Neighbourhood Games

I was reading a post by one of my very favourite blogger friends, Lucille over at Useful or Beautiful, when I was struck with an idea for a little post of my own. She was writing about all the shoes she wore when she was a child growing up in England. She mentioned a pair of fabric party shoes that became worn out in one wearing due to the energetic nature of the party games: Squeak Piggy Squeak, Blind Man's Bluff, Oranges and Lemons, Musical Chairs and Musical Statues. I am old enough, and Anglified enough, to be familiar with a couple of the games she mentions playing in childhood. I am not going to write about my girlhood shoes, which, besides one pair of super-trendy white canvas Nike runners with the blue swoosh and my first pair of platform sandals, were unremarkable. I am going to write about the games we played in my neighbourhood because, friends, those were some very good times.

My neighbourhood on Silica Street was a lot like many other neighbourhoods in the world at that time in the century, I am sure; it was full of families. On a good night we could have fifteen kids playing outside after supper. The only reason to stay inside on a non-rainy night was a case of the flu or too much homework. The other kids we played with on those nights did not have to be necessarily approved of/interviewed by our parents. We did not even have to like each other all that much. The games we played demanded numbers to be successful and fun, and numbers we could provide simply by showing up. The sheer joy and enthusiasm we had for the games was generally enough to carry us through any personal conflicts with other kids.

In summer we played Hide and Seek or Sardines. In Hide and Seek, boundaries for hiding were agreed upon and one person who was 'it' counted to fifty before beginning to seek for the rest of us. The boundaries included anywhere within our block, including the alley. In Sardines, only one person hid somewhere within the boundaries and everyone else separated to look for them after counting to fifty. The hiding spot had to be large enough to accommodate each 'finder' who would join the 'hider' once he/she was found. We would be packed into the hiding space like sardines in a can, trying not to make any noise whatsoever, and the last person to find the 'hider' was 'it'. We also played a game called War, which involved painting a chalk circle on the street and planning various manouvers to take over portions of the circle. When fewer of us were available to play we relied upon Four Square, Hop Scotch and various skipping games. On summer days we played in the shady public wooded area on the north side of our street. We built treeforts which were taken down by the city only to be rebuilt by us at the first opportunity. During the fall we collected glossy brown horse chestnuts from the same wooded area and kept them in paper bags. Someone among us convinced her dad to drill holes in her chestnuts so she could make a necklace, but other than that, chestnuts were greatly averse to being made into things. We often threw them at each other instead, used them for made-up games, or when some of us were really bad, we threw them at passing cars from up in the canopy of the trees that overhung the street.

In winter, when the snow fell fast and deep the city closed Cedar Street, which was so steep drivers had to put their cars in the lowest gear to make the descent. Then, word would spread quickly and we would all jump into our snowsuits, boots, mittens and touques, grab our Crazy Carpets and go. Cedar Street was long and if we did not bail off our Crazy Carpets after the first long block we would have to climb up an extra-long way. By the end of the night, discarded, snow encrusted mittens and touques littered the sides of the street while we, red cheeked, hot and sweaty, climbed up the hill to race back down once more before we were called in by our parents to get ready for bed. When we got older we went further afield for tobogganing. Queen Elizabeth Park and Trafalgar Junior High had grassy slopes on which to sail down into the sports fields. The golf course way up at the top of town provided perfect tubing - people, including my elder teenaged siblings, drove up there with inner tubes and made wide tracks on the rolling slopes that seemed to go on for miles in the moonlight.

While my own children enjoyed playing outside daily with other children when they were small and we lived in a small resort community with other like-minded families, it took a little while before they found children to play with in our own neighbourhood in the town we currently live in. While we did see children riding bikes around our neighbourhood and were heartened when we saw groups playing road hockey or basketball in the park up the street, we could not help but wonder why our neighbourhood was not teeming with kids playing games of all sorts outside together. My children, however, played outside our house all the time and soon attracted a few others from the neighbourhood to play road hockey, ride around on bikes and skateboards, and play various games as well. Now that my children are grown, I still wonder, when I am out and about why I do not see more children out playing - school and organized sports are not the only places to learn social skills and fair play. A few years ago our neighbourhood school built a hill in the center of the fields and also more recently installed brand new playground equipment thanks to a large donation from NHL hockey players Henrik and Daniel Sedin. The Sedin twins have set up a fund to encourage families in small communities to play and exercise more. The hill and equipment both get a fair bit of use from young neighbourhood families, which is encouraging. Various movements, such as Bring Back Play, encouraging healthy, unscheduled play for kids are happening in Canada as well. We forty-somethings know what our nation's kids are missing in modern life and are trying to reinstate some kind of desire in families to get outside and play on a regular basis.

