Cat mother with two newborn kittens: A Tanka poem That look on her face! Startled surprise…maternity Anthropomorphized? Offspring are forever nurtured; Motherhood is a life long trust. Tanka poetry Tanka poems follow a set of rules. They all have five lines and each line follows a pattern: the first line has five syllables, the second..
A hair-raising elegy: Growing up in Georgetown at Wright Smith’s Barbershop, 1960-1964, and beyond I don’t remember my first haircuts as a child growing up in small town Ontario. My memories of hair- raising adventures date back to about 1960, when I was around eight years old. A new barber arrived in town, Mr. Wright..
Remembering my mother, in honour of her birthday… March 27,1918 Angelina Elizabeth “Jill” McBryde (née Reiser) 1918-2001 Resident of Georgetown from 1955 until 1964 An active member of the St. John’s United Church congregation, my mother also worked as a secretary for the Reverend Ian Fleming from about 1961 until 1964. Her office looked onto..
Rink rats, ice flooding, and Zambonis: Georgetown to Quebec City and beyond, 1952-2025 “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” William Faulkner Part One As a child growing up in Georgetown, Ontario, I was a wannabe rink rat. But I was a more of a rink mouse really, without the requisite whiskers to..
Fragments 1962: Archie’s Convenience Store Junk Food Club, Georgetown Ontario As far back as I remember, we children from Georgetown’s Swanick subdivision frequented Archie’s convenience store at the corner of Ewing Street and Highway 7. Choi’s – THE GEORGETOWN VAULT The owner and manager, Archie Girard, cultivated an avid clientele of baby boom kidlets; he..
Constable Ted Scott: Crossing the tracks, Georgetown, Ontario, circa 1960 Growing up in the Swanick subdivision of Georgetown, Ontario, in the late 1950s and early 1960s was rich in experiences of all sorts, including numerous rituals that are indelibly branded in my depleting bank of memories. One such ritual entailed “crossing the tracks.” I went..
Grade three blues: Georgetown, Ontario, 1960-61 Many of us experience life, and especially childhood, as a sort of punctuated equilibrium, where “earth-shattering” events intersect stretches of uneventful time. My childhood in Georgetown experienced a seismic shift in Grade 3 in 1960-61 for two reasons: firstly, I unilaterally changed my name from Robert or Rob to..
A story from my book titled My Time with You Has Been Short but Very Funny /Le temps passé avec vous fut bref mais tordant Part One: Bully for you, Georgetown Ontario, 1959-1964 When I was about seven years old and attending Chapel Street Public School in Georgetown, Ontario, I routinely began to throw my..
Is there a doctor in the house? Dr. Macintosh, Georgetown, Ontario, 1955-1964, and beyond “Nostalgia is the suffering caused by an unappeased yearning to return.” – Milan Kundera “Nostalgia is a file that removes the rough edges from the good old days.” – Doug Larson When our family moved to Georgetown from Toronto in 1955,..
*Being alone with Dad (Georgetown Ontario, 1955-1964, and beyond) The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated… – a popular misquote of Mark Twain A family is a tyranny ruled over by its sickest member… – a paraphrase of George Bernard Shaw **In the photo, my father is third from the left. This is..