice and snow and throwing it over the side as easily as I used to throw snowballs at our kids.
To be young again!
And they discovered the flaw – otherwise called the flow. It was an ice dam at the base of the skylights preventing thawing snow, aka water, from flowing off the roof and forcing it up and over the flashing. And if that description is incomprehensible, it translates to an easy fix when the sun is shining from the heavens and warming things up a bit.
With that event solved, we turned to the fact that most of Nova Scotia was in a freezing rain warning. Freezing rain can form on power lines and break them or pull the power poles over. (Why haven’t developers and power companies gone to the extra cost of laying power lines underground everywhere? I know I would pay extra to get uninterruptable power.)
Without power I would have to light the fire. To light the fire I would need matches or a lighter. We have no lighter – it was left in Palm Springs. We are downsizing and my two large boxes containing thousands of book matches, collected from hotels and restaurants all over the world, were taken by our BFs Peter and Karen to a store which will sell them. No matches in the house. No fire to warm the house and us.
Remember Redmond’s? Back there again, late Friday – oh, yes, we are in Friday – and the trip was successful. I returned with matches and a lighter. We are set for no power.
But as for this winter…… …….I can’t wait to get into an apartment around August. No more snow shovelling. Parking underground. Close to civilisation. i.e. theatres and stores.
Oh, I hear there could be other issues, though. i.e. noise from neighbours or outside.
And I will miss my bird friends and squirrels and, particularly my chipmunk friends.
But, maybe, I will make more friends of the human kind. And perhaps I will find doggy friends through becoming a dog-walker.
When I was growing up there were no cartoons on the TV. There was no TV. But there were comics.
During the World War II, my favourite comics were not published every week, owing to shortage of newsprint; they were, in general, published every two weeks. Not all comics were on the same schedule, so of my favourite three, at least two of them came to the stores weekly. I do not remember how they got to me, but I’m thinking it was by the daily newspaper. In Alderholt, the village to which we had evacuated, they would have been left at Mrs. Bailey’s store at the bottom of our lane. Back home at 29 Little Lances Hill, Bitterne, after the war, it would have been by the deliverer of the Daily Herald, the left-wing newspaper to which Dad subscribed.
So, what were the three?
TheBeano Comic, a British anthology comic magazine created by Scottish publishing company DC Thomson. An anthology magazine includes single or stories too short for individual publication and amalgamates them into an issue. Its first issue was published on 30 July 1938, and it became the world’s longest-running comic issued weekly, except during World War II, publishing its 4000th issue in August 2019. Popular and well-known comic strips and characters include Dennis the Menace, Minnie the Minx, General Jumbo, The Bash Street Kids, Jack Flash, Ivy the Terrible, Jonah, Lord Snooty and His Pals, and Roger the Dodger. Dennis the Menace and his dog Gnasher, has been running since the beginning of Beano, whose million sales in one week came in December 1945. And the Beano is still being published today, albeit after several different publishers, it has changed a bit in format. Nevertheless, the cover page looks much the same as I remember.
The Dandy was a British children’s comic magazine published by the Dundee based publisher DC Thomson, as was The Beano. The first issue was printed in December 1937, making it the world’s third-longest running comic, after Il Giornalino (cover dated 1 October 1924) and Detective Comics (cover dated March 1937). One of the best selling comics in the UK, along with The Beano, The Dandy reached sales of two million a week in the 1950s. The final printed edition was issued on 4 December 2012, the comic’s 75th anniversary, after sales slumped to 8,000 a week.
Over its 75-year run hundreds of different comic strips have appeared in The Dandy, many of them for a very long time. The longest-running strips were Desperate Dan and Korky the Cat, who both appeared in the first issue, and both of which I remember well.
The Wizard was my favourite comic. The Wizard was launched as a weekly British story paper on 22 September 1922, also published by D. C. Thomson & Co.