A friend of my sister's recently posted a photo on Facebook of their high school senior band enjoying a summer picnic at someone's lakeshore property some time around 1980. The photo included about twenty students. Not one teenager in the group lacked the appearance of great health and physical fitness. In fact, they looked like a bunch of young movie stars or professional athletes by today's standards. Unlike the kids of today, they had no Starbucks White Chocolate Mochas, Tim Horton's Ice Capps or Monster Energy Drinks to pile on empty calories back then. A sedentary lifestyle was unusual for a teenager and engaging in some risk-taking behaviours like cliff-jumping was the norm - at least where I grew up. Parents are fed so much fear these days about what 'could' happen to our children we are afraid to let them out of our sight. I am not saying it is easy for me to let my thirteen year old waif of a daughter walk downtown by herself, or ride her bike to the swimming pool alone. I have been fed the same fears for her safety, but I make myself let her go because she is learning to trust her instincts, to discover her own boundaries and get some exercise in the process. As a forty-something mom who values the outdoorsy, independent childhood of my own generation and the good seeds it sowed for a healthy adulthood, mentally, emotionally and physically, I owe her that much.

This is not my sister's band class. It is the cast of Freaks and Geeks, a
show my kids and I have watched and enjoyed. It is set in the 1980's and honestly
represents high school at that time, and to some extent modern times, with uncanny accuracy. 

A Writer's Daughter

My dad and me - taken in 1970 by Reg Feuz

Five years ago this month I started my Letters to the World blog. I barely knew what a blog was, except that my dad had started one and it was like a diary available to read for whomever could find it on the internet. I started it as a way to become more disciplined in my writing, and as a way to kick off my forties with something resembling creative productivity. I remember those first few posts. They were relatively brief, generally humourous, or trying to be, and a little bit earnest. As I sent them out into cyberspace with the click of a few keys on the keyboard, my heart fluttered, my stomach lurched, and I could not rest until someone responded to them in some way. The person I most wanted to hear from was my dad.

My dad would never say anything negative about my blog posts, but if he was silent about a particular post I would wonder how I had failed. I could not help it for in writing I believe he was my litmus test. If he wrote a response it was short, to the point, and always encouraging. Even if I received no other reaction from any other person I would be satisfied, and I believe a large part of my blog was written to him.

I remember when I was in college and struggling with an essay. After wrestling with my opening paragraph for a couple of hours at my bedroom desk I would go downstairs in search of some fresh point of view. My dad, usually reading in the living room if he was not doing dishes or writing in his basement den, would look up at me inquisitively as I sat down and exhaled a tell-tale sigh. I would talk about my current struggle, but instead of tackling it head on and in an obvious way, my dad would start to tell me a story, seemingly unrelated to my problem at hand. My dad had a lot of stories to tell, about his childhood living in different provinces across Canada during the Second World War, about his family's experiences on Lasqueti Island after the war, about his work as a surveyor for a BC Hydro project in his early twenties. Sometimes his stories grew tentacles and I would begin to absorb them rather than truly listen to them, but he would always circle back to the beginning and I would marvel at his ability to do so. After the story I would excuse myself and go back to my essay to find that the ideas and the words now flowed easily. I could not at the time figure out how he managed to help me clear my mind and set it going in the right direction, but I think I might know now. Through telling me an unrelated story he was not only giving my brain a break from the task at hand, but also helping me to think like a writer who was passionate about what I had to say on a particular subject, always keeping the different aspects of the essay in play until the end. I cannot say that my essays were all brilliant, but at least I would get through them and be somewhat satisfied with the results - all a student can hope for much of the time.

My dad had been a land surveyor and a school teacher, but as the youngest in the family I only remember him as a writer. He loved teaching but gave it up to write full time when I was five years old. By living with him I learned what it takes and what it means to be a writer. For Dad, technique was important of course but what was behind it mattered more - "The spirit of the thing" he liked to say. The spirit of the thing was what I believe he was hammering home to me through his storytelling when I was in college. High grades did not seem to impress him much. My being satisfied with what I had produced conceptually was much more important to him. I will admit I was puzzled by his approach, for back then I planned to be a career academic and viewed grades as a marker of my progress toward my goal. Perhaps he knew better and was pushing me on to a life beyond the analysis of other people's writing. In any case I am forever grateful to him. He challenged his children to think hard, to reason, and to never in any case, sell out on our gifts and talents. He was sometimes hard to live with, like many creative, passionate people uninterested in compromises, but I loved him immensely. In June of this year I went to visit him and we had a beautiful time together. He was very ill but we were able to talk and laugh a bit in the old way, and at times we were silent together. The morning I left we embraced tearfully and I told him I hoped it would not be too long before I could come and visit him again.

My dad died peacefully on the morning of August 26th, between nursing shifts and before the daily round of visits from my mother and other family members, at the hospital where he spent his last nine days on this earth. The news of his death did not come as a shock because I had been expecting it for some time, but nothing can completely prepare one for the loss of a parent, especially one who played such an important role in one's life and made such an impact. A large number of people, family and friends old and new, gathered last week to celebrate my dad's life. Plenty of laughter, some tears, and plenty of talking and visiting filled the few short days we had together. At times I imagined I could hear my dad's deep voice joining in the conversation with his usual gusto, telling a story from when he was young and healthy and full of vitality. I like to think of him as young again now that he is free from the encumbrance of illness and pain. I will continue to write with him in mind and hope that he is looking down on me as I type this, and as I adjust to my new reality without his strong physical presence in my life.

