Summer Concert Series

This summer I was able to attend a number of concerts.

My summer concert series started with a free concert in Art Park (Lewiston, New York). It was Peter Frampton on his Frampton Comes Alive anniversary tour. He played his iconic album exactly the way he did all those years ago. Many times I felt transported back to the wood paneled basements of many of my friends during the summer of ’75 when Frampton Comes Alive was the only album we ever played. The audience was pulled back to the present however when Peter explained that during instrumental sections during the original tour the band would run off the stage and do some drugs behind the scenes before they ran back on for encore numbers. Peter then added the only drug he does now is Viagra!

A few weeks later we enjoyed a special concert at Jackson-Triggs winery in Niagara-on-the-Lake. We indulged in a dinner at the winery where each course of the gourmet meal was paired with a different wine. As there were five courses and then of course the before dinner wines and the wines during the concert, there was a lot of wine drinking at the winery that night! Between glasses we also got to enjoy the solo performance of Gord Downey from the Tragically Hip. (For the record, my friend Diane was designated driver for the night…….just saying)

There was also a Northern Pikes concert at Polson Pier formerly known as “the Docks” in Toronto. It is a fabulous location where it feels you are at a resort in Muskoka when you are actually on the shores of Lake Ontario beneath the shadow of the CN Tower. It was at the Northern Pikes concert I met “Eddie” from Love It or List It.

While it would not come under the classification of a concert, the most fun and outrageous musical events of the summer was the Friday evening performances of the One Man Electrical Band at Hogan’s Alley in Port Dalhousie. The location is superb as it is a few blocks from our home. There is no cover as the talent of this one man band is questionable, but his choice of songs is impeccable. He always seems to know the right song to sing for the crowd. Within a few minutes it turns into bad karaoke, embarrassing dancing and a lot of fun for a bunch of middle-aged Friday night drinkers. I believe we are good entertainment for the 20-something kids heading out for a night out to their bar of choice “My Cottage.”

In some ways my summer concert series was a rediscovering my youth but in more ways it was confirmation my youth is long gone! My youth may be gone but middle age is actually even better! No curfew!

I'm Back..............

After a prolonged absence from blogging, I have suddenly become inspired to start posting again. So here I go….a quick recap of the last year.

• Went to some concerts
• Went to a lot of hockey games
• Bought new appliances
• Became an empty nester again, then not, then again
• Got lucky with some contests
• Met some celebrities
• Turned 50!!! (and survived)

This is a very brief list for an entire year of my life. I will write in more detail about each topic at a later date....not too much later, I promise!

I am hoping there are still some people willing to read the blog and also willing to leave some messages for me!

The ATM

I was on my way to work the other day when the guy on the radio said the man who invented the ATM had passed away. Apparently back in 1965 or so, John Shepherd-Barron devised his ATM machine while lying in his bath. The grandfather-of-six had arrived at his bank too late to cash a cheque, and wondered why banks couldn’t operate a system more like chocolate vending machines. The first ATM was installed at Barclays’ Enfield branch in north London on June 27, 1967.

I remember clearly back in the late 60’s and early 70’s when banks were open from ten in the morning until 3 in the afternoon. A short day was referred to as “Banker’s hours.” Money was something you planned. If the week-end was coming up you had to get to the bank by three. Once you were out of cash, you were done. Things were much simpler then. There were no debit cards, no PIN numbers and the only credit card I ever heard of was “CHARGEX”. Credit was used by “those kind of people”.

In my first year university I opened up a bank account at the Royal Bank because it was the only bank close to campus. It was actually right across the street so I am sure all of Wilfrid Laurier were their clients. I remember having to have your pass book with you or you could not deposit or take out any money without it. Let’s face it, I only remember taking out, I have no recollection of depositing. Then near the end of the school year I distinctly remember a bit of construction going on at the front of the bank. Within a few days this machine has appeared. It was a cash dispenser! I can’t remember what we really called it; I know the letters ATM didn’t come along for awhile later. I just remember the thrill of being able to take out $5.00 to go to the pub at the last minute even if it was late at night. The fact five dollars was more than enough for a night out is a topic for another blog.

