Magical Newfoundland Moments, Part 3

Fisherman's Daughter-1 – Peter Sobol

For Part 1 of this series, see here, for Part 2 see here.

So then it was on to the final part of our trek, a stop at Peter Sobol Art Gallery. Peter is one of the most enthusiastic people I ever met, bubbling over with ideas and concepts and he gladly showed us around his wonderful studio and his gallery, full of his paintings and ceramic pieces. It seems like Peter himself has been captivated by the faeries as they feature predominantly in his ceramic pieces, often swimming underwater. Luscious colours predominated.

He was full of stories, offered to illustrate my short story collection and commissioned me to take a series of pictures of a dear friend who was with us, whom he said had the best Newfoundland mother’s face he’d ever seen. He’d love to paint it, with a background of Newfoundland tragedies. So I will attempt to do my dear friend justice and photograph her well, face down and reverential (she is far from!) as he instructed.

He was also involved in an unusual project – he was growing garlic in this scheme across Canada, where the participants are pooling their varieties and planting thousands of bulbs before the first frost. I didn’t know that the leaves of garlic are called scapes and can be eaten in salad at the beginning of the growing season which also incidentally encourages clove production.





Then it was on to lunch at The Captain’s Table (seen above) which has a wonderful seafood chowder and where I met a Scottish woman, living here and married to an Irishman. As I am forming an informal association of Irish-born Newfoundlanders, this was a serendipitous meeting.

My cup truly ran over on a day such as I’ve recounted. When my creative juices start to flag, I’ll go back into my memory box and remember these wonderful artists and their enchanting spaces and feel thoroughly inspired!

There is absolutely no hope, agreed?

Only 39%! 39%! 39%! 39%! of US Citizens believe in evolution!!!!! In 2009!!!!! That's right! - leaving 61% believing in creationism.

From Riverdaughter:

Charles Darwin film ‘too controversial for religious America’

A British film about Charles Darwin has failed to find a US distributor because his theory of evolution is too controversial for American audiences, according to its producer.

… US distributors have resolutely passed on a film which will prove hugely divisive in a country where, according to a Gallup poll conducted in February, only 39 per cent of Americans believe in the theory of evolution.

Movieguide.org, an influential site which reviews films from a Christian perspective, described Darwin as the father of eugenics and denounced him as “a racist, a bigot and an 1800s naturalist whose legacy is mass murder”. His “half-baked theory” directly influenced Adolf Hitler and led to “atrocities, crimes against humanity, cloning and genetic engineering”, the site stated.

The film has sparked fierce debate on US Christian websites, with a typical comment dismissing evolution as “a silly theory with a serious lack of evidence to support it despite over a century of trying”.

Jeremy Thomas, the Oscar-winning producer of Creation, said he was astonished that such attitudes exist 150 years after On The Origin of Species was published.

“That’s what we’re up against. In 2009. It’s amazing,” he said.

“The film has no distributor in America. It has got a deal everywhere else in the world but in the US, and it’s because of what the film is about. People have been saying this is the best film they’ve seen all year, yet nobody in the US has picked it up.

“It is unbelievable to us that this is still a really hot potato in America. There’s still a great belief that He made the world in six days. It’s quite difficult for we in the UK to imagine religion in America. We live in a country which is no longer so religious. But in the US, outside of New York and LA, religion rules.

Sigh. These people vote and reproduce. Somebody help us!

Magical Newfoundland Moments, Part 2.

(for part 1 of this series see here )

Then it was on to our next port of call, Five Island Art Gallery which is in Tors Cove.

The gallery is in a converted school house overlooking a marvellous historic village and the eponymous islands.

Featured were hooked rugs, but what hooked rugs!




In the gallery itself, there was an incomplete rug – “Forty Shades of Green” which is being made in honour of the Festival of the Sea, an annual Ireland –Newfoundland event which is hosted by each country on alternate years.

All visitors to the gallery are invited to hook a section of the rug after a quick lesson by the owner. We all participated in this unusual interactive art project:


And before you start, there were lots of jokes about “happy hookers”. Inevitable, I expect!

What I love to see these days is the honouring of the magnificent needlework that women were so taken for granted doing, back in the day. Now it is elevated to where it should be, magnificent works of art. My mother, a phenomenal embroiderest, would have been gratified. As would my grandmother, an excellent rag rug hooker. And as am I, a dedicated and inventive knitter.