I will miss my dad's quick emailed responses to my posts, those little live connections with him that I have cherished over the past five years. He never held back from giving me the thumbs up if he thought I deserved it. I know I can carry on writing without his responses because he succeeded in setting me on the right track in my writing. I know when I have 'the spirit of the thing' because I can feel it in my gut.

Thank you, Dad. For everything you gave me, but mostly for your love - the true spirit of the thing.

Things I Wrote as a Kid

Recently, I discovered a CBC Radio show called Grown Ups Read Things They Wrote as Kids. I heard  the show for the first time a couple of weeks ago when, on a Saturday evening I was driving the ten minutes to the village where my husband works in order to pick him up. I left the radio on as I waited for him in the back parking lot of the hotel and laughed until the tears were rolling down my cheeks. I listened to the show again this past weekend and then, I had an idea. I have a lot of writing I did as a teenager and I thought perhaps I would share some of it. Of course, my idea of posting things I wrote as a kid won't have the same impact as if I were to read them out loud in front of a live audience like they do on the radio show, but my hope is that they will provide at least a little entertainment to the reader.

What I noticed about the people on the radio show was their laughter at their younger selves who wrote about fantasies of glory or teen angst or harboured resentment against the perceived unjust actions of their parents. Most of what they were reading out loud to the audience was never meant to be read by anyone else, and at the time of writing it they had been most serious. I think it is important to both laugh at our younger selves and also to honour them. When I read my diaries I laugh a lot but the feelings of the time do come back with the memories. I, like most teenagers felt intense joy, pain, confusion, and all the other more subtle emotions in between. Growing up was an often baffling experience. As I read the diaries I began at aged fifteen I realize I cared about five main things: my family, my friends, food, boys and dance, but not necessarily in that order.

Myself at 15, taken in the school courtyard

June 19th, 1985 
Hi. I did o.k. on my Math final. Tomorrow I have English. I'm not looking forward to it. I have nothing except Summer after 10:45 tomorrow. I can't wait. I don't believe it's finally here. I'm growing my nails, so far it's working. I'm glad! Toni and Val and I 'supposedly' studied today. Val is very 'trendy'. I have a nice tan! In John's letter yesterday, He called me 'Miss Popular.' I guess I'm liked by a lot of people but I wouldn't say 'Miss Popular' - sort of bitchy sounding. Mark lent me a tape of assorted artists from England. Here's some of the Weird names: Vice Squad, The Vibrators, Angelic Upstarts, Attila the Stockbroker, The Dead Kennedys, Hollywood Brats, Abrasive Wheels, English Dogs, U.K. Subs, Adicts,Cockney Rejects, Instant Agony, Major Accident, Pressure. WIERD!!! Anyways, now I'm listening to Limahl and then Don Henley. Well I should go and sleep! 
Bye, Rebecca (doodle of a heart)

June 20th, 1985
I had an English final. It was pretty easy. All my exams are finished. Summer is here and next year I'll be in Grade 11. Wierd!! Today, Toni, Tanja, Colin, and I went to my house and ate, to Toni's and ate. Tanja went home and me, Toni, Colin and Jen went to Colin's and ate. Then me and Jen sat outside her house and talked about Scott. I keep thinking he'll come here (Scott was a boy I met from another city). I miss him. I saw a Good Play on TV. John's birthday is on Sunday. (John was another boy I met at a youth function).
Love, Rebecca (doodle of a heart)

June 23rd, 1985
Well, today I went to a Youth Group picnic. It was fun but I got thrown in the lake and I also don't like organized activities like games. After the picnic I went to Sam our leader's house and she did a survey on my personality. I'm an ENFP - Extrovert (outgoing); Intuitive (go on hunches); Feeling (sensitive); Perceptive. It was a good evening. My knee really hurts right now so I have ice on it. I was talking to Sam and I said I sleep all bundled up sort of guarding myself. She asked me if I had a secret to guard. I said yes and I won't even tell you! Maybe someday but right now I'm just learning to trust a diary in the house of my family, o.k.? (I wish I could remember now what that secret was) I thought about John since it's his birthday today. My survey said I would go well with a mate who was stable or a mate with his head in the clouds and sort of scientific. John and Scott!!! Well I gotta go. 
Love, Reb (heart doodle)

Stay tuned for next week's entry in which I describe my knee surgery performed by a very handsome surgeon. If anyone out there would also like to post things they wrote as kids I would love to read them. I had to look up 'Limahl' because I couldn't for the life of me remember anything about them. Thankfully, Google delivered: Synth heavy 80's tune by Limahl I'm happy to report that my taste in music improved over the next few years.