During WWII, it became a fortnightly paper. I couldn’t wait until the next issue came, as I loved reading each story of Wilson. William Wilson was born in the village of Stayling in Yorkshire and claimed to be born on 1 November 1795. However, a document dated 11 March 1774 listed him as “clerk to the manor”. He was sufficiently old that when writing, he used an “f” instead of an “s”. His farmer father died in middle age, leaving Wilson £5,000. He studied medicine and biology in a number of countries around the world and determined not to die early as so many he knew had, he worked out a health and fitness regime and learned how to slow his heart right down, using a formula created by people who could live to over 200. He developed his will power and hardened his body by whole winters spent in the open. The first adventure introduced Wilson as a supreme athlete, who joins a race from out of the crowd and manages to record a three-minute mile (a feat likely never to be achieved – although one should never say never). That particular first story is imprinted on my mind and I can see it as well today as when I first read the 2+ page story. During WWII, he joined the RAF and became Squadron leader W. Wilson D.S.O., D.F.C. and bar, who had 25 victories to his name.
The character is depicted within stories as performing a number of improbable events. Wilson was seen in one strip becoming the first man to climb Everest, and another saw him captaining an England cricket team to The Ashes in Australia. Originally hailing from Yorkshire, and living in a cave on a diet of nuts and berries, Wilson exemplified British grit and the stiff upper lip.
There were times when my pocket money was spent on one other comic paper, The Hotspur, but it never became a favourite, although during WWII it alternated with The Wizard.
Thanks to The Dandy, The Beano and other D C Thomson comics which followed, Dundee gained a reputation as a major centre of the comics industry, and has been called the ‘comic capital of Britain’. Partly as a result of this legacy, the city is now home to the Scottish Centre for Comic Studies. The connection is also marked by bronze statues of Desperate Dan and The Beano character Minnie the Minx installed in the city’s High Street in 2001. Designed by Tony Morrow, the Desperate Dan statue, which also features his dog Dawg, is the most photographed of 120 pieces of public art in the city. In July 2001 the cover of The Dandy featured Dan visiting Dundee and encountering his statue. In December 2012 the University of Dundee held an exhibition in partnership with D C Thomson to mark the comic’s 75th anniversary.
Oh, those weekly reading adventures in my favourite three were something to which I so very much looked forward.
[I acknowledge much of the history in this particular Scribblings is from Wikipedia.]
Before CoVID-19, it was a tradition that at least once a month, more frequently if we had guests, after church on a Sunday, we would go to Vernon’s Diner on Hammonds Plains Road.
And gorge ourselves. You know, be a greedy gourmand.
But, since CoVID-19, we have not been allowed, nor allowed ourselves, to indulge in such unseemly dining.
Until yesterday.
On Saturday, as we were having our dinner, I said to My Beloved, that I had been thinking about going to the Diner tomorrow. I did not know what sort of reaction this would bring, as I know she has been very careful about going out other than to shop for supplies.
However, she tilted her head towards me with that little tiny bit of a smile and said, “You mean actually going to the Diner tomorrow for brunch?” Well, the tilt of the head and the little smile told me without answering her, that she was all in on this idea.
So, yesterday, after the service, and after a customary Duo with the two of our daughters, Jenny and Tanis, who also attend the zoom service from Atlanta and Salt Lake City, I did a very Un-Christian-like thing, and teased the heck out of them by telling them our plan was to go to the Diner, so we would be cutting this Duo short. Oh, I knew I had hit the spot with each of them: I could see it in their faces. Fury? Desperation? Envy?
So, I terminated the Duo face-to-face and My Beloved and I got in the car and drove to the Diner.
There were many cars parked already, so I went in and spoke to a server, telling her that my wife was out in the car, as we didn’t know if they could take us. (I should add that many restrictions have been removed, as the Nova Scotia population has been very diligent in masks, distancing, testing and getting vaccines, so our case count is virtually zero nowadays.) Certainly, go and get your wife, she said, we have lots of room and I will seat you both.
On bringing My Beloved into the restaurant, we were immediately seated at a booth.
We looked at each other. Oh, this was freedom.
Our server, who was still masked, as we still were, asked us if we would like a tea or coffee. My Beloved responded with, “I would love a white wine, please.” To which the server said she wished she could join us, and then turned to hear my request. “A spicy Bloody Caesar, please.” As she departed, I called out after her, “VERY spicy!”. to which she raised her thumb.
Very shortly later as we were regarding the menu, she returned with My Beloved’s white and my Bloody Caesar, but also with an unopened bottle of Lee and Perrin’s Worcestershire sauce. As she put it down, she said, “I wasn’t sure when you came in masked, but the spicy Caesar confirmed that you were the couple who used to come in often.” And I said, “And you are Kelly!” She said, “I don’t have my name tag on, but, yes, you’re right.”