.....to be continued.

Magical Newfoundland Moments, Part 1.

There are some moments in life that you look back on and say to yourself, oh that was the time, it was so inspiring, why didn’t I see it then? I’m getting better at observing in the now – more aware, more in the magical moments, more grateful for the gift of this incredible life.

Well, I’ve had a ton of those moments over the summer, let me tell you, and I had those moments in gallons in the last couple of days.

Seven of us headed over to Ferryland on Thursday afternoon for an evening of dinner theatre and to stay overnight in this glorious old house that has been painstakingly restored. Ferryland was settled in 1621 and there are significant archaeological exploration there as the site has been so perfectly preserved.

But we were there for the theatre, a wonderful show called "Outport Taxi". I don’t think I stopped laughing from beginning to end. The place was packed and as tourist season is closing, nearly all of us were Newfoundlanders. And as is the way when that happens, everyone starts talking to everyone else and the audience becomes one huge party.


We had a PJ gathering after the show in the big kitchen of the house, slurping drinks and evil junk food and shooting the blarney. I love nights like this, a direct golden path leading to the harvest moon above the water outside the door, every star as clear as a button holding back the navy blue sky and the lilt of female voices spinning the yarns of the tapestry that make up our lives.

We had an amazing breakfast provided by the owner and her husband, a good friend, up in her café on the hill above the house.

It never ceases to astonish me, the quality and diversity of artistic talent contained (or should that be brimming over in every direction?) in a thinly populated province like Newfoundland and the joy of discovering yet others like myself, the CFAs (“Come-From-Aways”), who visit here, become captivated (or taken by the faeries as some have it!) and make a startling, sudden and heartfelt decision to leave all that is familiar and come and live here.

Our first stop was to the home of an ex-pat Britisher, Nicola Hawkins, and her husband Andy who took this old church that had been abandoned for twenty years and made an exquisite home and galleries out of it. Here is the inside:
Breathtaking doesn’t do it justice. Example: stones from the beach in front are laid into white cement in their entire lobby floor, Canadian coins, mainly pennies, are embedded into their bathroom floor.



Greenhouses, dove cotes and two lightfilled workshops cling to the hills around the converted church:
A feast for the eyes and the soul. Among other creative endeavours Nicky takes old tin boxes that formerly housed biscuits, tea, tobacco, etc. and gently beats them into astonishing artefacts, chairs, chests and tables. She also paints and teaches Yoga. And took time away from her culinary endeavours to talk to us and show us her stained glass as her husband busied himself outside, laying out a 100lbs of cod to dry.

Apologies for the quality of my photos, all due to living in Dialup Dementia, soon to be Highspeed Heaven - if all goes well.



…..to be continued.

Thank you once again, Canada. This is what universal health care looks like.

In an effort to enlighten further on the subject of Canadian Universal Health Care:

I had to switch provincial health care providers due to my more permanent move from Ontario to Newfoundland and checked the NL Health website to see if there were any minor differences in provincial coverage (i.e. seniors in Ontario get free eye exams, under sixes in NL get free dental).

Note this is all FREE, as in one pays nothing, not even a fee for the card, and nowhere is there a “death panel” mentioned or assignments of doctors or hospitals. I’m free to walk into any medical facility anywhere in Newfoundland (and in all of Canada for that matter as my health card is, like, PORTABLE from province to province when I'm visiting) and obtain FREE treatment. Just so y’all know.

This is the 100% paid coverage, no co-pays, no fees, in fact I don’t even get shown a bill. From anyone.

*visits to a physician's office, hospital or beneficiary's residence
*surgical, diagnostic and therapeutic procedures, including anaesthesia
*pre- and post-operative care
*complete maternity care
*radiology interpretive services
*certain surgical-dental procedures which are medically necessary to be performed in hospital by a dentist or oral surgeon

This is what not-for-profit universal health care looks like. It should be a state given right. Like, oh, water, schools, police forces, firefighters, etc. Anywhere and everywhere in the world.

Can someone define socialism, please?

There’s something quite chilling about these numbers. Unemployment statistics and the freefalling economy are still tumbling into darkness. It ain’t over by a long shot. And may never be.

Here in the Great White North the government continues to babble about how great we’re doing vs our neighbour down south. I don’t believe it for a minute.