I also distinctly remember the pressure of choosing a suitable PIN number. It had to be four numbers but not your birthday and you weren’t allowed to write it down anywhere. I remember thinking it had taken me all year to remember my new telephone number and now I had to put another number in my head to memory? That’s when I decided to just use my telephone number as my PIN. So even to this day the last four digits of my telephone while living in first year university is still my PIN number on my personal banking account. I can remember details of so many things, birthdays of people I knew in Kindergarten (Gail Whitendorf – June 6th) but I can’t remember my cell phone number. Now my new credit card has a PIN number assigned with it. I went to use it the other day and it was declined because I couldn’t remember the number. The sales clerk over-rode the system so I was still able to make my purchase – I hope she didn’t get fired for that one!

So while we marvel at all of this technology and the convenience, maybe my mind would be less cluttered and my bank account much fuller if Mr. Shepherd-Barron hadn’t had a bath that night!

It's A Small World After All

The other night Terry and I went to a birthday party for someone turning 30! Initially I was a little reluctant to go as the last time we hung out with this crowd I didn’t think I kept up. After awhile there was only so much I could contribute to any conversation as they all work together, they are single, no kids and did I mention in their 20’s? (Just for the record I haven’t seen 20 in 25 years......OK its 28 years)

Something happened since I last saw this gang. They went from 20 something to 30ish. They are all now married with kids, and more on the way. I should have clued in things had changed by the time and location of the party. It started at 4:30 at Boston Pizza in the Falls. This is the BP with the bowling alley and tons of video games etc. Upon our arrival I quickly realized this was not going to be a party where I can’t keep up with the drinking, it’s going to be where I can’t keep up with the little kids in attendance! The party didn’t last long as the toddlers got tired and had to get home for bedtime. While earlier I was nervous I couldn’t make it through the party it turned out Terry and I were the last to leave!

While the young moms and dads were starting to pack up a woman Terry works with arrived with her new fiancé. Well, he wasn’t exactly new. The story is they dated for a few years as teen-agers and went on their separate life paths. As they became single once again, now in their 50’s, they have reconnected and are planning to get married! It was such a sweet tale.

As I asked millions of questions, which I am told is what I do, I discovered her fiancé and I were from the same hometown! Yes, we both grew up in Owen Sound, went to the same high school, were taught by the same teachers. Denis is a few years older then me but knew all of the older brothers and sisters of the kids I hung out with as a teen-ager. Names and places I hadn’t heard or thought of in decades came rushing through our memories. We had a great time connecting and remembering similar stories of our youth.

What a small world!

So while I thought I was spending the evening with a bunch of “young kids” I ended up reminiscing about my life when I was even younger.

Out House Renovation

As part of our annual girls’ week-end at Saskatchewan Lake, it became tradition to present me with hostess gifts. I did appreciate the gesture of a good guest but felt it was unnecessary for any more scented candles and other girly things at the cottage. After much discussion around the camp fire it was decided for the next girls’ week-end, instead of traditional hostess gifts, each guest would bring an item more appropriate for the cottage – specifically the outhouse.

The next summer guests arrived with their contribution. Unbeknownst to me, they had secretly decided upon a decorating theme, sunflowers. Before I knew it my sister-in-law Jenny was cutting through the outhouse wall creating a new window and my mother-in-law was on the roof tearing off shingles older than her. The outhouse redecorating project had become a full-fledged renovation! This was not a week-end of pampered woman indulging themselves; it was liberated women using power tools.

Suddenly the modern women image evaporated when everyone began screaming all at once. With the removal of the final ancient shingle, mice had appeared! Small innocent rodents were able to send six strong women off running in different directions.

Once we regained our composure we were able to finish the project. Our outhouse now has a new leaf-proof roof, a window to provide ventilation and much to Terry's chagrin, lots of sunflower paraphernalia.

While we were proud of our accomplishment, our subsequent girls week-ends have returned to the previous agenda, which does not included power tools.

The Hamster

In an earlier post I mentioned a pet sitting adventure where Terry failed miserably, although I give him kudos for trying.

Jennifer was in about grade 7 and decided she wanted her own pet hamster. With her babysitting money she purchased the hamster as well as all of the paraphernalia associated with hamster ownership. To her credit she did a good job looking after it since I proclaimed loudly to anyone who would listen a hamster is just a rodent with a cute coat. Jennifer became a good hamster caregiver………..until that fateful day.

