my pride

I expect most of those that visit these pages might wonder at how anyone could ever have put up with me. True I might have some attractive points but I will readily admit that I am hard to live with. Forget the toilet seat, my attention span is the problem. All the girls I’ve ever loved have had to share me with my passions and that intense concentration that distracts me from their needs. So it is a source of wonder that one even managed to put up with me for danged near … no lets just say over twenty-five years and spare both of us the age thing. Linda, the mother of my three sons, would have been called a saint but for her assertive nature which managed to keep me under some sort of control and helped her survive being the sole female in a house of males, and very boisterous active ones at that. I have to pay tribute to someone who played goal in ice-hockey when she’d rather have had someone to take to ballet lessons, who handled the bone-breaking and gashes that accompanied the raising of sons and helped instill in them the values of good citizenship despite their father’s waywardness.

I met Linda in Norway where she was skiing. I, on the other hand, was learning how to live in a snow hole and other winter survival techniques. I found her the most beautiful woman I’d ever met and her warm hotel room was just an added bonus. After she’d left, I wasn’t able to get her out of my thoughts and started writing to her; one or more letters every day. Unfortunately she lived in America and that

certainly made courtship difficult. So after she came to Britain to visit and meet my parents, we both decided to get married as soon as we could. Despite having so little time together, we had no reservations, letter writing really does tell you a lot about people, especially in volume; you just cannot disseminate. We married in Detroit and she returned with me to the UK. Unfortunately, despite our license, the Army considered that we were living in sin; in those days, a commissioned officer had to be 25 before the marriage was considered valid and one received a marriage allowance and quarters. So we made do on ten pounds a week and a lot of love in a small flat in Salisbury. Actually we thrived despite her having to learn a new language and customs. Salisbury is a beautiful town and proved a great introduction for her to England. The only cloud on our horizon were my service duties which called me away too often to visit places that were, for good reason, well off the tourist routes. So I resigned my commission and took the bull by the horns and decided to go to university as told elsewhere. Our time while I was at university became another of our adventures which seem to typify our lives. We had the challenge of not only fixing up a house that should really have been torn down but eating while I attempted to gain my degrees. That we managed to do that, actually have a social life and bring a prophetic statement that “you will be the mother of my sons!” Not daughters, sons and we were to go on to having three boys. Linda worked to support us; as a secretary for a real estate agency, as a travel agent and in between for Logan Air at the local airport. Well it was more an airstrip, grass at that. I can remember once helping them put out the flares to guide in a plane after the mist settled in. Linda would actually weigh in the passengers and make out the manifest arranging the weight of each to balance the load. “I’ll put you two skinny fella’s opposite the fat lady”. She still has her letter of termination that gives her pregnancy as the reason; couldn’t get away with that today! Of course I worked all I could too, with pick and shovel on the roads with an Irish crew (hardest work I ever did, those boyos could really work!), as a heavy goods driver (thank you Army for the training) and with my service in the reserves or territorial army. With that and my work on the house it’s a wonder I ever got time to study. I guess I’m lucky I didn’t need to do too much of that. But I could never have done it without Linda! After university we moved to Canada and, except for a short sojourn in Halifax, Nova Scotia, spent the next twenty five years in rural New Brunswick. New Brunswick is a picture postcard of a province, with Christmas card views in winter and the best Fall colours anywhere in the world. Summers, though are short, July and August if you're lucky. If one can stand the long cold winters, it’s a great place to bring up kids and ours thrived. If you were interested in sport, there was so much opportunity and all three boys took advantage; swim team, rugby team, soccer team, hockey team, basketball team, skiing, skating and track and field; we did them all. When I say we did them all, I do mean Linda and myself. We must have visited every town and village in the province that fielded some sort of team. Not that we didn't get our chance to play sports as you can see from the photo. Our boys certainly thrived. Both Colin and Cameron were born there and, with Charles, went to school there, played their sports there and got into the usual scrapes that boys get into. It wasn’t a bad life for us but once the boys began leaving home, we decided to find somewhere for ourselves and that moved us to Chicago. What a difference! Now we could enjoy the theatre, the museums, all the benefits that a large city offers. We could run our lives for ourselves and not for our kids. Wouldn’t you know it, two of our kids decided to join us there while the third enjoyed the fleshpots of Europe ... on our dollar!  

our first son into the world has a lot to do with Linda’s support.  Of course this changed everything,

we now had another person to consider. No longer were we a couple but now a family. Our lives would never be the same! The night I met Linda, for some reason I blurted out

Our home in Woodstock was a great place to bring up kids. A small town where it was safe for kids to run free. Great schooling and lots of opportunity for leisure activities including

taking our home- away-from-home to places around the province and elsewhere.

Not only grown older but grown outwards