Gramma

Blanche Valarie Blondeau was born in 1908 in Fillhilla, Saskatchewan. Years later she met and married Jules Leonard. They moved to Ontario, settling in Timmins, where Jules worked at the Macintyre Mine. Years later, having already giving birth to Lorraine and Laverne and Ronnie and Jerry, she gave birth to Edgar, my father. Blanche gave birth to my uncle Derek nine years later, and the family was complete until her children married and had children of their own. All this happened long years before I came along, the second last of my generation of Leonards.

Blanche had some rocky years before then. Times were tight. There was a Depression to weather. There was another World War to weather, too. They were blessed to have been spared the later, if not the former. Too young for the Great War, too old for the second. Her children were spared too. I think she thanked her lucky stars for that.

They moved to Cochrane and Jules began to work for the railroad, much as he had in times before, when he met Blanche and took her hand in Holy Matrimony. She got involved with the Church, spending many years in service of the Catholic Woman’s League.

Blanche and Jules

You’d think that would have been enough drama for one life, but life is rarely smooth. Blanche became ill shortly before my mother met my father. Deathly ill. She almost died. My mother tells tales of how Blanche received the last rights in her mid-forties, and how her father made it possible for Jules and Blanche to move out of the home that sat alongside an open sewer into something better. And how her father gave Jules preferential billing for all the medications Blanche needed.

Blanche recovered, but she was plagued with migraines, thereafter. They plagued her still when I was a child. I remember her shut up in a darkened bedroom on a few occasions when we came to visit. She always rose to greet us, though, despite her pain. She would. Family had come to call, don’t you know, and Blanche was all about family. Family was everything to her.

And she had a large family to dote over. It’s probably all she ever wanted. She insisted her entire family be in attendance at holidays, cooking for fifty people at a time. And they came because Blanche ruled her family as only a strong-willed matriarch can.

Blanche and Jules

I learned all these things afterwards. What I remembered was the much-loved and loving woman who enveloped me in hugs and smothered me in kisses. The woman who sang Christmas carols and watched Lawrence Welk and always had cookies and date squares and jelly rolls (once she learned of my allergies to dates and oats) at hand when we arrived.

She weathered tragedies, too. Her son Ronnie’s passing, decades before what ought to have been his appointed time. The passing of her children’s spouses: Hazel at far too young an age and Pauline many years later. My Uncle Derek’s partner, Larry, too. She buried her husband too, outliving him by more than thirty years.

When Blanche was eighty, she became too infirm to take care of herself. Not that she didn’t try. She was a proud woman, not inclined to complain, not wanting to be a burden. She couldn’t possibly take care of herself anymore though. She suffered a severe stroke, even if she rebounded from it without any noticeable effects. She suffered micro-strokes too, after that, if not before, and was just as apt to collapse to the floor as not when she had them. Those micro-strokes never left her after that, always lurking, always striking unexpectedly. My Uncle Derek would have none of her pride. He collected her and brought her home to London with him, an act that very likely made it possible for her to live for almost twenty more years.

Blanche at 80

When Blanche was about to celebrate her 99^th birthday, my uncle decided that the milestone needed marking. Not everyone makes it to 99, after all. We called it a dress rehearsal for her centennial. There was a party planned for that, too.

We came from all points of the compass. From Cochrane, from Timmins, from Thorold and St. Catherines. Fredrickhouse and Innisfill and Toronto. The Tishlers flew in from Detroit and points further south, from Ohio and Indiana and California.

I drove my father down, arriving well in advance of the festivities, having made a pit stop in Barrie to visit my friend Neil the day before. We made the last dash to London and checked into a hotel inundated with Leonards.

Blanche and family at 80

There was a wine and cheese meet and greet, lengthy conversations in the hall as we came upon one another, an evening at the Keg, and drinks in Uncle Jerry’s room, well into the night.

Tables at the reunion were by clan. Aunt Lorraine’s Tishlers here, Uncle Laverne’s brood there. Dearly departed Uncle Ronnie’s family tables here, Uncle Jerry’s there. My sister’s husband and I sat with Keith and his children. Where was my sister? At the head table with my grandmother and her surviving children. The eldest child of each family branch joined them, mostly women, all of them matriarchs now in their own right.

Sadly, that was the final happy gathering of my greater family. Blanche was ailing. We all saw it, none of us wanting to say so.

Blanche at 99

My Uncle Don, Lorraine’s husband, did, though. He made his presence known when he entered the hall, calling out “Hello, Gramma,” when he did. Big man, bigger personality. He retreated shortly afterwards, telling me, “She didn’t know me,” and “I don’t think she’s going to maker it to her 100th.”
She did not. Two months after arriving to celebrate the commencement of her 100^th year, we were called back to mark her passing.

I could not watch as they lowered her into the ground. Tears welled up. My composure faltered. I turned away and walked a short distance up the hill from the black hole she was ever so gently being slipped into. Bev followed me but kept her distance as I waved her off and broke into tears. I choked them back a few moments later and rejoined her and my family. Bev slipped her arm around me as I once again faced the grave.

Uncle Don followed soon after. Then Uncle Jerry.

My father suffered a heart attack and a couple strokes. He suffered a near fatal rectal hemorrhage due to diverticulitis. He never came home after being admitted to the hospital. He was admitted to a care facility, instead, and has been there ever since.

I’m watching the passing of the generation that raised me. It was only a matter of time. As they say, it comes to us all.

I’m no different.

My time will come, too.

Alma

Not being a Schumacher boy, I never met Alma until I met Bev. Alma was Bev’s mother, to the uninitiated.

Alma was one of those women who dedicated her life to her family. Her children, her husband, her sister, her grandchildren. I recall how fully she glowed when she held them for the first time. She was filled with a lot of love, that woman.

She was always cooking, always puttering, always doing something. Her hands were never still, even when at rest, when she’d be puzzling out a crossword. Whereas I would race through one in half the time, sometimes layering letters one on top of the other when I’d forge too far ahead without considering those words crossing the ones I’d just laid down, Alma’s were always immaculate, her script careful and literate, without error.

Alma was kind, Alma was proud. Alma liked things just so. If there were things to do, she’d be up in a short, fussing, straightening, eager to fetch and carry, always scolding me should I get up to help.

“Go sit down” she’d say.

“Relax,” we say, “sit down and visit,” we’d say. Or maybe it was just me saying such things, Bev knowing better. But Alma could not rest. There were things to do, don’t you know.