It was one of the first beautifully warm Saturdays in June. The pool in the backyard was freshly re-opened for the season and Terry was tending to the gardens. Just as I was leaving to get groceries for the week Jennifer put the hamster into one of those round toy hamster balls to let him roll around the backyard while she cleaned out his cage. She asked Terry to keep an eye on the hamster while she cleaned out the cage. He said sure….how hard could it be? OK, maybe that’s not what he said but I bet that was what he was thinking!

A few minutes later Jennifer returned to the back yard and asked Terry where the hamster was. So intent on trying to determine the difference between weeds and flowers Terry did not notice the hamster had rolled into the pool. Terry quickly took action and fished the hamster ball from the depths of the water. There were no vital signs. Terry desperately tried to save the rodent’s life. He started CPR on the hamster. He put the hamster on its back and gently pushed on his chest to try to bring him back to life. Jennifer was the one who convinced Terry to “call it” and the time of death was approximately 15 minutes after I had left for groceries.

While Terry was very upset his first attempt to safe a life did not succeed, Jennifer dealt with her grief quite well.

Less than an hour later I arrived back home with a trunk full of groceries. In the meantime the hamster had been buried in the garden, the cage and all hamster belongs had been washed and donated to the kids Jennifer babysat around the corner. Any signs of hamster life in our household were completely gone.

While I was the one who never wanted the rodent in the house in the first place it did take me aback that a “family member” could be so quickly and easily discarded. Let’s hope Jennifer never has to make the decisions if we get put on life-support!

Women’s Liberation

Growing up as a kid in the sixties and seventies I was given many mixed messages which I am still confused about today.

As written in an earlier post, my up-bringing was very much “Leave It To Beaver.” My parents had very traditional roles. My father was the bread-earner accountant and my mother was the great cook and perfect hostess home maker. In a lot of ways I even took on the role of the “Beav”……remember the episode when Beaver decided to cut his own hair and kept cutting to fix it? Yup, been there, done that.

All around me were the traditional roles, but in the media were bits of pieces of news such as women’s lib and burning bras. Gloria Steinem was a name I was curious about. There were even Virginia Slim cigarette ads. “You’ve Come A Long Way Baby!” (Although they weren’t for sale in Canada) The hit song on the radio was Helen Reddy “I Am Women Hear Me Roar.”

There was never any discussion about my education. My parents expected I was going to university. I was not to even “settle” for a community college education. It was assumed I was going to graduate with a degree. I was always told I could do whatever I wanted with my life..... as long as it was a nurse or a teacher or some other traditional female role. In grade 13 (yes we had grade 13 in those days), ater taking my first flying lesson, I got up the nerve to confide to my high school guidance counsellor I wanted to be an airline pilot. He politely, but matter of factly, told me girls could not be pilots. It was 1978. I believed him.

1979
Off to university I went to get my B.A. I went to Wilfrid Laurier in Waterloo. My friends and I laughed at the girls who went off to Western or Queens to earn their MRS degrees. (Western and Queens Universities were reputed to be the best place to meet rich husbands) I had no desire to even think about such things. I wanted to be different. I wanted to be independent. I wanted to do something unique.

1982
About to graduate with a Bachelor of Arts degree, (double majors of history and sociology and a minor in physical education) I realized I wasn’t really qualified to be anything. I panicked. So I applied to teacher’s college (they call it the Faculty of Education now) thinking at least I would “be” something within the year. I also decided to get married.

What was I thinking???

1983
On the eve before my wedding, my mother took me aside. I was cringing as I thought it was going to be “the talk”. I guess it was. My mother flatly told me, “I hope you are going to teach a few years before you decide to have children. We spent a lot of money on your education and we would hate to see it wasted.”

Hmmmmm…..Women’s Liberation all around me, but what did it really mean?

A Flower Child I Was Not

Being born in 1961, my most vivid childhood memories are of the late 60’s and early 70’s. When I went looking for a Google image to post with my blog, my search led me to very psychedelic looking things. It was considered to be the age of Flower Children, LSD, making love not war. It actual fact, growing up in Owen Sound, Ontario during that time was more like Leave it to Beaver. The biggest rebellion going on in my household was my brother’s desire to wear his hair a little bit below his ears. I do remember every time I visited my grandfather he would give my brother 25 cents to get a hair cut!