And down south? They’re all about protesting the evil socialism of universal health care. While 1 in 9 of its citizens are on food stamps. FOOD STAMPS.

Yes, that’s right 35 million (35,000,000) US citizens are on food stamps.

What was that again about socialism?

Before Everything Fell Apart.

I can't begin to tell you about the birthday gift my daughter gave me this year. She had painstakingly gathered all the long forgotten and unwatched-for-30-years home movies ever made of 'the family' - her family - and shipped them away to be made into DVDs. These movies were made in the first 10 years of her life. Movies of her and her sister's first steps, of family Christmases, of trips to the beach, of travels to Ireland, of swimming, of a cottage, of a much remembered trip to South Carolina with my then teenage brother and sister and our two young children.

There are cherished snippets of my mother before she died and of my grandmother. Movies of a brother's wedding where our daughters were delectable flower girls and the wedding reception in our house. (His bride died tragically young). And many more.

It is right up there in the exalted list as one of the BEST GIFTS EVER. Thank you, sweetheart if you are reading this. A million thank yous.

Here is something I wrote in an attempt to crystalize my countless emotions in watching the DVDs.

The Way We Were

Were we that young?
Were we that loving?
Did that song say it all
About the way we were?

The story of each scene
Takes my breath away
More than it did then,
At the way we were.

My parents light up
And my granny too
Surrounded by love
In the way we were.

And those little girls
In their frothy dresses
Giggling and laughing
By the way we were.

The screen flickers on
With our loving glances
I switch off and mourn
For the way we were.

The Moon and I

It's all in my head, some may tell me. But the phases of the moon affect me. Maybe that's because I'm part-lunatic. Certain stray branches in the old family tree point that way. A great-great uncle would paddle out in his currach and sing to the moon most weeknights. "Appeasing her" my grandmother would tell me in all seriousness. Maybe I don't do enough of it. Appeasing that is. It not being in my nature 'n all. Being a part-lunatic, you see.

I'm still a mad fan of Gilbert & Sullivan. I sang those operettas for a few years in Cork under the able direction of James N. Healy, himself a true eccentric. Hang on, this is going somewhere.

I often sing this to myself when the moon calls me:

Observe his flame,
That placid dame,
The moon's Celestial Highness;
There's not a trace
Upon her face
Of diffidence or shyness:
She borrows light
That, through the night,
Mankind may all acclaim her!
And, truth to tell,
She lights up well,
So I, for one, don't blame her!

Ah, pray make no mistake,
We are not shy;
We're very wide awake,
The moon and I!
Ah, pray make no mistake,
We are not shy;
We're very wide awake,
The moon and I!

It's from the Mikado

I think it a very good thing to be slightly mad. I'm getting better at it as I age.

Bell Island

Today, the last day my family are here with me, we visited Bell Island for the first time. It was an extraordinary day, contributed to in no small part by the weather which was stunningly clear, it was as if the ocean and the sky were having a tug of war as to which would get the most turquoise.

We took the ferry from Portugal Cove – picture by me below, ferry is in the background

and headed over on our 30 minute ocean ride across Conception Bay South. I had heard that the iron ore mines were well worth visitng though they were not for the faint of heart as the climb down (and back again!) was pretty challenging and at times claustrophic. We were undaunted by this but confess to feelings of unease at the thoughts of the overwhelming weight of the ore above our heads.

Karen, our tour guide, was amazing. Our group was small, very unusual, she said, so we were given, I believe, more personal anecdotes about the miners who worked long and hard in digging the incredible shafts, deep within the earth and under the surrounding ocean. Unbelievably challenging even today but an astonishing engineering feat at the time, well over a century ago. We trudged around in our warm jackets (we were asked to put them on prior to going down as the temperature would drop dramatically) and our hard hats, fascinated by the lives that were lived by both man and beast down so deep within the bowels of the earth.

Karens' father and grandfather worked in the mines, starting at very young ages doing menial work and then graduating at fourteen to the actual mining itself. She had stories of horses that didn’t see the light of day for months on end, even their stables were way down in the bowels of the earth. Stories of rats that were treated with total respect by the miners as they could sense an imminent collapse and would scatter – the miners fed them bits of their lunches every day as a thank you for saving their lives – much like the canaries in coal mines.