My Very Spicy Bloody Caesar
I had to admit to her that I had cheated about knowing her name: I had texted Jenny in Atlanta and asked her if she could remember our preferred server’s name and she came up with ‘Kelly’. What a memory! Kelly remembered well the blonde with the tall son who loved very spicy virgin Caesars. And she remembered the redheaded daughter as well. We have all said many times in the past that Kelly has a most remarkable memory concerning people and our favourite choices from the menu.
How nice it is to be remembered. She got an extra special tip later.
En passant, many years ago, we were moving from Winnipeg to Montreal and I was lodged (at my employer’s expense, I quickly add) in the grand luxury Ritz-Carlton hotel for several months. Every evening after work, I would go to the bar and order a very spicy Bloody Caesar. A couple of years later, when a friend from Winnipeg was visiting us during the Montreal Olympics, I took My Beloved and our friend to the bar in the Ritz. The bartender remembered me and how I liked my Bloody Caesars very spicy. He delivered.
Back at the Diner, we both ordered the VERNON’S BREAKFAST SKILLET Two eggs (any style) with your choice of ham, bacon or sausage, served over breakfast potatoes and topped with a Cheddar and Mozzarella cheese blend with two slices of 22 Carrot Bakery bread. 13.99
Eggs over easy, bacon and whole wheat toast were our choices. And was the end result from the kitchen as good as expected? The esurient duo thought so.
Very tasty, My Beloved said.
Kelly, as manager of the day, was extremely busy and was as professional in helping our her staff as she had always been in our experience, but still found time to come and have a couple of little chats with us.
We decided there was enough room left in our stomachs to split a Chocolate Torte. A chocolate cake with masses of chocolate frosting all over it and a tablespoon of whipped cream with chocolate to add to the torte and another whipped cream with caramel.
Kelly will not be disappointed in that we will certainly be back to our tradition again.
Indeed, what might I have been doing now? I wonder.
It seems I have been so fortunate in life to have had many a CHOICE.
Mind you, I had no CHOICE in who my parents were, but I’m glad they were my parents and not somebody else’s. Let’s skip the early life where they influenced so many of my CHOICES or made them for me. So, starting from where mid-teenage boys know everything better than their parents, while on holiday from school or, later, university, I was a bus conductor on Southampton, England, transit. By far the majority of that life consisted of hanging out the back platform waiting for the next stop and asking people for their fares, whereupon, I would strike a lever on my ticket machine, slung around my shoulders, and give them a ticket equivalent to taking them a certain number of stops, or fare stages, as they were termed.
As most of our buses were double deckers, I was kept busy running up and down the stairs, trying to get all the people’s fares up top before the cheaters down below could get off without paying.
Bus such I worked on as a conductor
It was certainly a job I enjoyed, even though it was all split shift work, sometimes starting really early to catch those going to work, then a rest for six or seven hours, during which I could enjoy a pick-up game of cricket with a few friends, then going back to ensure that all the workers get home safely by bus. In the three summers I did this, I had the same driver for two of them, a wonderful man who had been a driver for many years, but whose name I have unfortunately forgotten. Let’s call him Jim; and Jim and I bonded, even though he could have been my grandfather while I was sixteen. A gentle man who drove as if he was driving a limousine for the queen.
Quite the opposite was Harry Martin: he was middle aged, but thought he was still a teenager driving in the Monte Carlo rally. When I was ‘up top’ and he was driving around bends in the road, I soon had to learn the best skills of balance without catching hold of anything other than my ticket machine and leather purse into which I dropped the pennies and threepences and sixpences and shillings and florins and half crowns or an occasional paper note and having to withdraw the correct amount of change and striking off the ticket for the customer. At the end of the route, with Jim we’d lounge around the engine or in the bus regaling each other with thoughts of the day: it was different with Harry, he would immediately light up his cheap Woodbines, which he rolled himself, and offer little conversation. Except that when he first met me, he was, “Oh, !***!, a kid!” Well, our relationship never got anywhere near that of Jim and me, but he did mellow when he realised that I was fast with taking the fares: apparently in previous experiences with ‘kids’, the kids were slow, so this meant that he would have to wait sometimes at stops while some of the passengers’ fares were collected as they got off the bus instead of being taken quickly inside the bus. That meant he was late or never early at the end of the route, so did not have time for a Woodbine. That never, but never, happened with speedy me, so he did mellow quite a bit and, as I recall, he didn’t swear or blaspheme at me ever again, though he did at people who cut in in front of the bus and made him brake hard.