I also remember a variety of other moments:

Shopping: The only place to shop was “down town.” There was no mall. We parked on the street, put a nickel in the parking meter and walked up and down the street to buy our needed items. And they were needed items. Shopping was not a past time, it was a chore. If it was a day when my mother didn’t have the car we took the bus which came every hour on the hour. Because we couldn’t bring a bunch of groceries on the bus, the grocery store would delivery them to our house. My grandmother even just called the store and told them what she wanted and they would bring them to her door and sometimes even helped her put the groceries away.

This never happened on a Wednesday afternoon. Stores were closed then to make up for the fact they were open on Saturday mornings. The banks closed each day at 3:00 pm. We were strictly a cash society so we had to plan our purchases around having the money out of the bank and into our wallet. There were no ATMs or debit cards. My mother did have a credit card that she was only allowed to use sparingly. It was a Chargex Card. "Will that be Cash or Chargex?" The company eventually changed the name to VISA.

Playtime: Often my mother would kick us out of the house. We would get in the way of her cleaning the house, which was her job. We didn’t call Family and Children Services, we just joined all of the other kids in the neighbourhood who had been kicked out of their houses as well. We spent the entire day outside just doing stuff. Mostly we explored in the woods a block away that is now filled with houses. We built forts. We wandered. To be honest I can’t remember exactly what we did all day. My brother played endless games of baseball in the warm months and endless games of road hockey in the cold months. Without a watch, we always knew when lunch and supper were ready. After supper we often had a neighbourhood game of “Kick the Can.” The game was always over when the streetlights came on. We knew every kid in the neighbourhood five years older and five years younger.

I was five when we first moved into the new house I spent the rest of my childhood. Our new house was built on the vacant lot where all the kids had played ball. The first thing I remember was my new best friend Donna Macdonald telling me my family took their play lot away. We soon found another lot to play on until several years later a church was built there. By then we were in senior elementary school so we were too cool to go outside and play any more. We just went on bike rides instead. We always ended up in a different neighbourhood where Donna’s cute boy of the month (or week) lived.

School: School was our job. My parents did not give us chores. Our job was to do well in school, no exceptions. I never got in trouble at school, because I just didn’t. It was unsaid, it was not acceptable to talk back or misbehave. My parents ALWAYS agreed with the teacher. I didn't find out until just recently they actually didn’t always agree, but they certainly had my brother and I convinced they did.

Snacks: At school there was no snack time like there is today. For some time now it is expected we provide class-time for students to have morning and afternoon snack. When I first started teaching, kids had snacks with them, but ate outside. Now, because of garbage concerns, and so many kids with bee sting and food allergies, we don’t allow the kids to eat outside. Back in the day, when I was a kid (God, I’m sounding soooo old) we didn’t have snacks. We ate breakfast, lunch and supper. All meals were made by mother at home, and we ate them together with the whole family. Always. We never stayed at school for lunch. I walked home each day. Some days my mother would give me a quarter to stop at the store to buy bread. The bread cost 23 cents and I was allowed to keep the 2 cents change to buy candy. That was a real treat as that two cents would give me a little brown bag full of penny candy.

Food: TV dinners were considered a big treat. They were only for those very rare times my parents were not at home and we had a babysitter. Pop and chips were only for company. I distinctly remember a roast every Sunday night. In the winter this was always after my brother’s hockey game. While we ate the roast, my father gave my brother a play by play recap of the game along with “advice.” I took piano lessons….my father never had advice for me.


TV: Leave it to Beaver was a re-run I watched every school day at lunch time. As soon as it was over I knew I had to start running to get back to school on time. Later it was changed to I Love Lucy re-runs. My brother and I held Friday night sacred for TV watching. It was Batman and Get Smart. It wasn’t until many years later I discovered they were comedies. I took both shows very seriously. The Flintstones was the first show I ever saw in colour. I vividly remember that moment at Judy Cunningham’s house. On those few evenings there was a babysitter, she would let me stay up late to watch “The FBI”. That was when I learned the word “Epilogue.” They showed this word on the screen prior to the last scene of the episode. Whenever I hear the word epilogue being used, I always remember the baby sitter and "The FBI". I also vaguely remember being at my aunt’s house on a Sunday night watching the Ed Sullivan Show. There was some strange group called the Rolling Stones playing. All of the adults in the room were disgusted by their long hair……

I am beginning to see a common thread through all of this. We were obsessed with hair in the late sixties.!Maybe I should write a Broadway play about it......