The mines have been kept intact and many artefacts were on display. You can read more about it here if you like.

Another of Bell Island’s claims to fame is that it was the only site in North America to be attacked by German U-Boats in World War Two.

Picture below was taken by the grandgirl from the Bell Island side of the path of the ferry crossing.



To add to our adventurous day, a few minutes after she took this picture, we were on the ferry and dolphins entertained us all the way back to Portugal Cove.

My summer scrapbook overflows with unforgettable memories.

Photo of the Week

Water Bridge in Germany. An incredible engineering feat.

Six years, 500 million euros, 918 meters long!

This is a channel-bridge over the River Elbe and joins the former East and West Germany, as part of the unification project. It is located in the city of Magdeburg, near Berlin.

The photo was taken on the day of inauguration.

To those who appreciate engineering projects, here's a puzzle for you armchair engineers and physicists.

Question:
Did that bridge have to be designed to withstand the additional weight of ship and barge traffic, or just the weight of the water?


Answer:
It only needs to be designed to withstand the weight of the water!
Why? A ship always displaces an amount of water that weighs the same as the ship,
regardless of how heavily a ship may be loaded.

Twilight Insight

I remember my father. Freshly retired and clutching a retirement present of a round trip ticket to Canada, looking slightly bemused in a snapshot in a local paper. Travel! Now! What a cliché.

I would ask him about the work he left behind. The work that housed, fed and educated his six children for nearly fifty years. Work that kept him sequestered from any unwarranted intrusion into his day, away from the lot of us apart from a ‘dire emergency’. I always understood that to be one of us dead or at the very least hospitalized. My mother never telephoned him for he was a Very Busy Man with Very Important Work.

None of us were privy to his daily doings. It involved The Government for he was a civil servant in the County Council. Something about land expropriation for road expansions and delinquent rent collection and it was Top Secret. And that was, and is, all I ever knew. Occasionally he would be involved in political elections, overseeing the vote counts and getting his face on television to announce the winning candidate. Heady days and the peak of his bureaucratic career.

But when it was over, it was really over. All those hours, days, weeks, years were rarely alluded to. He was like a man released from prison. His days became filled with other activities. He kept up a vast correspondence with far-flung relatives, including myself. The letters were full of news of deaths, births, marriages, graduations and always included a question at the bottom - to insure he got replies, he told me once. He went to town every day on the ‘Pensioner Special’ at ten in the morning and met others like himself for ‘the best lunch in town’ and then walked around the city he loved.

He told me that a stranger stopped him once on a weekday afternoon right in the middle of Patrick Street and said to him he had the happiest face he ever saw on a man.

He travelled to Dublin, London, England, to Africa, to Wales and Scotland. And of course to Canada and around the U.S. He once spent two weeks wandering around Oxford just talking to the men who worked on maintaining all the old walls and buildings.

I would think to myself. All those years. All. Those. Years. Close to fifty of them. And he never talks about them.

And I finally understand.

Gros Morne

It has to be one of the most spectacular places in the world. Gros Morne National Park. A World Heritage Site. Fjords, mountains, lakes, beaches, fishing villages. And the most phenomenal trails and hikes.

And we finally made it there. The grandgirl and I. We've been trying to get there for 6 years now. But keep getting distracted by the sidetrips we sidle into on our way there. That's the way we travel. It would drive most people mad, I suspect. But we often say to each other: it's not about finding places, it's about places finding us. And this year we kind of meandered there. Newfoundland is quite staggeringly enormous. It's only one of ten provinces of Canada (there are also three territories) but having seen most of them, I have to say it is the most beautiful. In every way. Its vistas, its people, its sense of community, its music, its proud history. So after driving about 700 kilometres from where we live, we reached Gros Morne. The jewel in the crown of Newfoundland and Labrador.

We stayed in a lovely cabin at Cosy Corner Cottages and used this as our base of operations. The hikes we took were spectacular, encompassing many different types of terrain, wetlands, woods, marshes and cliffs.

We spent a whole day on Shallow Beach, which curved into a gentle 4 kilometre silken strand with terrific swimming.

All in all, another awesome annual vacation for the two of us.

Forty Years On

A part of me so deep and lost still loves you, he said.

And sometimes the door cracks open and I throw my head to the sky and howl

In pain, in fear, in loss, in memory, in longing.

Do you understand?

