I noticed the Marvelous Party post is here twice. I had to cut and paste to transfer it from my personal post to the political Now I have it twice. I'm afraid to mess with it in case I lose it
altogether.
I tried to cut and paste another one about Figures Asked For, then that one appeared in a position I didn't expect.
Now it seems to have disappeared.
Now I think I will go and hang out my laundry which is something I know how to do quite well.
For years after we arrived in Aurora, the Globe and Mail was delivered before we were up in the morning. We had the same delivery person and he never failed to have the newspaper on our doorstep by six a.m.
Then he gave it up. Probably went to University. The service became erratic. If I didn't get to read the Globe and Mail first thing, it was as if my day couldn't start.
Then the Toronto Sun was launched. The Globe and Mail changed to meet the competition.Not for the better.
The Toronto Sun was modelled on the Daily Mirror, a British tabloid. It was sized so that we could hold it with one hand while hanging on to the strap on the underground or the bus with the other, on the way to work.
In the mid-fifties a terrible accident happened in Portsmouth, a naval port. A bus ploughed into a company of marching sea cadets. Many were killed and many others severely injured.
For weeks, it seemed the newspaper reported daily on the death of another young person .
The sadness was overwhelming.
It was about then I started seriously thinking about leaving that place altogether. The war had ended twelve years before. The misery never did.
We came to Canada and life suddenly held promise such as I had never known in my adult life.
I cancelled the Globe and Mail years ago. I took the Star from time to time. I never enjoyed it like the Globe and Mail.. I cancelled the Star and decided to read it on line. That way I can choose my what to read and not feel I had to absorb everything to get my moneys worth.
I hadn't really gotten into it online until a couple of weeks ago. I read the GTA section. And there are some columnists whose views interest me. It's not the same as having The Globe and Mail on my doorstep every morning . But the Globe and Mail isn't the same either.
This morning I read a headline about the brain being affected by races. I thought the races were of the exercise variety. I don't do physical exercise. I always think I should so I was interested in the story.
Turns out it was about a psychological study by some academic at Toronto University
about how white men's brains react when they see people of a different race on a video screen.
Seems they don't. And that is somehow seen as a negative.
That stuff is almost enough to put me off reading a newspaper again.
Is seven years according to Catholic teaching . Because my birthday was in December, I was six when I was preparing for my First Holy Communion.
We were encouraged to go to Confession every week and take Holy Communion every Sunday. The nuns would escort us across the moor to church on a Friday afternoon. If we
committed no sins during the week, we were told to confess to whatever sins we could remember in our lives. I must have asked.
I was at my grandmother's house the week-end after I made my First Holy Communion. My aunts wanted to know what sins I had confessed . I said I missed mass nine times. It was likely as far as my memory would stretch.
Some memories made an impression. Nobody ever gave me a satisfactory explanation of an impure thought.Even though our teachers for that class were not nuns.
I didn't think much of the idea that a new-born child could never see God unless born again of the Holy Ghost. Limbo was the place set aside in nowhere for these throw away souls. I didn't think that was fair.
I think my mother must have been quite melancholy at that time. Her favourite admonition to her quite young children was "Aye, when am deid and gone ye'll be sorry"
My prayer, on my knees every night, was that I would die before my mother. I could not bear the
thought she would die before me .
A couple of years later, in the fourth class, we were learning about everlasting life and the Day of Redemption when all souls will rise again to be to-gether for eternity. I asked Sister Eugenius if we would be re-united with our parents and brothers and sisters. I hadn't lost anyone as yet but my mother continued to remind her children of the impermanence of life.
Sister Eugenius answered promptly and firmly. No, we would not, she said. Family relationships would mean nothing in the hereafter.
Well, it was not what I wanted to hear ....I didn't say it....I was nine. But really, what's the point ?
Year's later, I was listening to a sermon about how life begins at the moment of conception. I thought......wait a minute.....how about all those innocent new-born,throw away souls, assigned to Limbo, never to see the Face of God, because they didn't live long enough, independent of a mother's body, to be born again of The Holy Ghost or whoever was responsible, didn't make sure they were baptised.
A couple of months later I read in the media, the Vatican had abandoned the theology(if that's what it was) of Limbo.
Somebody must have discovered the contradiction between what they used to teach and what they are teaching now.
At my house.
Stephanie and Erik were down from Sudbury. Cheyenne and Abigail were here with Lindsay. Stephanie gave them bubbles and skipping ropes and just a little bit of chocolate. I bought a huge bag of candy coated Cadbury eggs and everybody had some to nibble.
Michael brought Dara, his girl friend to join the circle. Patrick was down from Ottawa.
The day was beautiful. We filled and spilled out of the house on to the deck and down in the sunshine. Shiny bubbles floated and burst among us. Adam poked them with his finger and made the little girls laugh. The girls showed off amazing skill with the skipping rope. Stephanie did too.
Stephen's two golden labs, companions of many years have departed this world. So, Stephen and Mary didn't have to leave early to release them from confinement in the garage.
Frank and Lorna on the other hand, had horses to feed.
It's Frank's birthday today. Several others are close. As the family grew we didn't have birthday parties or presents. We were too many. If they were deprived, there's no sign of it now.
There was always a cake though. Everyone was reminded to be home. We sang a chorus of Happy Birthday, candles were blown out, then For He's a Jolly Good Fellow and So Say All of Us and three rip-roaring cheers with rousing conviction.
The growing number of voices make the choruses and cheers sound like a Welsh miners' choir.
When we get together now, there's always a birthday or four in the offing. Robyn bakes the cake from scratch It gets bigger every year.
This year Marnie brought an exotic dessert with nut crust, dense chocolate centre topped with strawberries premarinated in balsamic vinegar and whipped cream.
Rhonda brought an Italian Easter Bread Wreath and Stephen and Mary brought a gigantic apple pie.
Storm brought mushroom appetisers stuffed with cheeses and sausage, baked and served straight from the oven. Stephanie makes an excellent guacamole.
Theresa and myself rose early and got the beef and pork into the oven in good time. The meatballs were cooked and into the crock pot to stay warm for the feast.Heather brought fresh-baked buns.
Conversation was about the twins, a trip just taken to Tacoma, and one planned to co-ordinate the twins and Vanessa's return to Canada for the summer.
Cameron of the Barrie Bucks was in Vancouver for the Olympics.
Mexico and Florida trips were recounted, and a lengthy discussion about a summer golf event
with cousins from London, Cobden,Ottawa,Barrie,Kitchener.Aurora, Newmarket and Keswick.
Since Martin stopped coaching minor hockey, he and Marnie take frequent trips around Ontario to places they have never been.
When the sun went down, the temperature cooled and we donned sweaters.
.
Finally it was dark and time for big hugs and kisses all around, as each family drifted off home.
Until the next time.
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