Growing Up In Mad Men Times

I have been home sick a few days. As I have been telling anyone who asks, and lots of people who haven’t asked, I feel like I got hit by a truck. Just the flu, which I am sure, will pass in a day or two, but I haven’t been able to go to work. One reason, because I haven’t been able to actually get out of bed, and the other reason, I don’t want to spread any of these flu germs around. It is OK if the principal doesn’t make it to school (no one will notice) but if the teachers don’t show up, them we have problems!

One thing I have accomplished since being home is a Mad Men marathon. Terry was able to find the first six episodes of season three on-line so I can catch up….even though we don’t get Mad Men in Canada any more…….

There have been so many scenes in Mad Men that suddenly bring back flashes of memories from my childhood. I got to thinking, (thanks fellow blogger Ed for the idea) to list things from my childhood that seemed so normal and yet in today’s society we would never do. It’s funny how my generation ever grew up at all without all the rules we now have in place.

Seat Belts: No seat belts in our cars. Well, eventually there were seat belts but only Donna McDonald's mother made us use them. Usually on long car rides my brother and I would fight about who got to lie down in the back window part.

Recyling: There was a scene in Mad Men where the Draper family goes on a picnic and afterwards the clean up is throwing all of the garbage away into the trees. I remember actually doing this! That was before the term “litter bug” came into our consciousness.

The Family Television: Growing up we had one TV in our living room. Another thing my brother and I would fight over was what channel to watch (there were only four or five channels at the time) I remember buying our first colour TV. It was a big wooden console colour TV. It was a huge deal since it was the first time I remember my mother going ahead and doing something my father didn’t like. He couldn’t understand why we had to have a colour TV since most of the shows were still in black and white anyway. When we finally did get our new TV we sold our old one to someone up the street. Why would any family own more than one TV?

Dresses: It wasn’t until grade seven I was allowed to wear pants to school. All girls had to wear dresses. Going to school in Canada made it very cold on the legs some days. Our principal relented one year and did allow us to wear pants to school under our dresses as long as we took the pants off when we arrived. In grade six, “pant suits” were all the rage. We were allowed to wear pant suits as long as the top part was long enough it could be worn as a dress. In grade seven we graduated to a senior elementary school and we were allowed to wear jeans. I still didn't wear jeans however since my mother thought only “those kind of girls” wore denim.

Smoking: While watching Mad Men, sometimes I want to start coughing. I do recall however life was really like that. Everybody smoked. Even when I started teaching, there was the smoke-filled staff room. Now smokers aren’t allowed to smoke anywhere except outside. The smoker’s circles are getting smaller and they certainly aren’t the cool group anymore. My mother smoked until 1970. That was the year her brother died of cancer.

Stay at Home Moms: When I was a kid there weren’t any “stay at home moms.” All moms just stayed at home. They didn’t have a title. They were just Moms. My mother didn’t go anywhere because she didn’t have a car. On Thursdays she would drive my Dad to work so she could have the car to buy groceries and go around and pay the bills. No on-line bill paying back then. No two car families. Eventually my mother even starting curling on Thursdays. That was once my brother and I were in high school and we didn’t need her at home. In my circle of friends, I only know one Mom who was a “stay-at-home Mom” She is working now because her husband left her. She is financially in dire straights as she doesn’t have the education and/or skills to have a higher paying job. At times she is very bitter that her husband “put her in this position” as she says. The thought has never occurred to me to rely on a man financially. (maybe to open tight jars, but not for finances)

Breast Feeding: Betty had her baby in my recent Mad Men marathon. At the hospital she was asked if she was going to breast-feed. She replied no and that was the end of it. When I had my children (in the late ‘80’s) I said I wasn’t going to breast feed and I had to literally listen to an hour lecture from a nurse about the benefits of breast feeding. I wanted to bottle feed because I was going back to work and I figured feeding this child was going to be a 50-50 proposition. (that didn’t exactly work out, but that is for another day) The Mad Men episode also relegated the men to the waiting room while the mom’s delivered the babies in a drug-induced haze. Times have certainly changed there.