Do you understand this at all?

That this part of me exists only for you?

It died on the day we did. But it was never buried.

It lies there without a marker, without a headstone.

And now I can see all that we missed.

Because we couldn’t look into each other’s eyes

And bare each other’s souls, the we, the us, by us, for us, that us, that we

That flared so magnificently then. Like fireworks knocking out the stars.

I’ve never loved like that love with the fingers of me on the fingers of you

So tight, I could have snapped them off, one by one, do you remember?

But instead I licked and kissed them one by one, all ten, over and over.

And moved to your toes, one by one, over and over.

And told you stories of me meeting you and you meeting me.

Do you remember, you must remember.

You wanted my voice in your head all night long.

To lay your devils down and stop the sound they made

Keening words that told you not to tell me your secrets

To never trust me, to betray me,

And to get up and leave me.

The African Violet

Blogging will be sporadic over the next few weeks owing to both daughter and granddaughter being here for a month.

And boy, are we enjoying the weather, it has been a glorious summer in Newfoundland!

In the ginormous cornucopia of dastardly political deeds and universal idiocies to blog about, it is virtually impossible to choose one or two. So I won’t. My head begs for relief, as I'm sure yours does too!

Instead I bring you:



I wrote the following when my father died back in 1996, and I think it deserves a fresh airing:

The African Violet

Now, what can I get the Da, the shirts and ties pile up and if he lives to be ninety he has enough cigars,
God, it’s always so hard to think of something he doesn’t throw in a drawer or on a shelf and cluck to himself
At the foolishness of wasting their money on stuff for him that he doesn’t care about or want or need.
Sure God doesn’t he have everything, a lovely pension, a great car, a house, all the travel he could manage.
Now what were we talking about last night at Scrabble, Myra and I had a passion for African Violets,
Couldn’t I get him an African Violet in a nice pot, I’m sure he’s never been given a flower in his life,
He’ll probably think it some new foolishness, and purse his lips and think, do I need the additional responsibility now
Of watering this, and at this stage of my life too, I have better things to do than take care of things in pots.
And four years later I’m there and I see on the sideboard the grey china pot and the green African Violet.
Ah Da, I say, it is looking lovely, aure you took great care of it!
Ah now, why wouldn’t I, he says, taking a great puff off his cigar.
And three months after that, I’m in the house for the last time and there it is, on the kitchen table, in full bloom.

The Black in Blackwater

Why is it when it comes to the rape, abuse, exploitation and degradation of innocent children that avowed Christians of all stripes are nearly always involved?

The saga of Blackwater continues. The mega profit outsourced corporate arm extraordinaire of the U.S. military presence in Iraq. Between murdering for entertainment and evidence suppression, wife swapping, money laundering, tax evasion and redeploying the certified mentally ill back to Iraq, an ex-employee has now given sworn testimony that Erik Prince, CEO of Blackwater and avowed clean living Christian, turned a blind eye to the sexual abuse, rape and exploitation of young Iraqi children that took place in the Blackwater compounds in Baghdad.

I’m not surprised. I’ve maintained for years that only the tip of the iceberg about Iraq’s illegal invasion has been exposed. There is more to come.

And the real perpetrators are still running free. Prosecution is still off the table. Indeed. More protection for child molesters. Was it ever thus.

I may not be surprised about this. But I still have the capacity to feel sickened.

Fog People

There’s some that calls it fog, let them, I say.

There’s some that calls it rolling devils, they’re close.

There’s some, like me, who sit by the shore

Late in the evening, with the sun but a memory

And watch the shadow selves of centuries past,

Slither down from the graveyard on the hill behind us.

And get busy at the work of hauling out the catch

From the dancing grey boats on the slippery water

And spread it row on row on the flakes to dry.

We watch them swirl and spin and shift,

The dog and me, and growl if they get too close.

What am I offered for a slightly used Senate?

Does anyone else get the feeling that governments everywhere are waiting for Tinkerbell to appear and make everything all better? I keep reading/hearing/seeing that we have ‘turned the corner’ on the economy, markets are on the ‘upswing’ and peak oil, no, no, no such thing.

Forget about Bush and his Keystone Cabal hiding all the evidence of climate change during his sad and sorry terms of office and Halliburton/Blackwater playing a brand new version of Murder Inc., over there – look here comes Tinkerbell!