The next CHOICE was EITHER to stay at university studying Music, English and German and where I was enjoying myself learning to fly in a
Chipmunk
and get paid for it in the university Air Squadron – similar to the University Officers’ Training Plan (or UOTP or ROTP) in North America – OR join the regular Royal Air Force. You know which CHOICE won out!
As this is a piece about CHOICE, I will omit the years in the RAF, where you didn’t have CHOICE, but do as you were ordered.
After leaving the RAF, I had another CHOICE: I was offered a job as a test pilot, as back in Canada, I had been awarded the Top Pilot cup, but having just got married, that was considered by me as too risky, although it had tremendous appeal. Besides, we had jointly made the CHOICE to emigrate to Canada.
So, for about a year, while waiting for a ship to bring us to Canada, my CHOICE was to learn the business of being an optician’s technician. I measured eye centres using the frame the client had chosen so that the lens would be centred with a simple ruler and to measure the length of sides needed. When the new lenses came back from the factory, I had to check the lens was in accord with the prescription using a focimeter, a device to measure the power and axis or axes of an optical lens, then shape them by grinding them on a wheel until they fitted the frame the customer had chosen.
Focimeter
I would then ensure by heating and bending the sides that they were a comfortable fit, a trick I have used many times since to adjust friends’ frames. I also learned to make sure the tiny screws did not come out by filling the holes with acetone (nail varnish if you don’t have the real stuff). We made our own acetone by melting down old frames. No, not metal ones!
I enjoyed being a technician and enjoyed the staff of Husband’s, except for the pompous optician who was the manager, a retired army Captain. The other two opticians were very nice and one would sometimes take me at the end of the day in her little Morris Minor and drop me off at my home. The sales girls were delightful: I well remember one, Shirley, a pretty dyed-yellowish blonde, frequently singing the popular song of the moment, Love and Marriage (go together like a horse and carriage), for she was going to be married soon after My Beloved and I had left for Canada. I remember leaving her a wedding present before we left.
Another CHOICE, whether to get the first available ship, which was from Liverpool, or the ship which would leave from home port, Southampton. The latter was obviously the one, since our friends could stay on the quayside and wave goodbye to us.
So, we arrive in Canada and take a train from Québec to Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, “Four days on a train?” mouths My Beloved, to astounded to voice the words.
CPR Station (now a splendid liquor store)
We had no jobs, but we had many friends I had made in my over one year of pilot training there. several years before. The CHOICE then was one of three:
Join the RCAF – they would have snapped me up as I had been ‘top gun’ in my course.
Join Max Ward’s bush pilots up in Edmonton and the North. Later he formed Wardair, subsequently WestJet, and I could have been a pilot for it.
Look for work in Moose Jaw.
My CHOICE was 3.
My Beloved found a position immediately in the local hospital, where, knowing she had been trained in England, a doctor snapped her up as a lab tech.
A fellow trainee pilot had married a local librarian and not returned to England and his wife’s grandfather knew the owner of the local radio station, “CHAB, Moose Jaw, eight hundred on your dial”, Syd Boyling. Syd, a great fellow, hired me as a newscaster to put together and read the news every half hour from six in the evening until midnight.
After Earl Barnholden fired me after just six weeks of newscasting for running the 1956 Hungarian revolution as my lead – to me that was important but Earl considered what the Women’s Auxiliary down the street were doing as most important – Syd called me in to his office and said, “I know you and Earl have had your differences, but I want you still; I would like you to become a producer.” Another CHOICE.
Well, the only ‘producer’ I had come across during my six weeks was a fellow named Lawton or Lawson, who used to come in at the end of the day and say he had produced three more ads, or however many he had produced that day. He meant he had been out selling ads to the local businesses. I had no intention of becoming an ad salesman, so I turned Syd down. Had I known then what I discovered later that Syd had meant me to produce programs, I might well have taken the job. How a different CHOICE there might have changed our lives!
