Christmas Daze

Christmas time, my first year of college. I’d just been dumped by Roxanne. I was not in what one might call the Spirit of the Season. If anything, I wanted to curl up and die.
My friends were having none of that. "C'mon," they said, "we're going to the Christmas dance. It’ll be fun," they said. It was their final Christmas dance, and would have been mine too, had I not gone off to school prematurely. I think about it that way now. Prematurely. I was too young to go off on my own, I think. Then again, maybe it was the best thing for me. No matter. You can't change the past. I went.
Anyway, my friends were adamant that I/we go to the Christmas dance. So I went.
Everyone got together, drinks were had to warm things up, and we headed out. Not once did it cross my mind that Roxanne would be there.  Why wouldn’t it have…and wouldn't she? She had more right to be there than I. It was her school now, not mine. And why hadn’t it crossed my friends’ minds  either, for that matter; Roxanne went to the same school as them.
But it didn't cross my mind; I was in a daze and being led about by my friends.
When I saw her, I felt like I’d been stabbed. I wanted to puke. I must have made a scene, because the next thing I knew my friends were hauling me out of the gym and into my coat.
I remember Garry Martin, Danny Loreto and Renato Romey escorting me home. Were there others? I don’t remember. I do remember that it was bitterly cold that night, but I was numb to the cold. Mad, angry, likely off my head too, I tore my parka off when halfway home and threw it to the ground, and carried on walking. Garry ran back to collect it, and draped the hood over my head when I didn't co-operate in allowing it to be worn. He refused to let me take it off again.
A few days later, I threw a party. My emotions were swinging like a pendulum. A party seemed just the thing. My parents insisted on collecting keys as everyone entered. There was drinking to be done and they knew it, and there was no way they were going to allow anyone to drive. Was there drinking. Yes. A whole lot of it. “Caps” was all the rage. You know the game; you snap your fingers, sending the cap towards the bottle between your opponent’s legs, and if you hit their upturned bottle cap off their bottle, they have to drink. The prospect of success seems unlikely, but those upturned caps flew off with greater regularity than one would think possible. Renato did not do so well, and my parents wouldn’t give him his keys back. Hell, they wouldn’t give anyone’s keys back if they caught the merest hint of beer on their breath. Renato was okay with that, but he was so drunk that he crawled over two parked cars, as opposed to walking round them.
Nobody got their keys back that night, now that I think on it.

Christmas, Part 3, Sweater Hell!

Skipping forward a bit, and it’s more a snapshot than a tale. After toys, in the era I refer to as sweater hell; you know, that zone where you are too old for childish things like toys, yet not old enough to require those practical gifts that are more for a house than for you. You remember those years in spent in limbo, don’t you? It’s a memory set after the completion of the extension onto the back of the Hart Street house, and many years before Alzheimer’s began to creep into my Nanny’s life. I’m a teen, not a child.

It was Christmas morning. We were opening gifts. Mom wanted Dad and me to open specific gifts together, gifts wrapped in boxes of identical size and shape. I was a little nervous about that, but I opened mine the same time my father opened his. And there it is, the terrycloth robe I’d asked for. I can’t remember if I asked for a specific colour, although I imagine I was thinking white, simple basic white, like in hotels. It was not plain white, it was striped, red and blue on white; the same as the one my Dad was holding up.

We were prompted to put them on and stand together to have our picture taken. Remember, I was a teen. I’d rather die. But of course, I had my picture taken with my Dad.

He was so happy that we had matching robes.

I got over my embarrassment. I got to like my robe, over time. It broke in. It was soft. It was warm. And I got over the fact that my dad had the same robe as I did.

Christmas, Part 2

One year I was enthralled with a racetrack toy I’d seen on TV. I’d watched as the cars rounded corners at breakneck speed, and knew I had to have one; I don’t know why, I’d never owned a tracked set of any sort, trains or otherwise. I must have harassed my parents about it, because they bought it for me. I have no clue how expensive it was. It couldn’t have been cheap. Christmas morning came, I dug into my gifts, and there it was, that same racetrack set I’d seen on TV. I couldn’t wait to play with it. My father helped me set it up in the rec room. I recall thinking it was much smaller than I thought it would be. There was a controller for each car, with only a speed lever on each. Thumb off, stop, thumb pressed full on, full blast. Simple. We made a trial run, and both tracks, both cars worked. Then I pushed my car to its speed limit and it flew off the track as it rounded its first corner. I reset it and it flew off again. My father’s car went happily round and round, if at a much slower pace. Dad told me to control my speed, but I wanted the cars to fly around the track like they did on the commercial. I thought his track might be better, so we switched. His new car, my old car, went happily round and round, so did mine, until I pushed my lever to the end, and my car hit his, taking both off the track. I was an impatient child, I threw a fit, and stormed away from the set, never to play with it again. I’m thinking I was a bit of a brat. But I did learn an important lesson that day: sometimes commercials do not present things as they truly are.