Well not in Arizona, no sirree Bob, seems like in Arizona, Dems Wot Rules are planning on selling the State Capital Building. And the Senate Building. Seriously.

Pull up yer chair and read all about it.

Could this be a prelude to the White House and its contents in a yard sale next Saturday?

Stories of Friendship and Betrayal: Part 3

Installment 1 of this story is here

It’s a prickly place to be in, that narrow spot between a rock and a hard place. I couldn’t tell the bride what had happened, and ruin her wedding day. And what was the point of telling Ted about his friend and rugby mate? Would he exact revenge? Would she turn her back on me as a liar? I decided to forget about it after telling Billy he was never to touch me again and he was off my hug list for life.

Billy never pulled it together employment wise. He had been studying engineering in the hope of securing a great job like his older engineer brother but stories rippled forth about incompetent professors and inadequate instructions. Billy sat the same exams so many times that his co-students were eventually over ten years younger than him. Then he ‘didn’t fit in’. Ilona was full of sympathy for him, listening attentively and nodding as he filed his complaints to all who would listen. She never saw a flaw in him and kept financing his failed educational endeavours by turning her back on the finer side of her artistic talent and acquiring full time employment designing branch offices of banks.

I was very fond of her, for a variety of reasons. She was loyal, she was an energy force to be reckoned with and apart from the fatal flaw of her odd marriage, was a very interesting person. We all tolerated Billy because of Ilona.

She had the remarkable gift of making her friends’ lives appear fascinating to her other friends. She would extol one’s gifts and virtues (“Oh, you should read some of Terry’s work, she’s such a writer and a singer too - and her photographs, my dear, her talent is awesome, and Ted, he’s her husband - brilliant athlete, so tall and good looking and their daughters, she makes all their clothes you know and dresses them in black and white sometimes to show off their blondness, you just have to meet them all…..”). We all felt several inches taller and more exciting in our humdrum lives having heard Ilona’s press releases on us all.

Ilona had two children by Billy and not without some effort on her part as he was disinterested in the procreative end of things according to Ilona. He was a distant father and she was, to put it succinctly, an indifferent mother. Ted and I babysat the children from time to time and were shocked at their neediness and one time there was one of the worst cases of nappy rash on one of them that I’ve ever seen. I managed to heal it with a cure-all ointment from Ireland and doses of sunshine on the naked little bottom. I was frankly too scared to take the child to the doctor as I thought he might have turned Billy and Ilona in for child neglect. Really, really poor judgement on my part and I see that now. Ted and I were godparents to both children which hindered a balanced appraisal of the situation.

All was right in the world Ilona had created for herself. Until she phoned me late one night about twelve years into her marriage to say she had no money and Billy had maxed out all her credit cards in the past few months. Thousands and thousands of dollars in unexpected debt in restaurants, pubs, flowers, jewellers, none of which she had benefited from.

She had finally confronted Billy and he had admitted to an affair with the daughter of a prominent politician in Toronto and bingo, she was pregnant by him. Ilona was devastated. Billy had left an hour before she called me. By that time, Ted and I were separated and I was struggling financially myself. However, my policy in these matters, rather than giving money, is to ask what is needed. Food, she answered, in tears, and clothes for the children. Billy had provided little to no financial support over the years. And would not provide any now. That was a given.

So I did what I could for her, whilst dealing with my own demons of the time. We would get together as often as we could and I would take her children for a week in the summer.

Out of the blue about three years into her separation, I had a long message from her on my answering machine. In this she said that she had carefully thought out what she was going to say and here it was, she had always been interested in my husband (now ex) Ted and as he and I had been separated for a while now, she had bought theatre tickets and was going to invite him to the theatre in the hopes of beginning a relationship with him and she hoped I didn’t mind.

What made this message extraordinarily hurtful was that several years before, a bunch of us women had sat down and agreed that the worst damage one of us could inflict on another was to date/have an affair with/pursue each other’s partners, ex or otherwise. It was a pact.

Her wedding day came to mind as I played the message over and over. The secret I had never shared. And I so wanted to inflict this on her now. A “Guess what happened on your wedding day?” revenge phone call.