Cheers,
Rebecca

Musing on Schooling

Sometimes I walk into a situation where someone is having a bad day and speaks before they have a chance to consider the impact of whatever is coming out of their mouth. One day not too long ago, I walked into a shop which I frequent. A mother and her daughter, who was dressed in pyjamas and a fluffy pink robe were purchasing some items at the till. I gave the little girl a knowing smile since my daughter had been similarly dressed that day for 'Pyjama Day' at the local elementary school. Every once in a while, the kids have a fun excuse to dress up in some kind of theme at school, and it had been entertaining to see so many kids and teachers similarly and ridiculously attired that morning.

When the pair had left the store and I was choosing my bunch of cilantro, I heard one of the women at the till ask the other why the girl had been in her pyjamas. The other woman suggested that perhaps the child was home schooled, therefore eliminating the need for proper clothing. The first woman practically shouted, (and remember, she works at this store) "If it were up to me I would BAN home schooling. They don't learn anything!"

I decided to tell the cashiers from my nearby position in the store that it was merely Pyjama Day at the local school. Moments later, the first cashier, looking angry, began to remove the packaging from a case of some product near to where I was choosing a can of black beans. I was this close to giving her a piece of my mind because I home schooled my children for four years. However I quelled my anger and restrained my strong desire to scold the cashier for being so narrow minded; I very rarely do give these people a piece of my mind - I usually go home and write about it instead.

Years ago, when we lived a forty five minute drive down a winding mountain road from any school, it did not make sense to drive my eldest to school for the two and a half hour daily Kindergarten class. The gas money required for the daily commute was deterrent enough and after a family friend suggested I home school, we decided to try it. For four years I taught my first three children and I still believe, to this day, that some of their later success in school could be attributed to the one-on-one they received in learning to read, to compute, to write, recite, and even to draw in their formative years. I also benefited from experiencing in an intimate way, their various styles of learning. Ian would understand a math concept before I had finished explaining it; Galen could memorize anything in record time and rarely forgot it even a month later. Emma I only had for Kindergarten, but she was never one to lag behind her brothers, and learned to read in Kindergarten from a handy book called Alphaphonics. Home schooling is certainly not for everyone, and it would not have been my first choice but for the simple logistical challenge of where we lived when our children were small; it ended up being the best of experiences for our family and brought my children and I much closer.

We made many friends in the town where we did our shopping, some of them home schooling families, some of them not. They all accepted us until one day when I said the children would be moving from the home into the one room school house at the lodge. By the end of my fourth year of teaching my children at home, there were enough school aged children at the lodge to qualify for a district funded teacher three days per week. My home schooling friends were not impressed that I would be handing my children over to the school system, but with a new baby at home, I was ready to move on, and I believe my children were, too. I explained that, while I valued the home schooling experience tremendously, my intention had always been for my children to progress to a school setting. I also knew in my heart that our days at the lodge were numbered, and the one room school option seemed like a great way to bridge the gap between home and wherever their next school would be. It was. My children had to learn to trust another adult with their education - Kim was an excellent teacher - and to accommodate and cooperate with other children in the class, even though they all knew each other like family.

When we moved here in March of 2003, and my children entered the local elementary school, I will admit there was a major adjustment period. Ian punched someone in the nose on his first day because the kid called him a 'motherf***er', and my son, not used to that sort of language in his schoolmates, took offense. (I did not hear about the incident for years, however. The very understanding principal let Ian off with a warning and did not call home.) Galen was completely overwhelmed with the behavior of the other children and begged me to keep him at home for the remainder of his grade three year (which I did most Friday afternoons), and Emma merely said, when asked how school was, "It's pretty much the same, Mommy, just louder." Over time, and with much coaching from their teachers and principal, and from us at home, the kids adjusted and even began to thrive. I will always say that while home schooling can give children an excellent academic education and an enriching family life, public school teaches them to get along with all sorts of characters, even the worst sorts, and find room to be generous to them while setting boundaries socially; both are important for the well-rounded education of the whole person, as long as the child is supported and feels safe in whatever school environment is chosen for them.

All in all, I think what I would like to have said to the cashier, is that the great thing about schooling these days is that there are so many options for learning which were not available when we were children. When I was home schooling my children my mother recalled how unhappy I had been in elementary school. "You would have been the perfect candidate for home schooling, Rebecca," she said. "But such a thing did not really exist back then and never entered my head as a possiblilty." Now, with choices, we can give our children the type of education that suits their style of learning and the life of our families.

An Old Friend Passes Away

A view down the lake of our hometown

I was the happy but sometimes bewildered youngest child of six siblings. We were one of Nelson's many big Catholic families. Big families were not at all uncommon back then. Big families tended to bring up a lot of strong characters and my family was no different. It took me a long time to find my footing in the family and in life really, beyond being 'the baby', and I remember well the people who helped me along the way to find out where I fit in.

