Friday, 24 January 2014
Trudy
Trudy could have walked straight off the pages of J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan. She was to us kids the epitome of a nana dog, at least to me. While nana was portrayed as a Saint Bernard, Trudy was a fire red cockier spaniel with liquid chocolate eyes and a penchant for following us me every where. This was back in the days when dogs had the roam of the neighbourhood.
Trudy was quite fond of hunting rodents in fields of hay outside our house. Sometimes, I helped flipping over old piles of woods while Trudy sniffed excitedly, hoping I'd flush out a mouse or perhaps a rat. It is probably a good thing we were never successful in this game as I'd have been horrified if Trudy had snared a mouse.
When Trudy did capture something, it had to be rescued. Such was the case of the mole, that sightless had probably stumbled blindly into Trudy's path. Trudy was victorious, at last to catch something. Slapping her dog dish down on top of it to protect it, I deprived her of her bounty.
I was a committed animal lover and that included moles. Trudy readily forgave me.
When I was traipsing about the hay fields that towered over my head, Trudy was more often than not right behind me snort and snuffling in the long grass hunting insects and rodents while I amused myself hunting grasshoppers and lady bugs. I loved to catch a lady bug and then as a magnanimous gesture sing the song: "Lady bug, lady bug, fly away home. Your house is on fire and your children alone." It distressed me to no end to think of her poor babies alone. Every lady bug was presumed to be a mother with children alone.
Trudy was a slightly squashed dog, Mom attributed this to her being run over by a car at some point in her life. Whatever happened, nothing held Trudy back. Trudy was with us until she was 16 years of age, the same age I was.
When I was 5 exploring the fields, Trudy would have been in the prime of her life.
Trudy was quite fond of hunting rodents in fields of hay outside our house. Sometimes, I helped flipping over old piles of woods while Trudy sniffed excitedly, hoping I'd flush out a mouse or perhaps a rat. It is probably a good thing we were never successful in this game as I'd have been horrified if Trudy had snared a mouse.
When Trudy did capture something, it had to be rescued. Such was the case of the mole, that sightless had probably stumbled blindly into Trudy's path. Trudy was victorious, at last to catch something. Slapping her dog dish down on top of it to protect it, I deprived her of her bounty.
I was a committed animal lover and that included moles. Trudy readily forgave me.
When I was traipsing about the hay fields that towered over my head, Trudy was more often than not right behind me snort and snuffling in the long grass hunting insects and rodents while I amused myself hunting grasshoppers and lady bugs. I loved to catch a lady bug and then as a magnanimous gesture sing the song: "Lady bug, lady bug, fly away home. Your house is on fire and your children alone." It distressed me to no end to think of her poor babies alone. Every lady bug was presumed to be a mother with children alone.
Trudy was a slightly squashed dog, Mom attributed this to her being run over by a car at some point in her life. Whatever happened, nothing held Trudy back. Trudy was with us until she was 16 years of age, the same age I was.
When I was 5 exploring the fields, Trudy would have been in the prime of her life.
Thursday, 23 January 2014
Throw the Ball
My Dad was always a sports nut. I always knew it would have thrilled him if I could throw a ball well or kick a soccer ball well, if I could do anything sporty well. I think I was good in badminton, least wise I fancied I had a pretty wicked back hand. Practising with a lefty will give you a good backhand and my practise partner, Gene was a lefty.
My Dad taught badminton in the gym at William Beagle Junior High for the badminton club I think it was. Gene and I were the only kids, so he set us to practising with each other. Gene was a nice enough kid, with dark wavy chin length hair.
I was tall for my age and had the same muscular physique my Mom did, but I was shy, awkward and though I hid it well, I think, had terrible performance anxiety. I wanted more than anything for my parents to think I was good at something. I could sketch, cartoon, write (I just wasn't a very good editor).
Every Spring I would coax my Dad out to play catch with me, determined to impress him. It always hurt really bad, Dad said I was just breaking in my arm and that it would go away after a while. It didn't, I kept waiting for it to go away. The reason it didn't was I had tears in my shoulder and calcium deposits from the repeat injuries.
My Dad taught badminton in the gym at William Beagle Junior High for the badminton club I think it was. Gene and I were the only kids, so he set us to practising with each other. Gene was a nice enough kid, with dark wavy chin length hair.