But I didn’t. Something about the high road, something about revenge being a dish best eaten cold. What I did was gather all her paintings and artwork off my walls. There were a lot - gifts given over the years. I placed them prominently around the garden at a huge garage sale I had when I was downsizing from the family home. I priced them all at one dollar each. They sold right away. The inner mean little me hoped that at one time she would spot one in a house and be told its sale price.

She and Ted lasted just over six weeks. She and I haven’t spoken to this day. Billy went on to have four children in four years with his wealthy partner who then dumped him. He went back to live at his elderly mother’s. Ilona moved to the country and was involved in a fraud scheme at a local art gallery and was held criminally responsible. Subsequently, her son was jailed for drug dealing. These two items I gleaned from the newspapers.

One couldn’t make this stuff up.

Stories of Friendship and Betrayal: Part 2

Ilona was a big young raw-boned Scottish woman. Her face had a strange unfinished look. As if by playing with her face a little more you would have a stunning beauty on your hands – perhaps by squeezing her nose just a little to make it smaller and her chin to give it a little point, and push those farmhouse cheekbones a little higher to give them more prominence.

Her hair was red, that golden red, and hung to her waist and it made you forget all about her raw-boned face for it was that magnificent. She was an artist and a visionary. One of her heroes was the Scottish architect Mackintosh, one of her many artistic pursuits was unusual needlework along with textile art. Her looks were at odds with these finer interests, her hands were enormous and to watch her expertly wield delicate handmade lace and fine embroidery into breathtaking pictures was a shock to the senses.

Newly emigrated to Canada, she was staying in this Scottish boarding house on the Beaches in Toronto and was dating the owners’ eldest son who shared her birthday. They were both twenty-five. I met her about six months after her Toronto arrival, through my husband, Ted, and her boyfriend Ian who played on the same rugby team. All names are changed to protect both the innocent and the guilty.

Funny that, when one is an emigrant to a new and more vast country than one’s native land, the new friendships that are formed are quick, intense and all encompassing in a very brief period of time. It was that way for me and Ilona.

A few months after I met her the healthy outdoor glow had faded from her face. Ian had met someone else. Someone so at odds in appearance with Ilona as to be almost comical. A young woman just turned twenty with a boy’s name, Robbie, who was so utterly tiny, delicate and fragile against Ilona’s heartiness as to make his jilting of her only more painful. Robbie was, and still is, the love of his life. Being in the small circle that we were in, Ilona still came to the rugby games and hung around, wearing, it seemed an extra coat of dignity and pride around the tiny little Robbie and her stalwart Ian. Only venting to a trusted few such as myself.

I was startled to see her take up with Ian’s younger brother, Billy, who was a bit of a waster in more ways than one. He could never stick to anything. His mother bemoaned his dependency. Bumming from her and her pensioner husband as they tried to make ends meet with boarders and the additional burden of supporting their teenage daughter and a grand-daughter, the product of their older daughter’s brief liaison with a long evaporated and ever nameless ‘foreigner’.

It’s funny that, how we can sit outside others’ life situations and decisions and take a psychological profile of it all and a lot of good it does any of us. They’re going to proceed on their life path anyway. The race was on, in any case, as to who would get to the altar first, Ian and Robbie or Ilona and Billy. Ilona waited. I think she wanted to make sure Ian was serious about Robbie. He was. A month after Ian and Robbie’s wedding, Ted and I were witnesses to the betrothal of Billy and Ilona.

The wedding was held in a tiny house in the Beaches, recently rented by Ilona. Billy’s suit of burgundy velvet with a lavish lace-enshrouded shirt pushed the bride’s creamy silk simple dress into backdrop. Cascades of lace protruded from both his cuffs and poured down the front of the burgundy jacket. His thinning black hair was tied in a matching velvet bow at the back of his head. He swooped around, posing fetchingly now and again against the fireplace, in the garden, in a wing chair while we took pictures.

However, the biggest shock of the day was waiting for me. About midway through the festivities as I was exiting the bathroom which was down a tiny hall off the kitchen, I was literally pounced upon by Billy who had obviously been lying in wait. He shoved me back into the bathroom, closing the door behind us and began kissing me. I was so shocked it took me a few minutes to catch my breath.

“This is your f***ing wedding day you bastard and Ilona is a friend of mine!” I finally exploded, “Get your f***ing hands off me!”

Except I used stronger language.

In response, he laughed. He laughed and laughed.

“Haven’t you heard of open marriage?” he finally sneered, “I’m in an open marriage!”