One of those people was a handsome boy my age, named Rodi. He came from an Italian family that lived up the street and around the bend from us. I had to pass his house every time I walked to Gyro Park where the outdoor pool was. I hadn't gone to elementary school with him, but I knew his family from church. Rodi had dark skin, dark hair, and a beautiful smile. He had time to say hello, and he did every time he saw me go by. He was often outside washing the family car, or mowing the lawn in front of his parents' long, low house which was perched on the top of a cliff and so had a beautiful view down the lake. He had a sweet sister named Deanna, who was friends with one of my older sisters, and his parents were some of the friendliest people in the neighbourhood. When his father spoke it was with a smooth, but strong Italian accent and I would find myself, with my musical ear, answering his questions with a parrotted accent as well. I couldn't help it.

As I grew from a rather tomboyish childhood into girlhood, I was unsure of myself, as I'm sure so many girls of that age are. I was often paired up with the fifth child in my family, my brother Stephen, so I knew about cars and tree forts, how to play gin rummy and be smothered by a pillow. I was flat chested, skinny, with straight, fine hair and almond shaped brown eyes. I didn't feel very much like a girl, but the fact of the matter was, I would have to face it sooner or later.

When I was about twelve, I would walk by Rodi's house, and I would find myself looking for him. He would often call me over and we would just stand there talking as the minutes ticked on. I don't remember what we  talked about, but spending those times with him made me feel good. Just the way he talked to me made me feel, above anything, like a normal girl - a girl who was comfortable talking to a nice, cute boy, and nothing more. But more importantly, nothing less. He didn't tease me like my brothers did (endlessly, but I credit them for giving me a sense of humour), or act stupidly like some of the neighbourhood boys, he just talked to me in an encouraging way. He was a very relaxed person and I just felt completely clear-headed and at ease with him. As I grew up into my teen years, we continued to wave to each other as I walked by - he was often working on his own car by then. One day I stopped to talk to him and teased him about a girl we both knew who was well-endowed. "Actually," he said, giving me a sly grin, "I'm more of a leg man."

When I was in Nelson this summer my mom told me that Rodi had been very ill and in the hospital for a long time. His condition was serious. Yesterday, via that good old fashioned method, Facebook, I found out he had passed away. I had not seen Rodi in years, but I knew that he had been a husband and a father, and I grieved for the whole family.

It is strange when someone you grew up with, someone you were a child with, dies. We have lost several schoolmates over the years. How short this life is, yet when you think about it, how full the years can seem, how thick the memories. I once had a friend named Rodi. I thank him for that.

Rest in Peace, Rodi.

A Christmas Carol Day

I did not want to go with the school choir on their day tour of senior's care homes. I did not. I was tired and had a list of chores and errands to do before hosting Saturday evening's dinner party. The acappella group I sing with had worked hard for weeks to prepare for our own performance at the previous evening's choral festival. Our performance had gone well, but all during the night, my mind had sung our carol over and over without my permission:

Gaudete! Gaudete Christus est natus
Ex Maria, virgine. Gaudete!

That is always the way after a performance. Nevertheless, I had woken up feeling like something the cat dragged in. Ugh.

I had told my daughter's music teacher that I would come along on the tour only if not enough parents stepped forward, that I was really busy. She phoned me the day before the tour and asked me to come. I couldn't say no. The next day, Katie and I got up a bit earlier than usual, made our lunches for the day, and packed our bags with some activities to do on the bus between care homes. When we arrived at the school's music room we learned there had been a mix-up with the buses so we would have to walk to our first care home. It was a sunny, windless, brilliant day with frost on the rooftops and lawns, so I welcomed the walk of several blocks, and I think it was a good way to start the day for all the children, too.  With one of the parents carrying the keyboard, we paraded down the street in a long, jolly line. The first care home was brand new and quite elegant with chandeliers and Victorian furniture, high ceilings, sweeping staircases and lush carpeting. The choir performed a half hour set for a large group of residents in varying states of awareness and several cheerful and attentive staff members, and then it was time to leave for the next town. A bus had appeared out of thin air, it seemed, and we were off.

We visited three more care homes that day, none as fancy as the first. The children had been informed of the kind of audience they could expect, and were asked, instead of shaking hands with the seniors who were vulnerable to the kind of germs children are bound to carry, to go around and wish them a good day and a Merry Christmas after the set of carols. The choir did their best, but by the third care home the kids were visibly drooping. The rooms were overly warm, the air stuffy and they had sung the same set of songs all morning. The other parents and I made hand signals from the back of the room in an effort to encourage the kids to sing out, and at least cover their mouths when they yawned. Fortunately, the next item on the iternarary was lunch and a runaround in a nearby playground, which was most welcome for all of us.