She’d slave in the kitchen, prepping and cleaning up and fetching whatever condiments whomever wanted, jumping up with a stern, “Sit,” she’d say, up and to the fridge before your bum could lift from your seat. She rarely began to eat before everyone was a third of the way through their meals.

So, she rushed through her own meals, inhaling portions that need be taken in smaller chunks. But she had to be done eating before everyone else so as to clear the table, don’t you know.

She took to coughing one meal and excused herself without a word, lest she bother anyone. She was like that. She was a proud and private woman.
She was also choking.
When her coughing grew deeper and more desperate, Bev was up like a shot, chasing after her.
“Are you okay,” she asked her mother. Her mother wavered her off. But her mother could not hide the fact that she was gasping for air and not getting any, that she was turning blue.

And Bev would not be waved off. Bev thumped her on her back. When that didn’t ease her mother’s plight, Bev got behind her and thrust her fists and thumbs up under her mother’s rib cage. Once, twice, thrice. A chunk of half-chewed meat flew from Alma’s throat, across the room.

Alma inhaled more deeply than he ever had before, likely blurry eyed and faint, having narrowly escaped death.

Note to self: never leave the room if you’re choking

Then some time later, Alma got sick. It seemed a cold. But she couldn’t shake it.

We took Charlie, their poodle, in so that she could rest some and not have to get up in the middle of the night to put him out, as he was want to do on occasion. Charlie was thrilled. Ours was a more active household. We went for longer walks.

Before long, Alma got sicker. She went to the hospital. She was admitted, where she remained for a week.

Then they released her. They ought not to have. She was not well. She was tired. She was exhausted. But she would not rest upon arriving home. There were things to do, you know, Albert to care for, what with Albert not being as ambulatory as he could be. Bad knees and all that.

“I’m so tired,” she said to her sister, right before worsening.

Within the week, she was readmitted.

She seemed weaker than ever when we visited. Bev was fraught with worry.

“You need to rest,” she said

But Alma was resting. But not getting any better.

Her medications were in flux. They’d put her on one medication to fight the pneumonia, but then her heart began to fail, so they’d take her off that to treat her heart and the pneumonia would get worse.
Within the week, she became unresponsive. Then she slipped into a coma.

It was sad seeing her in such a state. She lay still, a state I’d never seen her in. Her hands still, too.
We worried. Bev far more so than I, but I can be rather dense at times, convincing myself that everything’s going to be alright. My mother tried to prepare me.

“Prepare yourself,” she said, seeing what I refused to see. My mother had seen such things before and knew a thing or two about what was coming to fruition. She gently guided my expectation without actually coming out and saying that Alma was failing and that I needed to prepare fore the inevitable and not pull the wool over my eyes.

Greg got a phone call from the nurse. “Your mother isn’t doing well,” she said. She hadn’t been doing well for some time, slowly slipping away as the week progressed. Greg gathered up Albert and went to the hospitable, calling Bev to tell her that he’d call her when he had more information.

We braced ourselves. Was it time? Would it come quickly? Or would she remain in her coma for weeks? We just didn’t know.

Greg called Bev shortly after arriving. It didn’t look good. She didn’t need to rush to hospital; she was already there doing the annual inventory count. She excused herself, joining Greg and Albert, both of whom had already by Alma’s side.

Then Bev called me. All she said was, “She may not last the night.”

I responded like the idiot I can be: “Do you want me to come up?”

I came to my senses in the same breath, saying, “What am I saying? I’m on my way.” I went to the hospital right away.

The vigil began. Visiting hours ceased to apply to us.

The room was deathly quiet. Bev calm and not calm, obviously fraught with resignation and despair. Bev’s cousin Darryl arrived to sit vigil with us. Father Pat was summoned to perform Last Rites.

Greg left for home after a time, taking Albert with him, realizing that he’d have to take up the watch in the morning, realizing that the wait may be short, but also realizing that we might be in for a long haul. He had to prepare his kids, too. What to say? They were so young, still. And Albert needed his rest, or what rest he could get, considering.

The nurses brought in extra chairs and we each took a turn curled up in two of them, set facing each other, a cruel way to try to sleep. I understand they have better chairs now, almost day beds that recline like first class seats. I nodded some, Bev not at all.

We left once Greg returned to sit vigil by himself, Laurie remaining home with the kids. We slept some, took care of the dogs and were back up at the hospital before too long.

Phone calls had to be made, the family alerted. It didn’t look good, Bev and Greg said to each in turn.
It didn’t. It looked worse by the hour. The family began to drift in, the circle surrounding the bed growing larger, deeper, what conversation there was, muted and somber, whispers.

I left to get some water. I needed to get some air and gather myself. Laurie followed me, talking gently. I wasn’t there more than a few minutes when Bev’s cousin, Theresa, rushed in and said, “It’s happening.”

I was up and back in the room within seconds, already too late. Alma had passed.

I brushed passed those between me and Bev, until I stood behind her. She was holding her mother’s hand, her shoulder’s tense, her breathing almost as still as Alma’s.

Nothing could be as still as Alma though. Bev later told me that her mother had taken one last long ragged breath that slowly released and no more.

“That’s it,” Bev said, her voice trembling slightly.

Albert seemed confused. He could not process that his wife had passed. It sent him into shock. He couldn’t cry.

“Is she gone,” he asked Bev, his voice laboured and cracking. Tears rose up from him and he wiped his face with a handkerchief with measured regularity. But he would not cry. His upbringing would not allow it.

The nurse was called. Alma’s pulse was taken, the doctor called to declare time of death.

Bev was silent, her sobs almost subvocal. There was a great deal of sniffles and weeping throughout the room.

The doctor checked her pulse again, listened for breath and heart sounds.

The sheet covering Alma was fussed and smoothed, befitting her dignity.

She was always a proud woman.

She liked things just so.

Stepping Out, Part 2

Toronto was a veritable haven of order and cleanliness compared to Detroit.

And the accommodations were far better, as well. We pulled into the Royal York, my first time there. My head was filled with the tales I’d heard of Kings and Queens and Presidents, of Grey Cups and horses that ran up and down its long vaulting lobby, and of Prospector Conventions where swindlers were shot down upon leaving the elevator for having done their partners wrong. It was beautiful. It was opulent. It was home for the next few days and Henri and I were staying on for the weekend after the games.