Gee, this might have been me had I made a different CHOICE
Instead, I accepted a CHOICE Trev Seaborn, who ran one of the largest insurance agencies in the province, offered. That certainly set me on the track towards being an agent in Moose Jaw, and after a couple of years, a CHOICE to become an underwriter in, and a move to, Winnipeg and…………
As a liability and surety underwriter, I was privileged to analyse the books of construction companies for insurance and surety companies. One, BACM Industries, a family-owned company was on the cusp of becoming a very large international multi-faceted manufacturing and construction company. In fact, a couple of years later, it did become public and went on the New York stock exchange. As it turned out, I was the only person in the family’s trust, so I was allowed to go to the family’s head office to review the books, while the broker had to sit outside and wait.
Another couple of years and I left my job as underwriter with the General Agency, Osler, Hammond and Nanton, and the CHOICE was to join Prudential of England as an inspector. One week after joining the Pru, the Treasurer of BACM entered my office, shut the door and said, “I don’t know what you came to Prudential for in the way of remuneration, but we will double the salary and throw in a good car of your choice. Will you accept?” Yet one more CHOICE.
My Beloved and I chose a smashingly beautiful 1961 Pontiac Parisienne Hardtop – cream outside, scarlet leather inside. A great CHOICE and still one of, if not the, best CHOICE of cars we have made.
Just like our lovely car
Five kids later (our mutual CHOICE), BACM, having changed its name again, was bought by a company of the Belgian Royal family, became GenstarLimited, and we were moved to Montreal.
That time, we really had NO CHOICE.
Another CHOICE came when, in 1976 in the midst of separatism in Québec, Genstar moved its Head office to Vancouver and its Executive Office to San Francisco. I would have been moved to SF, but another CHOICE was made for me: I did not get along with the unimaginative Secretary of the company, so we came to a mutual parting of the ways. Otherwise known as being fired. Again.
After a couple of years working for a company as a consultant Risk Manager, a family conference had me opening our own Melanber Inc. That was a CHOICE we have never regretted.
One more CHOICE was to accept an offer of a Nova Scotia family business to come to Nova Scotia and help them. Another CHOICE we have never, no, not ever, had second thoughts about.
Was our CHOICE to retire? Not totally, as we still have one active client which seems to want to keep us. Also church and volunteer work have also been our CHOICE. We are constantly busy.
But not too busy to eat and have a good meal at home or at a restaurant, which inevitably leads to a CHOICE…………but NO CHOICE during CoVID-19, at least during the various lockdowns we have had and are experiencing now. We have ordered a few CHOICE take-outs over the past year and a bit. But that is not the same as going to a restaurant or having friends in for a meal.
And so my CHOICE today is to avoid the CoVID-19 issue and leave it for another post, meanwhile wishing you in the USA a Happy Memorial Weekend. And for the rest of us who had a long weekend last weekend, make a special Happy Weekend for yourselves. And, in the way of our former Premier, “Stay the blazes home and get vaccinated!”
Growing up in England, I was a cyclist, so much so that my Mother always said that if I could have ridden my bike upstairs to bed, I would have.
However, at age sixteen I got my driving licence and, in those days, that allowed me to drive by myself or take passengers with me. My Dad had purchased a 1934 Austin 7.
It was a neat little car which would do 50mph going downhill. After a while, I was allowed to drive it to school – while my Dad walked to school. But his school was not even a mile distant from home, whereas mine was some 5 or so miles. Note that I have been showing the speed and distance in miles, whereas I normally talk about such things in kilometres: that is because, I think using the statute system is more in accord with the time about which I am writing.
One big advantage of having the car at school was that in the lunch hour, I had time to drive over to My Beloved’s (Beryl, as she was then) school and meet her; even take a quick drive over to a common. And then get her and myself back to our respective schools in time and on time. That meant that I had not had time for eating my lunch, butt what did that matter? I was seeing the one I loved, even for brief minutes.
A much different use of the car was being able to get tickets to Wimbledon and take three friends with me to watch the tennis.