“Starting on your wedding day?” I said, “Does Ilona agree with your behaviour?”

“Frankly,” he said, “I really don’t care. Now are you going to play or not?”

Continued here.

Stories of Friendship and Betrayal: Part 1

We were in our middle to late twenties. I was the office manager, she was the receptionist. We formed an unlikely friendship. She was a shopaholic and just about every day, at noon, there was a delivery of items of clothing to her reception desk from a local store. Her blonde hair was maintained weekly - roots touched up, manicures and pedicures were de rigeur. I marvelled at the high level of her self-maintenance. She was most appealing in a roundish kind of way, hard to explain. She had a lot of dimples, in her cheeks, on her elbows, in her knees. These were the days of micro-mini skirts. Her face had an attractive smattering of golden freckles. I’ll call her Frieda.

We both had toddler daughters. She had a convertible. We would cruise Bloor Street, a high end shopper’s paradise in Toronto. The radio would be blaring, the girls would be in the back, pre-carseat days. The children would wave like royalty to the passing parade. We would have songs like “Brandy” and “Down on the Corner” blaring for the whole street to enjoy. The four of us would giggle uncontrollably. The world was ours. Husbands? They dwelled somewhere on the back burners of our lives. Truth.

Her husband, Len, was Italian. He was her brother’s best friend. He played hockey on Friday nights even though he was extremely heavy and completely out of shape for such a strenuous sport. He paid the price and had a severe heart attack on the ice at the age of 28 and was hospitalized and in therapy for 6 weeks.

I took pity on Frieda. At this stage she was a grass widow and she confessed she had never really loved Len. He had been kind enough to take her on as a ‘favour’ to her brother. You see Frieda had a child at sixteen, given up for adoption. She was considered ‘damaged’ goods and the family were grateful to Len for marrying her.

My husband played a lot of rugby and there was an active and fun social life associated with this. I invited Frieda to one of the Saturday night dances to cheer her up as she was so melancholy and had told me the weekends, after visiting Len, were very lonely and boring. The dances were a hoot - they always had a live rock band and manly chug-a-lug competitions. What can I tell you. We were young.

Halfway through the night, I noticed my husband was missing. I asked around. Someone mentioned he was on the long balcony off the second floor dance hall. I went out. And there he was. With Frieda. In an unmistakeable and passionate clinch.

I was sickened. I had to go to the washroom and throw up, literally. Afterwards, when I came out of the washroom and spotted him I tackled him on what had happened. He denied it. Said I had to be imagining things. It was someone else.

I had to see Frieda every workday, of course. Walk right by the reception desk. She reported to me. The relationship got very chilly and strictly business. Someone said she was having an affair with a guy in the office downstairs. He was married. I would see them together having lunch in the restaurant downstairs. Holding hands across the table.

Len came home from rehabilitation. He phoned me to tell me Frieda had left him. He was distraught. He really loved her. She had left him for this Adam guy who was married and thinking about leaving his wife. It was a total soap opera.

Adam was wealthy and rented a deluxe apartment around the corner from the offices. Here Frieda was installed. She had left the children with Len and her mother.

I was getting caught up with paperwork on a Friday night in September of 1971 when Len called. He was very depressed. He asked me could I meet him on the Roof Garden of the Park Plaza around the corner. Just for one quick drink and then we would both head home to our children. I agreed. In the way that we do when we are heart sick, he let it all hang out. He was going to live in the hope that Frieda would get over her Adam madness and come back to him, no questions asked. Way down below were the sounds of the busy city, the traffic and then sirens, so close by we remarked on them. Some trouble in the block we were in, obviously.

Later that night, Len called us. Sobbing. It seems that Frieda had gone to the apartment that Adam had rented and confronted Adam about leaving his wife. He said he had changed his mind. She straddled the twelfth floor balcony railing and either fell, threw, or was thrown to her death below. Those were the sirens Len and I had heard as we talked in the Park Plaza roof garden.

A couple of years later, we were at Len’s wedding to a nurse he had casually met on public transit. The wedding was held in Frieda’s brother’s garden. Frieda's parents didn’t attend. They were in the process of suing Len for custody of his children. They lost.

I'm curious as to feedback on this type of post. I have more stories of the truth stranger than fiction genre. All of which happened to me. Should I continue? Please be honest!