Our arriving in Toronto had split that now newly tight group of ball fans. The Torontonians went home. The others had split into disparate groups. The girls wanted to shop. Their guys were in tow.
So, Henri and I were on our own. I was disappointed at first, but we were eager to explore the city. I’d been there with Matt a few times, so I knew my way around a bit, but that was years ago and Matt had navigated the whole time, with me along for the ride, so its geography was a little hazy. My mind had been preoccupied by the city’s overwhelming immensity at the time. The booze didn’t help much, either.

Thankfully, there wasn’t much need to navigate. The Skydome being within walking distance of the hotel, so that sense of group was lost. We all made our own way to the games individually and found ourselves funnelled up a concrete ramp up into it furthest heights, exiting behind home plate in the high 500s, only to discover our climb incomplete. Stairs steeper than ladders led to our seats, two rows down from the gulls. I looked them up while there: $4. I could see why. We were of an altitude that the workers under the dome were eye level with us. They at least were wrapped in parkas. We were not. We felt the full force of the wind blowing off the lake. It was cold. It was brisk. It had the bite of winter despite its early September’s howling.

Stories below us, those lucky patrons in the 300s were sweltering in the high sun. We spied shorts, tank tops and sandals. I was envious.

We shooed venders away when they hawked ice cream bars. One tapped an offending bar against a railing, its ring carried brightly on the icy air. He changed up his bright happy hawking calls thereafter to, “Something hard; something frozen!”

“Bring coffee!” I yelled back to him. We all did. He did, much to our surprise and delight.

Those seats were crap! We couldn’t tell where the ball was headed unless it was coming straight at us. We saw a few people below us reach out a little in preparation of its arrival, but there was never a hope of its ever reaching us. Not even Hercules could have batted a ball that high up.

I’d had enough after my first ineffectual coffee, caving in to my first impulse buy of the trip, a black Skydome knit sweater. Henri bought a Jay’s sweatshirt, team blue. Both were quite fetching. Both lasted us for years.

The second game was no warmer. By the 4^th inning we retreated to the bar two stories below us where we found two of our group’s number, the two eldest who’d had the sense not to freeze their tender bits off for the sake of $4 tickets. Where we’d thought to duck out of the cold for a cold one before braving the winds again amongst the gulls, we changed our minds when we saw them there and they invited us to join them, rekindling our earlier Detroit comradery. A half beer later, a third of the others joined us. By the 7^th inning stretch we were all there, watching the game on the surrounding TVs, comfortably basking in the heat streaming through the long wall of reclined windows that surrounded us.

The game over, we scattered to the four winds, and Henri and I were wondering what to do. Henri was all for cruising Yonge Street, but I wanted to head back to the Skydome Hard Rock Café; there was a stunning woman behind the bar the night before and I’d taken to her. I ought to have gone with Henri, but the call of a pretty face had overwhelmed my disdain for overpriced beer; besides, I’d done Yonge Street before, I said to myself. There were a few good bars there, but most of the better entertainment had moved on to Queen and Bathurst and Ossington years before. Henri went without me, probably pissed at me for my obvious foolishness.

Stupid of me, really. Girls in Timmins didn’t have much to do with me, so why did I think a sexy bartender in Toronto would take an interest and show me her world. But hope abounds.

Two beer later, seated in a much depleted Hard Rock café, owing to their not being a game played that night, I saw the error of my ways, but Yonge was a ways walk away, and I had no doubt that I’d ever find Henri in all those bars, so I headed up to John Street to Queen Street W and the Horseshoe, making a pit stop at a couple pubs along the way.

Later, back at the hotel, Henri told me that he’d had much the same night as I did, hopping from bar to bar. He told me about the ones he’d been in, and the ones he’d almost gone in but hadn’t. They looked too seedy, too rough, too scary. Had I been with him he’d had gone in, he said, though how having me in tow accounted for strength in numbers was beyond my ken. My rough and tumble side had never scared anyone, let alone the seasoned toughs that would have hung out in dives like those Henri had seen, but I’d always had a reckless streak. I’d probably have gone in without a second thought. I was always oblivious to the possible dangers around me when in the big city. It may have been all those dives Matt and I crawled through while in university. I must have made Henri nervous more than once when I decided to take a short cut through some alleyway.

Keith knew we were in town, so we made plans. He and Laura met us in the lobby.

“Where do you want to go,” they asked.

We’re in your hands, we said. Where’s good, we asked.

He suggested The Big Bop.

I’d never seen anything like it. Three bars in one, and black as pitch. Red pin lights and glow strips marked the walls and stairs, just bright enough to say, “Whoa, there!” STOP WALKING! WATCH YOUR STEP!

I loved the ambiance. I couldn’t see shit, only silhouettes, cigarettes glowing, the undulating sea of hats and heads, and those hellishly insignificant lights and strips. Waitresses carried little flashlights to match faces to drinks.

The band played Petty and Mellencamp covers on the first floor. The second-floor blared electronic dance, the third beat urban rap. Little alcoves lined the stairs, the sweet reek of cannabis rising from one level to the next. A ratty old wingback chair and a table lamp might fill one, where couple necked and groped, where couples congregated to smoke their weed. One music or another was piped into those narrow spaces from one bar or another. I was hopelessly lost in no time. Okay, I wasn’t that lost, but it’s fun to think so.

Keith and Laura left early by our reckoning. They were dependent on the TTC to get them home and had a ways to get there and no desire to pay a cab the fare for the distance they had to go.

Henri and I watched them go and discovered that we were exhausted. We decided to retreat to the Library Bar at the Royal York for one last drink on our last night away from home.

I promptly took a short cut and was already deep into another alley without him.

“What are you doing?” he said, whispering loudly and harshly, unable to keep the exasperation from his voice.

I shrugged his concern off. “Taking a short cut,” I said. “Look, you can see the end of it. Who could possibly be hiding in here?”

I didn’t bother to mention the puke at my feet. Like I said, reckless, oblivious.

What’s In a Name?

What's your name? Simple question. For some, there’s no simple answer. I just happen to be one of those people.

I was adopted. I’ve always known I was adopted. My parents never made a secret of it; they’d told me so, and declared how lucky I’d been to have been loved enough to have been chosen. After Dean was born, they wanted more children, but didn’t want a repeat of what had happened, so they looked to adoption for an answer.