Another time, I took Bill (Musker), Allan (Driz), George (Bell), all sadly deceased, and Ken (Dommett) to Bournemouth, about 30 miles from my house to see an opera. We all loved music and this was just one of the trips, others to such as Drury Lane in London. Each drive was an exhilarating experience. The Austin 7 was not built for speed indeed, it’s average to get anywhere was between 35 and 40mph. So its centre of gravity did not have to be low. It wasn’t. it was somewhere up in the sunshine sliding roof. However, although designed for four passengers, we often had three in the back seat. This meant that they, back there, were jammed in. The time we drove to Bournemouth, on arrival at the door of the theatre, I will never forget the face of a policeman as he watched Ken jump out the passenger door and the three in the back climbing up and out of the roof. His face was classic incredulity.
On the way there, Ken was always in the passenger front seat, on going down a hill through the New Forest (a little steeper than the pic) at max speed and on seeing an approaching left bend, I told Ken to open the door and hang out to balance the C of G. Over time, he got quite good at it. (Remember, it was right hand drive.)
Another best friend, Michael (Ridges, whom I chose as my Best Man at our wedding), lived just a few minutes from me and our ‘Gang’ used to hang out there quite often. I well remember Mrs. (Betty) Ridges standing at the end of her driveway as I drove up and then proceeded to drive along the sidewalk chasing her son. She declared one day she was going to tell my parents what I was doing in the car. Mothers don’t know everything about their prodigy’s behaviour. She never did tell and she gave us as a wedding present, a great big bowl of beef drippings. On toast with Marmite I used to adore it and she knew only too well that I did. Those days are long gone of course. Nowadays, it’s salmon and salad for dinner.
So, yes, I did have a car in High School, or Grammar School, as we knew it. And it served me, let alone our family of Dad, Mum and me, very well.
It was the same car in which I had an accident years later, after I had returned from pilot training in Canada, and Beryl and I were going somewhere local in Southampton, when a dog jumped out in front of the car. I pulled sharply to the left, hit the curb and, as the C of G was so high, it tipped over onto my side of the car. I, stupidly, tried to put my arm out to stop it from tumbling to the ground, but the car got the better of me and trapped my arm beneath it, breaking it in the process. Several people arrived on the spot and lifted the car back upright. No damage except to my arm. Beryl was fine, despite the lack of seat belts then. I ended up at an RAF rehabilitation hospital, Hadley Hall. But all of that is another story.
My Beloved and I are well-known for our proclivity to dining out. But for 14 months of CoVID-19 we have been unable to do so. Until we got our first shots.
While we appreciate that the first shot does not provide total protection, it does provide much better than no immunisation, so when Karen said Dee was leaving for Ontario at the end of the month of April and were we up to a lunch to bid her farewell, My Beloved and I said, since we had the shots two weeks earlier, we were: with apprehension.
After anticipation lasting a couple of weeks and after due discussion as to whether Karen and Peter were going to walk to the restaurant or we would pick them up, Karen said, since you don’t know exactly where the Restaurante A Mano is, pick us up and we will walk back afterwards.
Well, Italian is not my first choice – or even my second or third – but since our guest of honour had requested it, Restaurante A Mano it was.
So, we picked up our friends and, after zipping out of their street, which means accelerating asap left across two lanes when there is a gap in the traffic into a, hopefully, empty lane, and after turning across in front of a cyclist and having an oncoming car trying to make a left turn across our bow in a traffic light intersection and having him honk at me – the cheek of it – we turned into the courtyard wherein is Restaurante A Mano and a zillion other restaurants and there, as Karen had predicted and as she now shouted, ‘There – there – at the end of those cars on the right – oh and there are two on the left!” – I pulled into the blue wheelchair parking space on the right. All safe and sound.
Now, the entrance to Restaurante A Mano does not open onto the courtyard, which maybe explains why there are no blue parking spaces near it, only those ‘over there on the right’. So, we hiked across the courtyard and up to Lower Water Street. To be fair, we found out after the meal that there is an exit onto the courtyard, which cuts off half a kilometre.
Excitement rose to My Beloved and me, along with greater apprehension than we would have thought necessary. Our minds, however, directed our feelings. So we sat at a very nice window table Karen had reserved. It was a gorgeous day and I could see all through the meal people enjoying themselves in a patio off another restaurant. Karen had originally said on hearing my initial apprehension, maybe we could sit in the patio at Restaurante A Mano. Apparently, they had not yet opened their patio. Maybe just as well, for it might have been too cool outside, the temperature being about 14C. Whatever, we had a lovely table with our lovely best friends. Awaiting the arrival of our guest, Dee.
