When my girls, Bridget and Juliana, were young we spent our summers at Eagle Lake. After the end of school celebrations, we would pack up the car with food, toys, videos and Bandit, the dog, and head to the cottage.
One summer I had to talk them out of packing all of their Christmas movies.
"But mum!", exclaimed Bridget
"We just love Christmas so much!"
So do I, but not in July. We compromised by taking one: "Barbie's Christmas". All those pastel colours and shrill voices did not remind me of Christmas at all.
In the mornings, after breakfast, we would pack up our beach bag, toys and snacks and drive (sometimes canoe) to the public beach. There were always other families there. The girls always had beach playmates and I was able to squeeze in reading between dips in the lake. Nothing was better than jumping off the dock into deep water on a hot day.
One summer a woman was at the beach with a basket up puppies. She said they were going to the shelter if she couldn't find homes for them. My sister had just moved to Calgary with her new husband and their dogs and I missed them all terribly. We had talked about getting our own dog as we had developed a love of the dog park, Bruce Pit, in Ottawa. Bandit the puppy came home with us that day and he has been ours for 16 years. The cottage is still his favourite place where he can roam free and always find his way home.
Sometimes we would stop for popsicles at the local corner store, or go to the Treasure Trunk - a charity shop - for second-hand books and games. The "Junction Diner" sold ice cream diner lunches with discounted closes from Sears in the corner. IT was local hang-out.
At night we would cuddle up in the queen size futon and watch a movie. Last person standing - usually Juliana- shut if off. I still have fond memories of Shrek-we watched it nightly one dreamy summer.
I am grateful for all those sun-soaked (and, occasionally) rainy days. Memories are made to look back on and sometimes you don't realize how wonderful they are while you are living them. One day your daughter is asking to be picked up, the next she is driving off in your car, ducking your kisses so her hair doesn't get mussed.
Cottage time is different now that we are all adults. We still love it. We might not all sleep in the futon now but it is our gathering place and still a place of love and joy.
-30-
Tuesday, March 24, 2020
Monday, March 9, 2020
Pittsburgh
My husband and I had driven to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for the long May weekend. We had met Tom and Jess many years ago (before children) when we were vacationing in the Bahamas. We clicked right away and they are one of the few couples we enjoy doing things with.
Jess and Tom are very active in their Lutheran church - Tom's father was a pastor. They had a wedding to attend on Saturday so Jess asked one of her friends, Jane if she could play a tour guide in their absence.
Jane was really nice and we hit it off right away. It was a beautiful sunny day so we headed to an outdoor shopping mall. We couldn't do anything in the downtown core that weekend like the Warhol museum. Tim McGraw was in town and all the parking spots were full.
It was one of the first gorgeous sunny Spring days. Jane and I were walking around while Jim was in a men's clothing store. We spotted a woman walking towards us with what looked like a puppy, so we stopped to pat it.
"He's hot. He's been in the car", the dog owner said.
Jane and I approached then realized there was something off about the "dog".
"It's a fox", the woman explained.
It was a fox. A fox that was not moving and had a glad red eye. It was a taxidermy fox.
Suitably creeped out, Jane and I did not pat the dead fox but backed away as politely as we could. We retreated into one of the nearby shops to regroup Apparently the woman, her companion and the dead fox had been kicked out of many stores that morning for carrying around a dead animal. She referred to it as her service fox.
Later we stopped off at an ice cream shop that had a chocolate castle and home made treats.
Pittsburg is a really nice city.
-30-
Jess and Tom are very active in their Lutheran church - Tom's father was a pastor. They had a wedding to attend on Saturday so Jess asked one of her friends, Jane if she could play a tour guide in their absence.
Jane was really nice and we hit it off right away. It was a beautiful sunny day so we headed to an outdoor shopping mall. We couldn't do anything in the downtown core that weekend like the Warhol museum. Tim McGraw was in town and all the parking spots were full.
It was one of the first gorgeous sunny Spring days. Jane and I were walking around while Jim was in a men's clothing store. We spotted a woman walking towards us with what looked like a puppy, so we stopped to pat it.
"He's hot. He's been in the car", the dog owner said.
Jane and I approached then realized there was something off about the "dog".
"It's a fox", the woman explained.
It was a fox. A fox that was not moving and had a glad red eye. It was a taxidermy fox.
Suitably creeped out, Jane and I did not pat the dead fox but backed away as politely as we could. We retreated into one of the nearby shops to regroup Apparently the woman, her companion and the dead fox had been kicked out of many stores that morning for carrying around a dead animal. She referred to it as her service fox.
Later we stopped off at an ice cream shop that had a chocolate castle and home made treats.
Pittsburg is a really nice city.
-30-
Wednesday, March 4, 2020
The Circus
It was the early nineteen seventies and the circus was coming to town. My sister and I begged my mother to go with the usual chorus of:
"All our friends are going!".
My mother did not approve of animals being made to do tricks for people but when she found out there would be no animal acts she relented. We were so excited!
Back then Ottawa did not have a lot of performance venues so most outings like the Ice Capades and the Circus went to Landsdowne Park. That part of town was central to our lives because it was also near the only shopping mall we could get to from our subdivision on one bus.
The week the circus came to town my sister and I sat spellbound in our seats. There was the usual parade of clowns but the centrepiece of this show was the trapeze act. We watched as lithe men and women performed tricks mid-air. and walked the tightrope. There was a safety net underneath the ropes but not the platform.
At one point during the performance we heard a loud crack. One of the polls that held the tight rope jolted and the trapeze artist standing on the platform fell backwards onto the cement floor.
There was a hushed silence. Then a voice called out through a megaphone:
"Is there a doctor in the house"?
The lights went up and the performance, for that night, was halted. The Circus resumed performances the next night. My friends who saw it told us how the show was supposed to end with the strong men spinning the trapeze artists in his arms, somehow carrying them all.
We found out later the trapeze artist broke her back and was paralyzed from the waist down. The local paper ran a follow-up story a year after the accident. She was a smiling, pretty blonde, coping as best she could with her disability.
We lost any desire for circus performances after that. I am just grateful the Cirque du Soleil has no animal acts - and lots of safety equipment.
-30-
"All our friends are going!".
My mother did not approve of animals being made to do tricks for people but when she found out there would be no animal acts she relented. We were so excited!
Back then Ottawa did not have a lot of performance venues so most outings like the Ice Capades and the Circus went to Landsdowne Park. That part of town was central to our lives because it was also near the only shopping mall we could get to from our subdivision on one bus.
The week the circus came to town my sister and I sat spellbound in our seats. There was the usual parade of clowns but the centrepiece of this show was the trapeze act. We watched as lithe men and women performed tricks mid-air. and walked the tightrope. There was a safety net underneath the ropes but not the platform.
At one point during the performance we heard a loud crack. One of the polls that held the tight rope jolted and the trapeze artist standing on the platform fell backwards onto the cement floor.
There was a hushed silence. Then a voice called out through a megaphone:
"Is there a doctor in the house"?
The lights went up and the performance, for that night, was halted. The Circus resumed performances the next night. My friends who saw it told us how the show was supposed to end with the strong men spinning the trapeze artists in his arms, somehow carrying them all.
We found out later the trapeze artist broke her back and was paralyzed from the waist down. The local paper ran a follow-up story a year after the accident. She was a smiling, pretty blonde, coping as best she could with her disability.
We lost any desire for circus performances after that. I am just grateful the Cirque du Soleil has no animal acts - and lots of safety equipment.
-30-
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