Karen came first. I followed 23 months later. Not exactly; my parents collected me at 3 months, after all the paperwork had been finalized. My Great Aunt went along for the ride. Once she heard what my parents were about, when passing through North Bay, she dropped everything, told Frank where she was going, and tagged along. She was one of the first in my family to hold me, and always doted on me, evermore, always a wonderful sensation, that sort of embracing love. Everyone in my greater family knew, knows, and it had never been an issue for anyone, so far as I knew. I’m David: son, brother, grandchild, nephew, cousin, and now uncle and husband.

So, I’ve always known, and never thought twice about it. I had a home, parents, family. I never once felt the need to go in search of my birth parents

One day my parents, my mother specifically, came to the conclusion that the house on Hart Street was too big for them. It had served them well for years, and had even been added to, constructing a sizable living room out back, replete with an almost wall width stone fireplace. I loved that fireplace.

Especially at Christmastime, logs crackling, before cable TV had made real fires irrelevant.

But Karen had long since moved on, and although I was still in residence, waiting year by year for the axe of the economic downturn that never seemed to fall, my father had not been so lucky. Dad had been laid off from Caterpillar Equipment while I was still at school and it had taken him some time to find further suitable employment, before finding it with Cambrian Welding Supplies. The years of economic disparity had taken its toll, and Mom said that they were getting older, the house was too big for three people, too big for her to clean, and it was costing them too much. It was time to move somewhere smaller and more affordable.

House hunting began. Packing began, as well, not terrible quickly, at first. There were yard sales, open houses.

I mentioned that it was probably time for me to move out and get my own place now that they too were making a change, but they convinced me that it would be good for me to move with them, to continue to save my money, that I might lose everything were I to be laid off, that they still had need of my rent, and a host of other reasons. Inertia took hold and I didn’t leave. I ought to have, but I didn’t. I’d grown too comfortable, and too complacent since moving back in with my parents. Food prepared for me, laundry done for me; a few chores here and there. Aside from arrested development, it seemed a sweet deal at the time.

There wasn’t any rush at first. But once the new house was found, and an offer tendered, packing began in earnest. I found my parents in quiet, but intense discussion over a large brown business envelope on the dining room table.

“They’re his,” my father was saying. “He should have them.”

My mother was not as convinced as he was of that fact.

My father called me over. He pointed to the envelope on the table. “These are yours,” he said.
My adoption papers. I gazed at the old envelope for what seemed ages but was actually only mere seconds.

My father opened the envelope for me and began to spread the papers out on the table.
I sat and leafed through them, noting specific points, names, and dates, here and there.
Birth records: born Grace Hospital in Ottawa, December 19, 1964 to a young woman, age 21, single, a girl, actually. No father given.

I was stunned. I really didn’t know what to say. 

The rest was important and inconsequential. Baptismal records, medical history, church records. I leafed through them again, and carefully set them back in the envelope when I was done.
I saw trepidation in my parent’s faces.

“Well,” was all I could think of to say at first.

They told me what I’d heard hundreds of times before, that I was loved, that I was lucky, and that I’d been chosen, that I had parents. All true.

I told them not to worry, that I knew all that.

But it was the first time I’d actually seen the birth records, and adoption records. It was the first time I’d ever seen my birth name, and my birth mother’s name. Those new old names had somehow unsettled my identity. Who was I? Where did I come from? How did I come to be? Was I missed? Did anyone wonder about me? Had anyone tried to find me? Was it worth my trying to find them? Would they want me to? Those unvoiced questioned rose up and were immediately pushed aside by the next in sequence. I was trying to process; not successfully, I might add.

I was still in a bit of a funk when I entered Casey’s that Friday night. I must have looked distracted and vacant, because Janice Kauffman and Cathy Walli asked me what was wrong, so I told them.

“I just saw my ‘real’ name,” I said. “My mother’s name was Gloria.”

I paused for a moment. They didn’t interrupt me.

“Apparently, I’m David Gary Kilmartin.”

I had no idea what that meant. Was it supposed to mean anything at all?

Days of Empire

When I was about 15, my father took me on his booster rounds one summer day. I’d never been in a bar and I was fascinated by the Empire’s empty space. I’d only seen a disco in movies and I wondered how a night out in one would compare with our school dances. It seems inevitable now that I’d I spend my weekends at the Empire Hotel in those early years. It was the place to be. It was two bars in one. Adjoined, Charlie’s was the disco, Bogie’s was the music hall; both were loud, both were teeming with people, both were filled with women. And if you weren’t in either by 8:30 or 9:00, you were in for a long wait outside, because every weekend there was a long line to get in. But which one to choose? Word of mouth usually carried the day. If there was a good band, we went to Bogie’s; if not, we went to Charlie’s.

Early on, Charlie’s usually won out. Back then, dancing with girls and spending eight minutes in the arms of one at the end of the night would always beat out sitting still and having ones’ ears rung, any day.

They were an enormous step up from my watering holes in Haileybury, an enormous step down from my haunts in Sudbury. But I was always comfortable there, especially in those days. They were home. Everyone I knew went there. Okay, maybe not everybody. There were those who didn’t waste their time and money in bars, there were those who watered themselves in South End at Jakes and the Zoo (the Central House Hotel), and then there was the Mattog, across the river (otherwise known as the Mattagami, the May-Tag, to some). We never went to the Mattog; it was too far to go, too expensive a cab ride back, and rumour had it, too French, and that we Anglaise were not welcome, that there would be fights. There were others, but it was the Empire my crowd happened to settle into. Lucky for me, because it was also the bar I could walk home from in my sleep (see much earlier memory).

I can’t say that I had a favourite side. I loved to dance, and had ever since I’d begun to feel comfortable putting myself out there at those monthly high school events, and Charlie’s was a place where that could happen every weekend. And I loved live music, the way the bass would hammer my chest cavity, watching and hearing how each musician knit their sound in with their mates, magically recreating all those songs we loved, and Bogie’s was a place where that could happen every weekend!

Charlie’s was a place of wonder. Aged oak, gleaming brass. Marbled glass wall, a disco ball. A bottom-lit, coloured Plexiglas dance floor. Strobe lights. New wave and rock and roll. Everything that could make a night exciting. Mostly the crush of bodies and the uncertainty of whether she’d accept. The dance floor was huge for a small bar, but tiny in comparison to all those who wanted to press onto it. We’d be jostled, thrust into on another, and once, Danny Loreto inadvertently punched a girl in the face who strayed too close to his moves. She was laid flat, the dance floor parted, allowing her to crumble smoothly. It was the one time I’d ever seen such a strip of unoccupied space so close to the centre of the dance floor.