Now, while being a bit of a linguist, my knowledge of Italian is limited to trying to figure out the Latin root of words. And knowing that left hand in Latin is that very sinister couple of words, sinister manus, I thought Restaurante probably meant Restaurant and A Mano very probably meant ‘by hand’. It does, but I also did my M-W (Merriam-Webster) search along with my friend Google Translate and found out that a mano, as an adjective, which it could be referring to the noun Restaurante, also means carry-on. Well, we were not going flying, so that rules that translation out and leaves the first translation. It’s a restaurant by hand, whatever you think that means.
Thank God Dee arrived. Not that we were not enjoying Karen and Peter’s company, but My Beloved and I were still feeling maybe a trifle uncomfortable and had not taken our masks off since sitting down.
We haven’t seen Dee since she arrived at our front door one day just before Christmas, when she backed away from us on our opening the door, but she had put a lovely bottle of Port and some daughter-made jam on the deck for us to pick up. She kept her distance, knowing we were being very CoVID-19 correct. What a friend!
So, it was good to see her again and her arrival quickly put a stop to any hesitations about taking masks off a tavola (at the table). My Italian is improving.
As the wine and the food arrived – and got consumed – any inhibitions about dining in a restaurant seemed to diminish and, eventually, disappear.
I recall that Karen and Peter shared a pizza. They had no inhibitions, having been to this restaurant a number of times before, even being known by the staff. Dee had some form of an insalata (my Italian broadening again). My Beloved and I shared a garlicky soft bread with a dip, while, simultaneously, she had calamaretti fritti – flash fried calamaretti served with lemon garlic aioli and my additional choice was the Crostini Trio – Goat cheese, honey, fig & pistachios – Gorgonzola, roasted pears, and mascarpone – Ricotta, basil pesto, pomodorini confit.
Pomodorini, you ask? So did I, my Latin being totally useless, since tomatoes of any sort, especially cherry tomatoes, which this word turns out to mean, had not been introduced to Europe until the early 16th century.
Well, it was, Italian or not, all exquisitely delicious.
However, My Beloved and I had not finished: we wanted, nay, needed, a desert. We shared a decadent Torta al Cioccolato e Arachidi – Chocolate cake with not one, but two layers of peanut butter icing, chocolate ganache, candied peanuts and we added a scoop of chocolate Gelato.
It was a wonderful re-introduction to living the way we like it. Thank you Dee, Karen and Peter for not only getting us back into the flow of things delectable, but for introducing us to another great restaurant.
The only issue from the lunch was that we came home and slept for over an hour. And later, I must admit to a little bit of nausea, which disappeared quickly, in the middle of the night. Food I am not used to and so rich.
So that was, as I said, our re-introduction to dining-out.
Our wedding anniversary was two days afterwards, on the 9th April, so I mooted to My Beloved that it might be an idea to dine out again. It did not take too much urging. Seems like our apprehension of a few weeks back was nowhere to be found. I had had a hankering for fish and chips for some weeks and this was the time to go for it.
Lefty’s. A family style restaurant (no Italian necessary) just ten minutes away. We checked if we needed a reservation, but, no, they do walk in or take outs.
On arrival, we were welcomed and shown to a booth immediately. Pinot Grigio for My Beloved and Malbec for me. Small glasses only. It did seem strange, however, to be back at one of our customary spots again after so many months.
Two pieces of beer-battered haddock and chips for me;
honey-garlic chicken wings for My Beloved.
In times past, we would have ordered garlic toast as an appetiser. Not nowadays.
So, we enjoyed this dinner and gave thanks for the fact that in Nova Scotia, people have been very good over the pandemic, resulting in relaxed regulations. Friends, Gloria and Ken, from the church came in while we were eating and were shown to an adjacent booth and on answering the question, we replied it was our anniversary dinner except for the lunch two days previously, it had been fourteen months since we last did this.
And then came the time for paying. I gave the server my card, only to have him return it, saying, it has all been taken care of by your friends in the next booth. Oh, how wonderful to have such friends. Bless them for their generosity and love.
So, getting back to dining out has been an adventure we have enjoyed with five great friends. We consider ourselves so lucky to have such friends.
One of the most beautiful qualities of true friendship is to understand and to be understood. Lucius Annaeus Seneca
From time to time... 