Memories

One of my first memories is of a sink, tucked into a corner, under the stairs in our house in Germany.  I have another memory of a road with train tracks across it.  The last memory I have before I was three years old, is landing at Heathrow airport.  I looked out the window and could see all the lights below.  A flight attendant had given me a little plastic bracelet and I thought that was the most wonderful thing.  I have no other memories of Germany except occasionally a German word will pop into my head. 

                                                             Me at 15 months.

Mum and dad arrived in North Bay in 1965, with two teenage daughters and two children under the age of three.  Dad would have been 45, and mum would have been 41.  Dad worked as a fire fighter and on his days off he drove trucks, both moving trucks and dynamite trucks.  He was seldom home and I have few memories of him.  Mum was home full-time and my sisters lived with us until they either went to nursing school or got married, we were insulated from Dad and his anger. What I do remember is days spent roaming the woods behind our PMQs (permanent married quarters).  We didn't live on the base, but I do remember dad taking us to the base at least once to look around.  

We lived on Lake Heights road and there were two lakes within walking distance of our townhouse, Trout Lake and Circle Lake.  I just looked up Circle Lake and it was a five minute walk from our house but we didn't swim there, no beach at the lake.  I do remember a little store that sold candy bars there though so that was a draw for us.

Trout Lake was a little further, a twelve minute walk, although with two little kids, it probably took twice as long.  We would go there in the summer time to swim and wade in the lake.  There were no toilets at Trout Lake but there was an empty lot, filled with trees, across the street where mum would take us when my brother or I had to poop.  If we had to pee mum would say, "Just go pee in the lake."  All peeing was done in the lake:)  

One summer mum took me and my brother to Birchaven Cove Park for swimming lessons.  Neither one of us learned to swim and the swimming instructor threatened to bring a whip for the next lesson if my brother didn't put his face under the water.  I don't think we went back but who knows.

Right behind our townhouse were "The Rocks".  They were cliffs really, until I went back at the age of sixteen and discovered that the rocks were about five feet high at most.  Behind the rocks were "The Woods" where we ran freely all day in the summer.  It was peaceful.  Past the woods was a car scrap yard and beyond that was Birchaven Cove Park.  I think "The Woods" is where my love of trees began.  

PMQs in the 1960's were filled with children, the baby boom.  We walked to school on our own, played in the woods on our own, there were sand lots filled with children, and we stayed out of our parent's way.  There was no shortage of friends.  One summer night all the kids played something called "Sit Down and Have a Cup of Tea" which basically involved the older boys piling all of the younger kids into a heap; the older boys were careful and nobody got hurt, just lots of laughing.  We also played tag, hide and seek, and marbles.  It was heaven for me.

Both of my sisters got married in 1969 and I was the flower girl at both weddings.  Their weddings were six weeks apart and they both wore the same wedding dress.  My sisters are identical twins.  The one thing I most remember about their weddings is that I was six and the bouquet that I was carrying had to be turned out towards the people attending the wedding, so that they could see the beautiful flowers.  I thought that was terribly unfair because I wanted to be able to look at the flowers.  I also had no front teeth and was given strict instructions not to smile with my lips open.  When my sister S. got married, I found a bag of confetti and dumped it into her suitcase, prior to her and her new husband leaving on their honeymoon (in Aruba, so exotic).  I was quite proud of myself and I'm sure my sister cursed me.

One day I came home from school, maybe grade two, and our basement was filled with all of my oldest sister's furniture and belongings.  She had left her husband after less than a year of marriage.  What we didn't know, what I didn't know, is that he was an alcoholic.  I'm sure there was lots of talking between my parents and my sister and she ended up going back to him before we left North Bay in 1970.  I remember visiting their apartment once and loved it because it had a fire escape which I had never seen before.  I idolized that sister.

In September 1970, Dad turned fifty and was forced to retire.  I was eight years old and our life changed.  Dad decided he wanted to return to Vancouver Island to be closer to his family.  He stopped in Red Deer to visit old friends from the military and found a job and a house to buy.  My parents had lived in Red Deer in the 1950's, dad had been posted there and I guess they had good memories of the place.  Now that I think of it though, Red Deer is where one my sisters was hit by a truck, ended up in a coma for a week, and was left with a brain injury.  Maybe not good memories, maybe PTSD.  Regardless, that's where we moved.

Before we left North Bay, mum took me for a haircut.  I had longish hair and she had it all cut off.  I don't know why, maybe mum was tired of listening to a child complaining about knots in her hair.  Mum's hairdresser's name was Mrs. Fink, I do remember that, and she cut my hair short at a time when few girls had short hair.

We left North Bay in the dark by train and travelled for days.  There was no milk for my cereal on the train, only coffee cream which was gross.  My brother and I were the only kids in our car and we spent a lot of time exploring.  At night we had our own little bunk beds with curtains, another very cool thing in my mind.  

When we arrived in Calgary, we had to change trains to travel to Red Deer.  It was September and all I remember is looking out the window and seeing nothing but fields of golden wheat.  In the middle of nowhere our train stopped at a station and that was Red Deer.  My dad was there to greet us but when he helped me off the train he didn't recognize me with my short hair and asked mum where I was.  I still remember that.  

Dad drove us to a hotel, where we stayed for a week while the sale of the house was going through.  Probably the first night we were there, dad took mum and us to see the house they were buying.  The people had a little poodle and the back yard was huge with a sidewalk that "looked like a drunk had laid it", according to my dad.  And that's how I came to live in Red Deer.