When we first began to go to Bogie’s, we wondered why no one sat in the disused raised stage. We were told that was Carriere country. I thought on how far Carriere country was from the stage, the bar, and the washrooms and said, let the Carrieres have it. I wanted to be closer to the stage, I wanted to see and meet the musicians. I did sometimes. It cost a few rounds to get them to sit with us, but we thought it was worth it, seeing the envy on the faces surrounding us. But we also learned how poverty-stricken most musicians actually were upon getting to know some of them. The vision of glamour I held departed with familiarity and scrutiny. Up close I saw the sometimes-tattered clothes, I heard about the crappy food, the crappy accommodations, the life crammed into a VW van for hours and weeks on end.

Summers passed and I gained some perks when Henri Guenette became a bouncer at Bogie’s. I got to know the staff, and I could skip between both halves of the bar without getting bounced. But I also saw some guys take sucker shots at Henri, I also saw Henri take down a guy who was going after another bouncer from behind with an ashtray. I wondered why Henri did it. Perks were fine. But I didn’t want to see him laid out on the floor, bleeding, either.

In time, my high school friends were elsewhere. Maybe they found other distractions. Maybe they were more in tune with budgeting for the upcoming year. Maybe the polished brass and aged oak had tarnished and cracked in their eyes. Maybe it was as simple as they had girlfriends and weren’t up to catting around any longer. Aubrey Bergin filled the gap they left. Aubrey and I became wingmen. One needed a wingman in a rough joint.

One Christmas holiday, Aubrey and I were coming up on the Empire. I’d dutifully gone to Saturday Mass with my mother, and promptly proceeded to stain my cleansed soul at the Downtown, a strip club round the corner from the Empire, waiting for Aubrey. Well met, we headed out before the Empire was filled and we were shut out. It was a windswept night, a little cold. As we came on to the doors, an old man (late 30s, early 40s, but he seemed ancient to me then) and his friend exited. He hailed Aubrey. Aubrey waved hello to the man, but we were chilled and were set on the heat. The man gripped Aubrey and spun him around. Aubrey laughed it off, but was still held firm.

I turned around and asked, “Is there a problem here?”

The man’s attention snapped to me, but he still held Aubrey firm.

“No problem,” he said.

“Great,” I said. “Let him go.” Those were the only words I said. I just stared at him. At first I was just waiting, then I must have looked angry, because the man pulled Aubrey closer and held him like a shield. He looked nervous. So did Aubrey. But Aubrey wasn’t my concern just then. I’d locked eyes with the man, expecting trouble from him and his friend. I needn’t have worried. He kept insisting that I shake his hand.

“No,” I said. “Why would I shake the hand of someone who’s holding my friend against his will?”

A couple minutes had passed. He finally released Aubrey, and Aubrey began stammering apologies to the man.

“Don’t apologize to him,” I said. Then to the man, “Are we done here?”

Apparently, we were because he walked off. I don’t really know where that FUCK YOU attitude came from. Had we got into a fight, Aubrey and I probably would have had the shit kicked out of us.

Uncertainty, and My Father

I returned from Haileybury to a terrifying uncertainty. Kidd Creek phoned to rescind their offer of employment. No student starting after a certain date was to be retained. I, and all other college students, were now unemployed. I had no idea what I was going to do. How could I go back to school without summer employment? Where was I to make money? All summer positions had been filled in March. I was in a panic.

That’s when my father stepped in. What could he do in the wake of my summer employment disaster? Maybe nothing. Maybe a lot. You'd have to know my father and the shadow he cast across Timmins, much as my Poppa had, in his town, in his day. Now, my father's shadow was not nearly as long as my Poppa's, but he cast one. Yes he did, indeed.

You don't believe me? What do you know of my father, Ed Leonard? 

Nothing, obviously. Maybe I should fill you in a little.

Hockey is the first thing that comes to mind for most people when they think of him. He was good at it too. He lived it day and night, growing up. He’d rise, pack a lunch, and be down at the rink, regardless the temperature, until he could no longer see the puck. It was all he thought about. He might have made something of it too, had he not taken a stick to the face when he was 18 years old, detaching his retina.

There was no miracle eye surgery back then, in the ‘50s. He was sequestered to a bed in hospital for months, his head held immobile by sandbags. A mask covered his eyes. He had strict instructions to not move his head, to not, if possible, even shift his eyes. He remained that way for three months, blind and immobile, with only a radio to pass the time, until the retina settled to the bottom and knit itself in place. Were this procedure unsuccessful, he’d have had vision problems for the rest of his life. Either way, he had ample time to develop an uncanny ability to remember song lyrics. Luckily, his retina did as instructed, his only concern healing bed sores. But no scout would touch him after that, not after an eye injury.

Anger does not begin to describe how he felt about that, I imagine. His love had been stolen from him, his chosen goal, forever out of reach. He continued to play hockey, despite the risk, and did so until his late 30s without any further injuries, without the retina ever causing him further problems, as was suggested could happen. He had no choice but to get on with his life.

He’d worked as a parts boy as a kid, so he'd taken a job as such after leaving school after grade 10, a common thing in the North in those days. Without hockey, time passed as it was destined to, and in time my parents married and moved to Don Mills, and in time had Dean.

And it was because of Dean they could no longer afford to live in the South. Dean was what we would call Developmentally Challenged, these days. Severely so; in fact, he'd have been the postcard for developmentally challenged. Dean’s needs were costly. And those medical bills made it impossible for my parents to remain in Toronto. The stress was unbearable. My mother required the support of family, so they moved back to Cochrane.

My Poppa stepped in, pulled lofty strings and Dean was placed in a long-term care facility. Had he not, my mother would surely have suffered a breakdown, and my parents might have split, Catholic or not. Or so I believe.

My Poppa helped out a lot, allowing my father set up his own business in Cochrane, again, in parts. He was grateful, but he was not satisfied with mere parts, anymore. So, Dad sold the business after Karen and I entered the picture, and began working for Husky Ltd (my parents opting for guaranteed security), and then shifted employment again to Molson’s.

We moved to Timmins. More money. Not the best move, for more reasons than I wish to dwell on. Maybe it was for me and Karen, we would discover, but not my parents. Not really.