I thought this was going to be a brief list of funny things but as I started writing I can how it turned out to be an essay on societal changes. Sorry for the seriousness of it all. As my daughter often tells me “Times change Mom” (that would be said with a tone of disgust on her part, because I obviously just don’t “get it”)

Does anybody out there have any memories of childhood that would seem outrageous now?

Canada's Polka King

I thought I would write today about a wonderful musician who is NOT Michael Jackson……enough already!!!!!


I was at a BBQ social on Henley Island tonight and I met a local celebrity musician, Walter Ostanek. I was so excited this was going to be an opportunity for my daughter Kaitlin to meet a celebrity. Kaitlin was not so impressed as she had NO clue who he was.

As a kid I remember watching Kitchener television (one of the few stations we got clearly up in Owen Sound). Each week he hosted his own show playing the accordion and leading his polka band. Not that I was really into his style of music at the time but because he was on TV each week I thought he must be important. Later when I went to university he was very important as he was at Octoberfest each year. University students, jugs of beer, polka music…..what could be better??? Then I ended up moving to St. Catharines to discover it was the home of Walter Ostanek, where he owned his own music shop. Walter has been nominated for 13 Grammy Awards and actually won three times! Unfortunately, the Grammy Awards people (whoever they are) just recently decided to remove the Polka category.

While I will always consider Walter a celebrity, I was thrilled to actually chat with him for quite some time. I discovered he truly is a kind, gentle, fun man. It was great to meet him!

For those interested, check out more about Walter: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Ostanek

The Rockcliffe Hotel

I took a detour today from my regular cottage chore route. Normally I stay on Highway 35 and pick up groceries at the Valu-Mart and head right back to the cottage. Today I was on a mission to find window curtains and decided to venture right into the heart of Minden to go to Stedman’s.

Much to my amazement there was a big for sale sign on an old Minden establishment, the Rockcliffe Hotel. How sad the place looks. Paint fading and looking rather lonely on the corner of a busy street during the beginning of cottage season.

Long ago, as a university student, when everyone was starting to wear harem pants, big hair and leggings, there was also a core group of us who stuck to the basic T-shirts and jeans wardrobe. Every where I looked on campus were kids wearing Rockcliffe Tavern T-shirts. I remember distinctly the blue shirt with the red and white rings around the top of the arm and the front emblazoned with “Rockcliffe Hotel, Minden Ontario”. At the time I had never even heard of Minden, but I knew those T-shirts were cool.

Fast forward about ten years and I am now married with children and the proud owner of a cottage in “cottage country.” I soon discovered Minden. I had long forgotten the treasured T-shirt until one day we went into town for something and we drove up Main Street Minden and there it was…………..the Rockcliffe Hotel! I was so excited, until we drove around the corner and saw the hotel from the front. There in big tacky letters was a big sign advertising strippers. This was not the hot night spot in cottage country I envisioned.

I swallowed my disappointment and pretty much forgot about the Rockcliffe until I was on a trip to Kamloops, British Columbia. Anyone who visits B.C. soon discovers no one is actually from B.C. It became my habit to investigate everyone I met to find out where they were actually from. I met a fellow teacher originally from London, Ontario and we soon discovered our cottages were actually only a few miles from each other………and yes, the Rockcliffe Tavern. He told me stories about the Rockcliffe’s heyday when it was THE place to go and hang out and listen to bands. I told him my secret desire had always been to own a Rockcliffe T-shirt. He disclosed he actually had one! In fact, following his university days he had worn it while backpacking across Europe and had many people stop him to say they had the T-shirt as well!

While I have never actually stepped into the Rockcliffe I feel like it is a piece of my history as well as those of my generation. Wouldn’t it be amazing if whoever buys the new place restores it to its glory days? I can picture my university aged children hanging out there and enjoying another perk of cottage country.

I don’t think I will ever venture into the place. It couldn’t possibly be as wondrous as my imagination thinks it is.