I was moved several times that day by the reaction of many of the elderly audience members. While most of them merely listened or slept through the performance, there would always be a few singing along, usually quietly, but with sweet enjoyment. Most of the songs the choir sang were fairly typical choral arrangements of songs written for school choirs and not immediately recognizable to most people, but there were a few familiar verses like The First Noel, which the director would invite the seniors to sing. On the bus between care homes, the kids would belt out Santa Clause is Coming to Town, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Jingle Bells, and all those old favourites, but by the third care home their enthusiasm was waning for their prescribed set list. Another mom suggested to me that maybe the choir should mix in some fun carols with their set list. She must have said something to the choir director, too, because that is exactly what they did. The kids were delighted to mix up their last set with some new/old songs, and the seniors loved it, too. I particularly recall two elderly residents, who sang at the top of their voices whenever something familiar was sung by the choir. One was a lady who would sing loudly in between efforts to attract the attention of a rather severe looking care aide who would instruct her to 'sit down!', and the other was a tall gentleman in a reclining wheel chair. With his head dropped down on his chest and his eyes closed, he sang with the voice of someone much younger. Even during the unfamiliar songs he would find a single, repeated word and sing that word out whenever it came up. It was hard not to develop a few tears at such an endearing sight, and I found I was glad I had put aside my relentless to-do list and come.

There was something Dickensian about touring those care homes and singing Christmas carols (the parents sang too) for the elderly and infirm. I sensed a warning to look after myself and my family well, to never forget that I, and my husband too, would eventually grow old and dependant upon others. I thought how important it was to treat others as I wished to be treated, and to always remind my children to be kind, caring, generous, tolerant and considerate of others. I am hardly an Ebenezer Scrooge, but I can learn, as he did, and pledge to "honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach."

"God Bless Us, Every One!"

The above photo was found at Victorian-Era.org.

Opening a Can of Worms...and not for Fishing

There is a family joke about me when I began Kindergarten. My teacher, Mrs. Campbell, who had taught Kindergarten to, I believe, all of my five older siblings, took my mother aside after the first day. "Mrs. Lamb, you did very well with all of your other children in preparing them for Kindergarten. They were independant and capable, but you've missed the boat with this one." Apparently, although I arrived at Kindergarten already knowing how to read, when it was time to go outside I had stood with my coat in one hand and my shoes in the other, waiting for the servants to put them on me. I think my mother was aghast, and I was taught to tie my shoes post-haste, or at least buckle them by myself.

After school, I would meet my mother down at the corner of Ward and Baker streets where the buses were waiting. She often wore her beautiful red coat with the black frog buttons, her long, dark hair pulled back in a barette and I could always spot her from far away. Sometimes we rode the bus home together, and sometimes she took me for a treat at the Woolworth counter. Other times she would take me to visit the nuns up the hill at the convent - they always had good cookies, or to visit one of her interesting artist friends. Sometimes she had her bicycle with her and would 'race' the bus home. I only had to go to school for half the day, but truly, I think it was enough for me. I don't remember making a fuss about going to Kindergarten where we acted out The Three Billy Goats Gruff and spent 'quiet time' on bits of carpet samples, but I treasured the afternoon time alone with my mother too much not to look forward to it. My wonderful, noisy crowd of siblings would be home soon enough, and often my parents were out in the evenings at play rehearsals or choir practise. Those evenings I would be put to bed by one of my sisters or one of the university students who boarded with us in our large rented house by the lakeshore.

These memories came to the surface the other day when I had walked with my youngest daughter, who is turning ten soon, to school. This fall, for the first time in this corner of Canada, five-year olds must go to school for the full day. It is mandatory and legislated by the government. The official reason for all-day Kindergarten is that too many children are arriving at Kindergarten without even the basics of numeracy or literacy, not to mention the social skills necessary to function in a crowd of eighteen children. The unofficial reason seems to me to be an answer to the inconvenience that half days give for working parents, which is fair enough in this day and age, I suppose. Somehow, though, the idea of full day Kindergarten for all these tiny little urchins makes me sad.

My youngest child was the first of my children to go to Kindergarten in a public school. The others were taught by me at home. She went for the mornings, and a couple of days per week, when I picked her up, I brought home her friend Simon with us. Simon's mother is a teacher at our school and his father is a farmer who needed some regular afternoons to get his chores done without a five year old 'helper'. Simon and Katie would eat their lunch at our table and then spend the afternoon playing games together, which often invoved both our collection of small plastic dinosaurs and our doll house, reading with me, and if the weather was fine, going to the park. Simon's parents paid me to look after him, but sometimes I thought I should pay them for supplying Katie with such a fine playmate. That being said, about once a week, Katie would ask, "Mommy, when can we have a you-and-me day?" and then she and I would hatch a plan for an outing or an activity together one afternoon when her brothers and sister were at school and Simon was at home helping his dad with the vacuuming.

I do realize that children are incredibly adaptive creatures. Is full day Kindergarten really the end of the world? Probably not, and some will handle the days packed with prescribed learning outcomes very well, but I can think of two of my own children who would have found the long days very hard. My second son would have come home completly tied in knots after a full day of trying to 'get along well with others', and Katie, who is incredibly sensitive and finds it hard to keep up with the energy of the class even now, would have missed me too much. She and Simon may have been happy enough ignoring me as they played, but they both knew I was there and were content in the knowledge that I would basically leave them be, until they needed a snack or asked for 'book time' as we called it, while they got on with the business of being children.