Dad was always on the road, gone from Monday morning to Friday evening. Time passed. Karen and I grew up. He brought me on his rounds on rare occasions during the summer when I was older (about 15, maybe), I recall wandering between tables and peeking behind bars, inhaling the aura of cigarettes and alcohol imbedded in the gaudy carpets, each a riot of pattern and colour to mask the stains and burns. I recall the Empire Hotel most vividly, my being fascinated by the coloured Plexiglas squares of Charlie’s dancefloor, the tangle of electronics crowding the disk jockey’s booth, taking in the dark oak pillars and bannisters, the finger-smudged brass. The room seemed an empty void without patrons. Both Charlie’s and Bogie’s were poorly lit in light of day, hazy with dust, the motes caught drifting on slow currents by the surprisingly alien sunlight that invaded them. I climbed up on the stage and surveyed the terrain before it while my father wrapped up his business with the owner.

My father had been a salesman for most of his adult life, first as a self-employed parts man, then fuel products for Husky Ltd., then as a booster rep for Molson’s Brewery, and then he sold heavy equipment for Crothers (after my mother had had her fill of Molson’s); that would be Caterpillar Equip., by the way. He was a member of social and business clubs; not the Shriners, or the Masons, or the Kinsman, or any of the sort, but ethnic clubs and social clubs and the sort. He knew a lot of people. I mean he knew a lot of people. So, when I lost my job at Kidd, he made some phone calls. He asked around, he pulled some strings. And a few days later I got a call from the manager of the Dome Mine. A personal phone call from the manager of the Dome.

He’d decided to hire all of the mining students, and only the mining students, laid off by Kidd. All of us. He was under no obligation; he’d already hired all the students he needed for the summer. But he made an exception that summer. I find it hard to believe that my father had little to do with that. I was saved. I’d lost a week’s wages, but I was saved. I wouldn’t have to apply for a loan. I wouldn’t have to scrape by that summer on a pauper’s allowance. But I did have to wait out a strike vote.

The Dome was in negotiation with its Union that summer, with little progress made as the weeks dragged on. I was informed that I ought to bring all my gear home the weekend leading up to the deadline. My stomach tied itself in knots. I still had a month to go before school, and not enough money to make it through the year. I packed my gear, tossed it in the boot, and waited out the news reports.

The Union voted to accept the hastily prepared counteroffer in the eleventh hour. And I was saved, yet again.

Funk and Daze, My Lost Year

My first year of college was a blur, an alcoholic blur. I do remember it, though, somewhat, but I’ve blocked most of it out. Too much emotional stimulus, too little emotional investment, too much unbroken routine. In short, it all runs together, with precious little to set anything apart from the drone that filled my head.
Was it all bad? Of course not. I remember hanging out in the cafeteria. I remember much laughter. I remember hanging out with the guys in the library. I recall one guy in particular, a few years older, every shirt he owned had a company logo on it (I vowed then that I’d never be a billboard for anyone after that). I remember a mature student, about mid-40s, that I was stuck with for survey; he was a walking wounded, bad back, suffering from even worse theodolite skills than most. I remember the school “committee” arriving, we students cornering those mining engineering professionals for details of what our prospects were and what our future careers might look like, testing the waters for future employment, so to speak. I remember them being rather vague, being especially non-committal. The markets were slumping, soon to tank, and they knew it. We saw it in their composure. It was worrisome. We all should have bailed, right then and pursued other careers. To paraphrase, the future’s so bleak, I gotta wear shades. And it was.
But until that bleak future rose up to envelope us, there were classes; there was surveying the back grounds, chem labs, mineralogy, basic geology and geo mapping, mining methods, milling, and of course, math classes to wade through.
School weeks were always full. There were no electives, each day jammed with courses. And on Mondays, right after school, beginning at 4 pm, there was happy hour at the Matabanick. If there was a band that week, Monday was when they began to play, so we had to check them out. We always got to know them. How could we not? We were there when they arrived, when they set up and began their sound checks. In between, they’d have a beer with us. If they were good, we’d be in all week; if not, we’d potentially only be in on Wednesday, or Thursday, sometimes Tuesday. On Friday, I’d hoist a few before climbing onto the bus to Timmins. The in-betweens were spent on homework and later studying for exams.
Throughout this, I was juggling home, new not-friends, my real friends, and Roxanne. Marc, my future ex-brother-in-law had quit and gone home, and I was stuck living with a bunch of guys who I barely tolerated, and they me. There were some “buddies” at school, but I’d never be able to remember their names or pick them out of a line-up, if my life depended on it. I was too transitory then, and when not inhaling beer at the Matabanick, I found myself hibernating in my room, paperbacks piling up, escapist stuff, lots of science fiction and fantasy then.
Exams were the worst, the winter exams the most torturous. They were four hours long. Four hours! I’d never written a four-hour exam in my life until then. Two of them per day for a week, none shorter. I had little time that week for anything else, even food. Wake to dry toast and study, climb the hill to the school, re-review notes for the upcoming exam, herd in with the rest of the sheep to write the damn thing, and then, once that was over, head home for lunch, usually a can of ready-made soup while reviewing my notes for the afternoon marathon. Cold soup, hot soup? Sure, I was all in for variety. I didn’t, couldn’t, stay at the school and eat at the cafeteria, way too noisy, too many distractions, too many guys wanting to know how I answered Question 4 of the last exam, as if I cared, or as if that mattered anymore. Fuck that, I’d tell them. Who cares? That’s last exam. Done is done, don’t mean a thing, not at all. Move on to the next. Thank you. So, there I was at 680 Lakeshore, in the kitchen, reviewing notes while ladling untasted soup into me, then climbing the hill again, re-reviewing notes outside the gym again while crashed out on the hallway floor, then transplanting what facts I’d crammed into my head onto the page, then get my ass home to review for the next couple exams the next day. Kraft dinner. KD, every day for a week. No booze. There were a few who took a pint during the marathon, but it was unlikely we’d see them the next semester, and we knew it. And we didn’t. Casualties were high that first year. I had a couple once I’d stumbled across the finish line, reveling in my sense of release.
Christmas. Roxanne. Dumped. Despair.
I returned from Christmas holiday in a funk. I lived for the weekends. At school I immersed myself in those subjects I had little to no interest in, and gained better knowledge of my chosen future profession. Not that my marks reflected it. Beer, bands, late nights, generally self-destructive behavior ruled my world. I neglected study often, opting for those escapist paperbacks instead. And I began my days backing up Georgina Street on my way up the hill to a school I loathed, each morning, waiting to catch a glimpse of the northbound Northlander. Wishing I was anywhere but there. Pathetic, really.
It wasn’t just the school. That semester I loathed everything. But I persisted. More classes, more labs, more surveying.
February came. Time to apply for summer employment. I applied to the mines at home, Kidd, the Dome, the Mac. I thought that might be enough. Ultimately, Kidd was the only one to respond, accepting my request for employment. So, I too accepted them.
More importantly, once a month, Keith was on the train, heading back to school in North Bay. He was taking Hotel Management, and was as uninspired by his choice of course and school as I was with mine. He’d only taken it because his dad had told him that he was going to college, no argument. So Keith took the course he thought was the easiest one that they offered. Keith and I spotted each other on the train one day, headed to the bar car, caught up, shared our disillusionment, and bitched a lot. Laughed a lot. Laughed at our lot. Repeat once a month. I’d spill out of the train, stumble down the hill, and then suffer through my physics lab the next morning, incapable of taking notes. Once, we met a couple of girls on the train. There were two of them, two of us, good math, all around, and before we knew it, they were in the same seats as us. They were going further than us, in more ways than one. I found one in my lap before too long, the curvaceous blonde, curly hair. Keith had the sprightly brunette. Necking, petting, more than a little groping. Did Keith do the same? I can’t say, I was too busy to notice. She wanted me to remain on the train and to go to Toronto with her, she wanted us to get a sleeper bunk (I don’t believe the Northlander actually had sleepers anymore, by then). The state I was in, I was sorely tempted. But in the end, I extracted myself from her, climbed down from the car to the Haileybury station, and regretfully prolonged my mining school obligations.
Think what you will of that curvaceous blonde, but I owe a debt of gratitude to her. She taught me that I was not unattractive, and helped drag me out of my funk. Roxanne did not fall out of my thoughts, but she did recede some. And in the end, she’d eventually become a ghost that haunted my past. That would take years, though.
Something else happened shortly after the curvaceous blonde. Our dean addressed the school body, informing us that Cambrian College was a horrible school, and that their curriculum was vastly inferior to the School of Mines. That perked my interest. Why, in God’s name, did he do that, I wondered? I looked into it, and ultimately decided that if the dean was so scared of Cambrian College’s mining program, that it must actually be good. And I thought, Cambrian College; there’d be girls there. That alone was reason enough for me to bail on Haileybury.
Final exams followed. One four-hour exam per day for two weeks. The entire years study was fair game. I passed, barely. It was shocking how poorly I’d done. Okay, maybe not all that shocking. It was certainly understandable. My major had not been mining engineering that year, after all; it had been depression and alcohol abuse. I aced those courses.