I was tall for my age and had the same muscular physique my Mom did, but I was shy, awkward and though I hid it well, I think, had terrible performance anxiety. I wanted more than anything for my parents to think I was good at something. I could sketch, cartoon, write (I just wasn't a very good editor).
Every Spring I would coax my Dad out to play catch with me, determined to impress him. It always hurt really bad, Dad said I was just breaking in my arm and that it would go away after a while. It didn't, I kept waiting for it to go away. The reason it didn't was I had tears in my shoulder and calcium deposits from the repeat injuries.
It was the Summer of 1967. The heat hung heavily in the air. The sun was high in the August sky and until I had kids and created new memories with them, it would be amongst the fondest memories I had.
The sweet aroma of fields of ripening hay perfumed the air. Dad had set up the little rectangular swimming pool in the backyard of the little three bedroom farm house. If you looked at the farm house up close, it seemed to twinkle in the mid day sun. The myriad of shards of brightly coloured glass that studded the stuccoed exterior, looked like jewels and set my young imagination a fire.
Dad was sprawled, convulsing with laughter in the pool with us kids as we took turns splashing each other, exhilarated by the cooling water that quickly evaporated on our sun scorched a and tanned limbs. Sun burns back then weren't feared the way they are now a days. A good sun burn back then was something to brag about, proof that you were a tough kid and though it itched when it peels it was better than peeling dried Le Pages glue off your fingers!
To me that little farm house would always be know simply as 'the Old House'.
There was something special about the Old House. Perhaps it was the expanse of property that encompassed it, or the laying hens that I quickly named and differentiated between. In all likely hood it was the simplicity of life then. Financial stress had not yet begun to take its toll, nor that the parenthood or that of shift work.
My parents were still in the early years of their marriage with active social lives and interests. Most of all, they were still shiny and new to one another, basking in the new years of coupledom and family. There were Lion's Club dinner and meetings. There were card nights, badminton, family gatherings and parties. They still had lives of their own and it is when I remember them to be the happiest.
The Old House was a wonderful place for a little girl who had been brought up to love nature. I learned to love nature camping and leaning against my Dad's chest as he read me the tales of Thorton W. Burgess about Reddy the Fox and Peter Cotton Tail. I loved the stories, I loved the sketches and I loved the animals in the stories. I loved the way my Dad read those stories.
Mom baked homemade bread from time to time. There were fresh eggs for breakfast. Did you know that the oats we fed the chicken were actually pretty tasty? Mom made her own jams and jellies. Mom made a lot things back then, she as a fantastic baker. I inherited Mom early tendencies to over cook vegetables until a friend, Shelley put me straight on the art of cooking vegetable. They should be somewhat firm, not mushy and always bright in colour.
I loved to help Mom cook and bake, but I think she found me more of a nuisance than not. Mom was always a little short on patience and didn't quite no what to do with us kids, especially a frisky little girl child who liked to sing and dance and babble on excitedly. Those were the days of all the Shirley Temple re-runs on t.v. and Mom was quite regularly subjected to my energetic and amateurish attempts at tap dancing.
When you look back on your childhood, as I do now you realise why children seldom remember much about their parents from those days. Parents are fixtures. There to provide the necessities, to hold you when you cry, comfort you when you are sick and curb your imperfections and to try and shape into being a decent human being one day. As parents we put so much work into our children's early years, years that we will remember and they as children will forget.
I remember Mom in her rollers. I remember watching Mom struggling to use an old roller washer. I remember watching Mom cooking and baking. I remember watching the fruit juice that would become jelly ooze through the cheese cloth bag. I remember Mom in the garden, planting and weeding. I remember Mom smoking, looking unhappy and pensive when she was alone with us kids. I remember Mom looking beautiful when she was all dressed up to go out to a Lion's Club dance with Dad looking oh so handsome in his suit.
Ironically, the years our children will most remember are the angst filled years of their teens. The years of feeling, clumsy, inadequate and awkward as we move from the carefree and energetic years of our childhood towards adulthood. The pivotal years. When we as parents go from being main characters in our children's lives to bit players and a steady stream of teen peers usurp our roles bringing influences, many of which we will never know of and some only many years later. Some of those teen peers will become like family, others we will keep hopefully at arms length hoping they will detach and move on, others we will accept because they are our children's choices.