I suppose what I am trying to say is that children grow up so fast as it is. Perhaps, rather than farming children out into the school system full time in Kindergarten, we should be supporting parents to stay at home, read to them, let them play, take them outside, and build a stronger parent-child bond. The numeracy and literacy will come soon enough if the schools are allowed to do their job properly. If this nineteenth day of the March on Wall Street proves anything, it is that our society needs to do a much better job of prioritizing what really matters in life. This endless drive toward owning and consuming, which then causing a domino effect, creates an economic environment in which it is expected that both parents will work outside the home or that single parents will hold down two or more jobs, leaves the schools to deal with the fallout. My heart goes out to all the people camping on Wall Street, and those who are going to gather at the steps of the Vancouver Art Gallery on October 15, as well as in other locations around North America. They say 'enough is enough' and for the sake of our children, I say 'hear hear'.

A City Transformed





My parents met in the late 1950's in Vancouver at the University of British Columbia, and even though they had left the city long before I was born, they maintained a strong connection to it and thought they may retire there one day.  Both sets of grandparents lived near Vancouver and any holiday visits were spent exploring the beautiful city on Burrard Inlet. 

The Vancouver of my parents' day was very different from the Vancouver of today.  Back then it was a big town full of bridges they talked about walking across late at night without reservation, a town full of culture and buzzing with activity, but with an expansive sense of space and community as well. I had a taste of that Vancouver on several occasions during my childhood, but even I, at the tender age of sixteen, sensed the city would never be same after Expo 86. 

At sixteen I had been invited to join TheatrePeace, an existing teen theatre group that was to travel to Vancouver on two occasions to perform a play written by the group of kids from the Kootenay area where I was from.  Four of the original writer/performers had moved away and I was one of the newbies who was asked to fill their shoes.  The play was a comedic take on the hot-button issues surrounding Ronald Reagan's 'Star Wars' policies of the Cold War era, and the question of peace in general.  We held regular rehearsals up at the Student Union Building of the former David Thompson University campus in Nelson with two formidable women as our directors.  In late spring of 1986 we travelled to the central Kootenays to audition to perform in the British Columbia Pavilion at Expo 86.  We were accepted and a short time later we were off to spend a week performing our play for the world.

I remember watching Prince Charles and Princess Diana, with a huge crowd of spectators looking on, open Expo 86 on television in May of that year and hearing about all the concerts and performers who would be on stage every night of Expo, Annie Lennox and Julian Lennon among them.  The theme of Expo 86 was 'Transportation and Communication,' which frankly didn't capture my imagination at the time, although when I arrived at the site and spent my free time visiting pavillions with my theatre group friends, I became utterly fascinated by the imaginative installations by many of the countries represented;  visitors to the Switzerland Pavilion, for example, were greeted by a 25-metre-high watch. At that time, the Swiss made Swatch watch was the must-have accessory and I bought a bright blue one.  Once inside, exhibits included a diorama of the longest tunnels in the world. Built in the 19th Century, Switzerland's Alpine railway opened a much needed route between northern and southern Europe.  (The Swiss Pavillion also had a cool game to play called Jollyball).  I was equally fascinated by the thousands of daily visitors to the exposition.  I came from a small town and had never seen anything like the crowds of people lining up to visit the pavillions.

The giant Swatch

 May 2nd marked the 25th anniversary of the opening of Expo 86; I was reminded of the fact when my husband and I were dining last week at our favourite east Vancouver pizzaria, Lombardo's, and our waitress gave me a little questionnaire to fill out.  Lombardo's is also making the most out of their own 25th anniversary by having a little contest:  they asked customers what we were doing twenty five years ago.  When I saw the question I immediately thought of my time spent at Expo. 

The Expo 86 site was a former industrial wasteland on the waterfront. It has since been home to the trendy False Creek neighbourhood and Concord Place.  I remember busing around Vancouver with my friend and theatre mate Molly.  It seemed that everything was under construction.  The city had finished the first line of its light rail transit, SkyTrain in time for Expo.  Condos were sprouting up everwhere and the roads were lined with brightly coloured temporary fencing guarding the construction zones.  Molly and I were billeted at the home of some family friends of hers.  We came and went as we pleased, taking the last bus home at 11 pm one night and receiving a scolding.  Our host family may have worried about us, but we felt perfectly comfortable navigating our way through the city independantly. There were still hippies in the Kitsilano district then, occupying funky, run down Victorian houses, which are now all restored and selling for a million dollars each. Kids in studded leather jackets, Doc Martens boots and red mohawk hairdos still hung around the fountain downtown near the Hudson's Bay department Store back then, and though Molly and I were slightly less exoticly dressed, we felt at home and completely at liberty.

Bill Bennett, who was British Columbia's premier at the time was quoted in a CBC.ca article yesterday. "We all grew together. Business got better, people were having fun, but they were also making more money."

And according to Darcy Rezak, who was on the Vancouver Board of Trade during Expo, Expo also changed physical aspects of the city: "The SkyTrain, infrastructure, port facilities, the cruise ship business came hard on the heels of Expo," Rezak said. "So, a terrific transformation."