Roxanne

Roxanne was my first girlfriend. I’d been on a couple of dates prior to meeting her, but nothing that prepared me for this. There were problems with the relationship from the start, the most notable being age difference. I was in my first year of college, she was in high school. Not just high school, grade nine. Four years difference. At my age now, four years would be no difference at all, but back then? She was a child, and I should never have gone down that road. What was I thinking? The answer: I wasn’t, not at all. In my defense, there were extenuating circumstances that, had they not been in place, there would have been no introduction, and no possibility of what followed. Nothing would have happened. The first was, for whatever reason, she was hanging out with my friends, who were in grade 13. She was mature for her age, and all things considered, my mind did not actually trigger on the fact that she was in grade 9. She was hanging out with my friends, after all. Should my mind have? You bet your ass it should have. But, sadly, it did not.

My first year of college was spent travelling back and forth, to and from home. Every Friday, I’d pack up, and hop on the bus at 7:30, arriving home at 11:30 in Timmins. Every weekend. In retrospect, that was not the best atmosphere for making lasting friends, but I was 18, a young 18, and most my classmates were 19 or 20, although there were a number of mature students, as well. That may not seem a big difference, but it was to me, then. I suppose my mind was still in high school; there was a divide between grades, a divide between ages. If only that sense of divide had reared its head in Roxanne’s case.

One weekend in early winter, I arrived home and hung out with Garry Martin and Deb Huisson, who’d become an item in the past year. I had already been given an absentee introduction to Roxanne in the prior weeks, but had yet to meet her. They’d talked her up some, told me how mature she was for her age, how fun she was. I was dubious. What the hell were they doing hanging out with a grade 9, I thought. I still subscribed to that age divide we’d known and loved since kindergarten, although in the past months, living with and hanging out with guys a year or two older than me, performing lab experiments with 30-year-olds, that old divide was beginning to shake off its bonds.

Then the introduction happened. At first, she was just some hangers-on, and then, after a couple weeks, we were together more, always finding ourselves seated side by each, apparently, inexplicably, attracted to one another. I felt it, and was beginning to recognize those signs I had never before seen (or recognized) directed towards me. I was flattered, elated. And I was responding in kind.

She teasingly called me “The Plaid Lad.” Everyone laughed at that. Me, too. Because it was true. But I wasn’t the only one in plaid then. I was grunge before my time. I’d thrown off the cords, was into 501s, plaid shirt and t-shirt, parkas, then leather jackets, (sky blue, HSM school jacket, yes, but leather jacket just the same). Longish hair. Edgy, and not. I was called Smilin’ Dave by some. A bit of a fuck you attitude was still to come…shortly after Christmas, in fact.

I’d never considered myself particularly attractive. Skinny, some moles, gap between my front teeth; a co-worker at the pool had once pointed out to me at 17 that my hair had begun to thin on my scalp (not the thing ANY teen wants to hear from an attractive girl). I was shy with girls, unsure how to act around them, certainly inexperienced when it came to relations beyond study groups, and the occasional chatting up over pop at Top Hats or the show. In short, girls were friends, and goddesses on pedestals. What interest I had in them wasn’t particularly reciprocated throughout high school that I was aware of. I had one real instance of being perused. Carla Colarossi had when I was in Grade 12, she in grade 11. She asked me to go to the Valentines Dance, and had made a rather heavy broach (badge? whatever) that I was to wear, and did, even though it pulled my shirt out of shape. I liked Carla, but she did not make my heart race, so nothing came of it. Aside from that, and a couple other isolated instances, I had very little experience as to how to cope with this new attention.