I can't imagine what life as like for my parent's generation. The more I have heard of what it was like in the generations before mine, I more thankful I am that I never had to live in the times previous generations did. My parents came from a generation where unwed mothers brought shame, illegitimate children were given up for adoption, recalcitrant children sent off to reformatories and divorced women branded immoral or husband stealer's. A man's house was his castle and what he did in it, was nobodies business. They were brutal times, somewhat less than times previous.
The sweet aroma of fields of ripening hay perfumed the air. Dad had set up the little rectangular swimming pool in the backyard of the little three bedroom farm house. If you looked at the farm house up close, it seemed to twinkle in the mid day sun. The myriad of shards of brightly coloured glass that studded the stuccoed exterior, looked like jewels and set my young imagination a fire.
Dad was sprawled, convulsing with laughter in the pool with us kids as we took turns splashing each other, exhilarated by the cooling water that quickly evaporated on our sun scorched a and tanned limbs. Sun burns back then weren't feared the way they are now a days. A good sun burn back then was something to brag about, proof that you were a tough kid and though it itched when it peels it was better than peeling dried Le Pages glue off your fingers!
To me that little farm house would always be know simply as 'the Old House'.
There was something special about the Old House. Perhaps it was the expanse of property that encompassed it, or the laying hens that I quickly named and differentiated between. In all likely hood it was the simplicity of life then. Financial stress had not yet begun to take its toll, nor that the parenthood or that of shift work.
My parents were still in the early years of their marriage with active social lives and interests. Most of all, they were still shiny and new to one another, basking in the new years of coupledom and family. There were Lion's Club dinner and meetings. There were card nights, badminton, family gatherings and parties. They still had lives of their own and it is when I remember them to be the happiest.
The Old House was a wonderful place for a little girl who had been brought up to love nature. I learned to love nature camping and leaning against my Dad's chest as he read me the tales of Thorton W. Burgess about Reddy the Fox and Peter Cotton Tail. I loved the stories, I loved the sketches and I loved the animals in the stories. I loved the way my Dad read those stories.
Mom baked homemade bread from time to time. There were fresh eggs for breakfast. Did you know that the oats we fed the chicken were actually pretty tasty? Mom made her own jams and jellies. Mom made a lot things back then, she as a fantastic baker. I inherited Mom early tendencies to over cook vegetables until a friend, Shelley put me straight on the art of cooking vegetable. They should be somewhat firm, not mushy and always bright in colour.
I loved to help Mom cook and bake, but I think she found me more of a nuisance than not. Mom was always a little short on patience and didn't quite no what to do with us kids, especially a frisky little girl child who liked to sing and dance and babble on excitedly. Those were the days of all the Shirley Temple re-runs on t.v. and Mom was quite regularly subjected to my energetic and amateurish attempts at tap dancing.
When you look back on your childhood, as I do now you realise why children seldom remember much about their parents from those days. Parents are fixtures. There to provide the necessities, to hold you when you cry, comfort you when you are sick and curb your imperfections and to try and shape into being a decent human being one day. As parents we put so much work into our children's early years, years that we will remember and they as children will forget.
I remember Mom in her rollers. I remember watching Mom struggling to use an old roller washer. I remember watching Mom cooking and baking. I remember watching the fruit juice that would become jelly ooze through the cheese cloth bag. I remember Mom in the garden, planting and weeding. I remember Mom smoking, looking unhappy and pensive when she was alone with us kids. I remember Mom looking beautiful when she was all dressed up to go out to a Lion's Club dance with Dad looking oh so handsome in his suit.
Ironically, the years our children will most remember are the angst filled years of their teens. The years of feeling, clumsy, inadequate and awkward as we move from the carefree and energetic years of our childhood towards adulthood. The pivotal years. When we as parents go from being main characters in our children's lives to bit players and a steady stream of teen peers usurp our roles bringing influences, many of which we will never know of and some only many years later. Some of those teen peers will become like family, others we will keep hopefully at arms length hoping they will detach and move on, others we will accept because they are our children's choices.
I can't imagine what life as like for my parent's generation. The more I have heard of what it was like in the generations before mine, I more thankful I am that I never had to live in the times previous generations did. My parents came from a generation where unwed mothers brought shame, illegitimate children were given up for adoption, recalcitrant children sent off to reformatories and divorced women branded immoral or husband stealer's. A man's house was his castle and what he did in it, was nobodies business. They were brutal times, somewhat less than times previous.
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