Christmas

Every Christmas morning after we left Cochrane for Timmins, we’d wake up to my father rushing about the house, hammering on doors, declaring that Santa had been here! We’d leap or drag ourselves out of bed, depending on the year, leap at young ages, drag later. We’d eat a hasty breakfast, despite our ogling the feast of presents about the tree, open our gifts and be left to play with the toys for a time; not too long though. There was preparations to be made: every year for 10ish years after leaving Cochrane, we were to return to the homeland for celebrations with the family, eat an early lunch, pack up the car with the gifts to be given, and pile in, Cookie at my mothers’ feet in the front. I can’t recall if Piper, our next dog, ever made the pilgrimage with us, if she had, she'd have been in the space at the back window (that’s where she loved to lounge for the hour-long trip).

I recall many such long commutes back to Cochrane, getting car sick, puking into the ditch despite tripping on Gravol. I was not a good traveller then.

We’d arrive at Nanny’s (my mother’s mother’s) house, where we’d open gifts, then be herded back into the car for the short drive to Gramma’s (my father’s mother’s) with Nanny in tow (my mother’s parents were always invited if I recall properly, certainly my Nanny after Poppa passed away), where we opened gifts again. Those gifts were packed away in the trunk of the car before my uncles, aunts, and cousins arrived.

Gramma’s house already smelled like dinner when we arrived. There was a great deal of cooking to be done in such a small galley kitchen. Food was piled high on the dinner table, arranged in depth, buffet style. Only Grandpa sat at the table, holding court on how much anyone might take, even though there was enough food for three times our number (about 30ish people in what I would describe as a wartime house). Turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, pickles and beets and Lord knows what else, my memory fails me. There were six types of pie: apple, cherry, raisin, mince, pecan (?) and sugar (?), one for each son’s preference. They each had to have their favourite. And they’d have been disappointed had their personal favourite not been there. Family politics. Enough said.

Grandpa would always call me over, draw me in and hug me, and slip a two-dollar bill into my pocket.

There wasn’t enough room at the table for everyone. Obviously. And with thirty people in attendance, seating was an issue. Families sort things out, and by the time I came along, a system had long since been adopted. The adults ate in the living room, with paper plates in wicker baskets on their laps. We cousins were arranged on the stairs, each to his own riser, Keith and I sharing a small bi-fold table at the base.

Gramma never ate until everyone else had. And by then the Great Clean-up was in full swing, the food and dishes tackled by the women, teens and adults alike; but not by Gramma, though, she was eating.

The men congregated in the living room, the chairs and stools arranged, years of Daily Press Carol booklets laid out, one to a seat. Once the Great Clean-up was complete, we sang, we soloed. I most certainly soloed. I was expected to sing “Rudolph, The Red-nosed Reindeer” every year. Tradition, you know how it goes. There was no accompaniment though: I don’t know if anyone could play anything portable. Karen could play piano, but there was none present. Gramma played fiddle, but I don’t remember it ever being brought out. I recall French songs being sung after the carols were complete. Beer flowed. There were chips and snacks and such, because that’s what we all needed, more food.

We kids took that as our queue to retreat downstairs where there was tabletop hockey and an absence of adults and alcohol and demands by our elders to bring them more. I think the elder cousins may have played street hockey out front or may have just slipped away to party with friends.
If they did, Keith and I were oblivious to it all, having lost interest in all things adult, even all things teen. Later still, Karen and I were packed up by our parents to go back to Nanny's for the night. Over the next few days, we visited...everyone. It was exhausting, fun, but exhausting. Christmas would never be as exciting as it was then.

Timmins, First Impressions

We moved to Timmins in the summer of 1970, just after I had completed kindergarten. My father actually preceded us by a year, beginning work there in 1969 and commuting. I suspect we waited a year so that my sister and I could finish our school year.

Timmins was huge by my reckoning, boasting about 26,000 residents (about 40,000 after amalgamation), compared with Cochrane’s 5,000. Most of it had been built in the ‘20s and ‘30s, the newest bits in the ‘50s. And it towered above Cochrane, its downtown core reaching up three stories. (I always referred to the downtown core as uptown, as we had to travel uphill to get there.)

I found the core to be a riot of activity whenever my mother brought me there. There were streetlights, traffic was dense and continuous. People bustled here and there, the sidewalks thick with them. Buildings crowded one another, with barely a hand span between them, unlike in Cochrane where you could usually drive a truck between them. It was all spectacular to me, but the most spectacular place downtown was Bucovetsky’s. It was the only building in town with an elevator. Enormous by even today’s reckoning, it was most definitely a service elevator fitted for public use, its walls draped with canvas. I would insist we use it whenever we went there. Although the stairwell was fascinating, too. There were photographs lining the walls, most black and white (most photographs were black and white, then), all chronicling the history of the store: there were pictures of car give-a-ways, fur coats, bridal dresses, pictures of Christmas displays, Christmas windows, Christmas floats, ribbon cuttings. There were newspaper clippings, and a few sales advertisements thrown in for good measure. But what always caught the eye in the stairwell was the huge painting of 3^rd Ave between the 1^st and 2^nd floor, painted when Timmins was still just a bush camp mining town, its few permanent buildings just log cabins.