My relationship with Roxanne began in earnest shortly before Christmas. I did not last long. She and I would meet Saturday afternoons, and evenings, sometimes Sundays. She once came to the bus stop to see me off back to school. But I was older, I suppose faster, most definitely needier. I was ready for an actual serious relationship, despite my lack of experience. She was probably even more unprepared for me than I was for her. So she backed off, and there was a distance during the Christmas Holidays. I asked her about it. She stammered out that she had family obligations, not enough time, other concerns that I thought a bit thin. We were going out, weren’t we? I asked my friends for guidance. I asked this other guy who was hanging out with my friends, with Roxanne; where he came from, I had no clue. He was older than me, I remember that. Aside from that, I didn’t know a thing about him. I’d never seen him before that year; I’d never see him again after that year. I thought he was a wedge, between me and my friends, between me and Roxanne. But I was desperate and asked him for advice too, just the same. I remember they gave me the usual advice, give her space. I said that I was gone for a week at a time; how much space did she need?

And then, shortly after Christmas Day, she broke it off. I was devastated. I was depressed for a month, drank even more heavily than I was accustomed to do. I wanted to quit school, run away. I didn’t know what I wanted to do.

There was a moment that passed quickly. I was in a car with John Lavric. We were headed out to South End, to go to his girlfriend’s party. I discovered that I had my hand on the door handle. Gripping it hard. I stared at it for a moment, and then consciously, delicately, released it.

How did I do scholastically that year in the wake of my leaving home for the first time, drinking to excess every week and then every weekend, in the wake of such a disastrous reconnoiter into love and relationships? I passed with a 2.15, not low enough to have to take a year off, just enough to continue. Had I failed, things might have turned out differently. I think I hated what I was doing. My future ex-brother-in-law had quit school and returned home. I had few friends. The guys I lived with were assholes, as far as I could see. Every morning, I’d see the Northlander bus pass my house on its way to Timmins. I wanted to be on it. I wanted to be on the train heading south to Toronto. The one saving grace, was my monthly shared train trip back to Haileybury with Keith. Keith was going to college in North Bay, and he and I saw each other every month for 4 hours on that train. I never failed to exit those meetings so hammered that I didn’t feel that I was going to die; but I don’t think I could have survived Roxanne without Keith. He was my littermate. I’ve never once felt that I wasn’t where I belonged when by his side. I still don’t.

That summer John and I were hanging out in his basement. It was about a week before my near fatal car accident (see automatic escapades). My sister’s wedding was a couple weeks behind us. John was experiencing a bumpy patch with his girlfriend, Tracy, and I was just beginning to actually get a grip on myself. I said just beginning. As I said, he and I were in his basement, mixing rye and cokes. John sipped his, commenting on how his foot hurt (he had actually broken it, as I recall, having leapt a guardrail that evening, and landing poorly, spilled to the ground); I was pulling harder on my drinks. The evening progressed, we complained about women, and then I went home as dawn was beginning to give hint of its arrival, having polished off way too many inches of that bottle (it was decades before I could abide the smell of whiskey). I staggered and stumbled home, taking easily three times as long to arrive home as needed. John listened to me all night. He nodded sagely. He listened patiently, something only he and Keith had done in those six months as I clawed my way back to sanity. Others didn’t, but those two did. I will love them both till my dying day for that.

Did I love Roxanne? Probably not. Maybe I did. I thought I did. Did my brief relationship with her cast a shadow on how I approached women for years to come? Most definitely. I wish it hadn’t. Because the following school year, I met Debbie Wursluk. And I most certainly loved her.

Coming of Age, Of a Sort

That would be between ‘76 and ‘78, I’d say. That's a hard thing to nail down for most people, if not all of us, as it happens in leaps and bounds over a period of time. So let’s observe some of this process. Further details of each to follow, I imagine.

In ‘76, I began helping out at the pool, not the Schumacher pool (that’s where my sister began her junior guard experience), the Archie Dillon Sportsplex, then only a year old. Judy Miller was still at the cash (God love her for her longevity of service), but other than that, the two pools could not be more different. The Sportsplex was brick, tiled, windowless, '70s modern in every way. It echoed, as all pools do. It was humid, as all pools are; but hot, as the Schumacher Pool never was.

In ‘77, I bought my first albums with what little wealth I had: Fleetwood Mac’s “Rumours,” and the Eagles’ “Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975.” I loved them both, but I can’t say I chose them on my own. They were picked out on the advice of my cousin Alan, in from Cochrane. We stumbled upon each other in the new Timmins Square on a Saturday afternoon, at Circle of Sound. I was in a record store for the first time, out with friends, trying and failing to be mallrats, leafing through the maze of future personal purchases, browsing the best sellers, when Alan appeared. We talked, he asked me what I liked, and I admitted I didn’t really know, limited to the playlist on the local radio and the memory of the too many ‘60s and ‘70s rock in my older cousins’ collections to remember; I’d yet to find my groove. When he asked me what albums I had already, I begrudgingly admitted that I didn’t own any LPs, then, yet. He took those two off the best-sellers wall, and said that these were two worthy of building a record collection from. He was right.

In ‘76, the class trip to Midland, the first time I was ever away from my parents. We were placed four to a room, one of whom likely stole the $10 of mad money my mother gave me for the trip. That kid held a $10 bill up to me and all in the room and said, “Look what I have.” Me too, I said, in response, unsure why he was so boastful about showing it off, my own mother telling me to keep it secret; but upon a search of my own luggage later could not find my own money my mother had given me. Read between the lines, and I’m sure you will come to the same conclusion I did. But how to prove the theft? I let it go.

In the summer of ‘77, Star Wars was released. I very much had an Eric Foreman moment.

In ‘78, I saw my first video game, Pong, on the school trip to Toronto. We spotted it in the restaurant of the hotel/motel we were staying at, and were soon 3 to 5 deep around it, fascinated, transfixed by what we knew was the future. That same trip, someone was caught shoplifting on a stop on the way home. One of our teachers went down the aisle with a basket, telling us that if anyone else had stolen something, to place it in the basket and nothing more would be said. He left with an empty basket. The shoplifter was eventually returned to us, his head low with shame upon entering the bus.

In ‘78 and beyond new interests began to penetrate my shell: girls, New Wave, Post-punk; video games, first at the Square, then Andy's Amusement, and later still at Top Hat’s.

The list of crushes to that point: Heather, Alison, Patricia, Shelly, Kim, and Sandra. Obviously, more to come.