I was there when it was happening, but Expo 86 was just another teenage adventure for me. In fact, I went on to write a rather scathing speech about the exposition for a French language competition because I had heard about the one thousand downtown eastside residents who had been made homeless by the new construction.  Now, however, I look back and think the growth of Vancouver was bound to happen, and Expo 86, just like the Vancouver 2010 Olympics was a reason to build some needed infrastructure for the growing city.

Although they still love the city where they met, my parents never did retire to Vancouver.

The top photo is of a Belgian bumper sticker from Expo, which I found online.  I remember seeing that picture at Expo.



Back to School Blues or the Halleluia Chorus?

I know it's time for 'back to school' when my eldest daughter starts pacing the kitchen with heavy steps.  She can only take so much easy living before she senses an innate need to get back to work.  Even though she said she was ambivalent about returning to school, especially the social side of things, she admitted she was officially bored and needed more to do with her days, not to mention her mind.  She said she was even looking forward to doing homework. 

My younger daughter generally greets the annual onset of a new school year with worried groans and a furrowed brow, but this year she seems to be adapting to the idea much more easily.  Grade four seems quite an attractive idea so far, for now she is one of the 'big kids' in the 'intermediate end' of the school.  She hasn't yet asked me what I'm going to do all day without her.

My eldest is graduating from high school this year and so he is feeling 'top of the world' and can begin counting down the days.  Graduation is a big deal here. We parents must soon attend 'grad' meetings and volunteer for grad fundraisers.  There are scholarships to apply for, college applications to wade through, etc.  I'm glad I don't have a girl graduating this year, though.  The boys can rent a tuxedo for the elaborate ceremonies, but the girls often buy expensive ball gowns a la Barbie they'll never wear again.  My thirteen year old daughter is already joking about making a gown out of coloured duct tape like the girl we read about in the newspaper.  I'm all for that.

My younger son is in his second to last year of high school, and seems ready to face the year now that the light at the end of the tunnel that is public education is growing ever brighter.  He's happy to get back to violin lessons and orchestra practise, too.  He was even heard to say, "I don't know why, but I just feel like this is going to be a good year." 

As for me, after a whirlwind summer of working, travelling, visiting, camping, and general chaos, I find myself euphoric to have my first quiet day at home - alone.  I see stretched before me six blissful hours of listening to nothing but quiet music or the ticking of the kitchen clock while I go about my work.  I love my children, and it is great to be surrounded by them during the holidays, by their laughter and their jokes, their ideals and their energy, but there comes a time when I begin to long for an hour or two of the stillness and solitude that September brings.  By spring I will long for their presence again as I begin to feel something akin to lonesomeness by then, but for now.....ahhhhhhhh! 

Last year, at a writing workshop, I wrote a little piece about a girl named Zoe and the route she and her friends take to school every day.  Incidentally, it is much the same route my friends and I walked to our high school in Nelson back in the mid 1980's.  Imagine that!

                                                                     Zoe's Way

Zoe walks to the high school every day with friends - sometimes one and sometimes a broken line of five or more stretched across Panorama road.  Mrs. Debiasio once told her she loved to watch them pass by her house just to see what they were wearing.  In the months of September and June when the mountain mornings are chilly the girls wear coats and sweaters and then carry them home slung on their backs like donkey's burdens in the hot dusty afternoons.

The girls climb up the black-railed steps through the wood where Zoe can still smell the ghost of the garbage bag full of moldering, dank-smelling Playboy magazines they found years ago, up past the hospital with its candy-striped blondes who, in summer, sell them Jelly Tots and melt-in-your-mouth chocolate Rosebuds.  They dip down into a straight stretch with a view - a view so much a part of them they acknowledge it with a mere glance but breathe it in all the same - of a long, narrow west arm of a lake straddled by an orange bridge and surrounded by rising, blue mountains shaped like sleeping elephants.  The girls meet more girls and now some boys.  Sometimes they link arms and chant, "Lions, tigers, and bears, oh my!" with synchronized step-hop-steps.

In winter, Zoe doesn't care enough about looking cool to risk catching her death on the mile-long walk with glacial lake-born winds biting and clawing at her face.  With a toque, scarf up to her eyes, snow pants, ski jacket, boots, she is comfortable.  But when she gets to her locker she stuffs all the outer wear in.  Out of her backpack come snakeskin shoes and the royal blue beret she bought in Vancouver with her babysitting money.  She is already wearing the menswear black blazer - the sleeves and collar turned up - that plays host to the button collection with its names of punk bands, clever remarks, and favourite causes: one of them a green stop sign with 'Stop Clearcuts' in the middle. 

When they arrive at the school, a rectangular compound set in a hollow in the hillside, the girls go their separate ways to their lockers.  Things are different here in these hallways, narrower somehow.  Zoe braces herself for the daily dose of the good, the bad, and the ugly that is high school, but somewhere deep down inside she knows:  not everyone gets to walk to school.

The photo is of my hometown of Nelson in the fall, my favourite time of year growing up, when the hillsides are painted with vibrant reds, golds and oranges.