The 101 Mall was still to come, with its elevator and its central gallery, its artificial Christmas tree hung from the ceiling and spanning three stories.

Woolworths’ hadn’t opened yet, either, but when it did, it had an escalator. That revolving staircase frightened me when I first saw it. I was terrified that my foot or my clothing would be caught in its teeth whenever I stepped on or off of it.

Like I said, I was quite young when we first came to Timmins.

A Beginning, Cochrane

Some time ago, I found myself thinking about those first, largely, emotional snapshots in my head. When I mentioned them to others, I always heard the same surprised response: “You remember that? I can’t remember that far back.” But I could. Although I’m not unique in this, I’ve found it rather rare. Most people can’t remember their earliest years, apparently. Most people seem to have difficulty even remembering high school, let alone their preschool years. Don’t get me wrong, those early memories aren’t that detailed; they’re largely emotional moments, like a memory of me and my cousin Keith being pushed in strollers.

A lot of my earliest memories involve Keith. He and I are only two months apart, and we lived only two doors apart, so he would factor large in them, wouldn’t he? Not all, but most.

I don’t know how many people remember learning to walk, but I do. I’d shuffle along a piece of furniture and when I reached its end, our dog Cookie somehow knew that I needed help and would be by my side. I would take hold of her and catch a ride to the next couch or chair, where I’d take hold of it and shuffle along until I needed her help again.

I remember playing in puddles, all dolled up in a mud suit and rubber boots. I’d jump in, stamping them, watching them spray, spattering my legs, and I’d laugh.

I remember riding a “hobby” horse so hard that the springs should have broken. I’m astonished that I kept my seat.

I remember my mother not wanting to be bothered with putting my boots on when we were on our way to Uncle Jerry’s (Keith’s father), so she zipped my into my one-piece snowsuit, and swaddled me up in a blanket instead, carrying me the short distance down the street and up the single path to the house. My uncle was the most judicious of shovellers, clearing just enough for his car and a footpath up to his house, and he did this every year, because later on, when I was a year older, I remember mounting that slight, but seemingly endlessly steep hill, the banks as high as houses.

Later still, Keith and I decided we were going to Gramma’s house for cookies (she was always Gramma, never Grandma). We jumped on our trikes and ventured out. Cookie followed. Cookie always followed me. I suspect she had it in her mined to keep us safe. It was no simple venture for two three-year olds to go to Gramma’s house; we had to cross one of the busiest streets in Cochrane to do so, and another besides. When we arrived, Gramma met us at the door. “What are you doing here?” she asked, as surprised as can be by our arrival. “We came for cookies,” we said. So, she invited us in, served us our much sought-after milk and cookies...and called our mothers. When our obviously fearful and furious mothers arrived, I found myself hauled to the car by an arm, then hurried on my way by a quick rap to the behind.

Summers were spent on Rancourt Lake, just ten minutes from our driveway. For a child of two or three it was a long haul. I’d grow inpatient, eager to be where we were going, a place of fun and friends, of boats and wading in shallows, of scary fish, and of cousins. I’ve memories of being bathed at water’s edge, of thunderstorms, of my parents playing cards at the dining room table, of board games. There was a woodstove, almost never fired, and a TV, one that played little but snow.

Later still, Keith and I were packed up for school, where there was finger painting and pictures on the wall, A for Apple and B for Bees. Carefully drawn letters, in both capital and lower case topped the blackboard. I remember the first day after Christmas vacation most vividly, though. I arrived wearing new mittens. I was in a panic at day’s end. I couldn’t find them. I searched and shifted the many other mittens, the coats and boots looking for them. I enlisted the aid of the teacher, but my mittens were nowhere to be found. “You lost them,” she said. But I hadn’t lost them. I’d specifically placed them in my coat pocket after showing them off to my classmates. They’d been stolen. But who to blame? To this day I can’t believe that the teacher sent me out into the cold without mittens. The distance could not have been long, five or six blocks, I imagine, from school to home, but it was bitterly cold. My hands were frozen. My cousins came to my aide. “Where are your mitts?” they asked. I don’t know, I said. I couldn’t find them. They waved down more cousins, and one arrived on a snowmobile. He set me in front, facing him. He undid his snowsuit and told me to reach around and hug him. “Hold on,” he said, and raced me home. I’d never travelled so fast. My mother was livid. She tied strings to my mitts for years, and thread them through my sleeves.

Those are my memories of Cochrane. Not all. I remember uncles and aunts and carnivals and the hill behind my house. I remember Christmases, dressed up so smartly in jacket and clip-on tie. I remember my room.

I remember the day we left Cochrane.