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

Last night I went to the school board’s Staff Celebration Dinner. This is a dinner where they honour people who are retiring, as well as staff with 25 years of service. Everyone there was very surprised to find out that I was one of the people being honoured. No, I am not quite ready for retirement, but I have been a teacher-principal for twenty-five years!

I was remembering back to my very first job at Denis Morris High School teaching grade nine and ten math. I was one lesson ahead of the kids. I was teaching myself equations at night before I had to teach those know-it-all kids in the morning. I quickly learned kids at that age are very cool and knew exactly how to take advantage of a very green teacher. Definitely I learned more than they did that year but they were lessons well learned.

Ironically the man who owned the hall we had our dinner at last night was in that grade nine math class! He was a big kid who thought about nothing but football. He was not very interested in math. Once he got a bit older he put dollar signs in front of those numbers and did very well. He has become a well-know business man in our community.

My memory is not as good as it once was but I do remember that first class clearly. I remember the girl who was constantly etching Billy Idol’s name in her books. I remember some kids very excited about going to a concert to see Van Halen and they saw Valerie Bertinelli hanging around. I remember one boy who was very cool because he had a red leather jacket just like Michael Jackson had. To help me remember some of those details I did a little bit of googling.

Back to 1984...............................

- Lee Iacocca had the most popular nonfiction book of the year with "Iacocca: An Autobiography" -Researchers for the first time positively identified the virus that leads to AIDS.

-Ronald Reagan was re-elected to his second term as US President, defeating Walter Mondale. In an historic move, Mondale selected Representaive Geraldine Ferraro as his running mate, the first time a woman appeared on the ticket for vice president.

-Clara Peller is featured in the "Where's the Beef?" commercial campaign for Wendy's for the first time.

-Trivial Pursuit revived the board-game industry.

-Stonewashed jeans are introduced.

-The first megabit chip is made at Bell Labs

-Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, US. The Soviets boycott.

-Mary Lou Retton wins two gold, two silver and two bronze medals.

-Old nude photos of Vanessa Williams, the current Miss America. She is forced from her throne.

-Michael Jackson's hair caught on fire during the shooting of a Pepsi commercial.

-The Cosby Show first debuted on NBC.

Hit Songs of 1984

1. "Owner of a Lonely Heart" ... Yes

2. "Karma Chamelon" ... Culture Club

3. "Jump" ... Van Halen

4. "Footloose" ... Kenny Loggins

5. "Against All Odds" ... Phil Collins

6. "Hello" ... Lionel Richie

7. " Let's Hear It For the Boy" ... Deniece Williams

8. "Time After Time" ... Cindy Lauper

9. "The Reflex" ... Duran Duran

10. "When Doves Cry" ... Prince

11. "Like a Virgin" ... Madonna

Hockey Night in Canada......and further south!

I am all set for tonight’s hockey game. This is game 6 of the final NHL series, back in Pittsburgh. The Penguins have to win tonight or the cup will be handed to the Red Wings again. Not that I care that much about the outcome, it’s just that I don’t think I can stand listening to dear son Greg going on and on all summer long about how great his Detroit team is.

A couple play-off series back I was cheering for the Washington Capitals. (Did I mention I always seem to go for the underdogs?) The reason really was because of the coach. Bruce Boudreau, Coach of the Washington team actually coached Greg when Greg was young. Bruce runs the Golden Horseshoe Hockey School each summer and Greg went about 4 summers in a row. Bruce, through his connections with the NHL and AHL always had professional players and professional referees come to the camp and it was a big thrill………for the parents. Greg enjoyed the ice time but the lunches are what he remembers best. Bruce, having kids of his own about the same age (they went to high school with my kids) knew it was all about the food. It wasn’t meeting Johnny Bower or having Don Koharski ref his game, it was having pizza and wings and a Big Mac Greg remembers!

Anyway…..all of this memory lane walking is because of something fascinating I discovered while watching Hockey Night in Canada before one of the Penguins/Capitals play-off games. Road hockey in front of the White House! I have even signed up for their messages on Yahoo! Each week a bunch of guys (no girls??) get together and play road hockey on a section of the street shut down to traffic in front of the White House. Yes, THAT White House. I think that is amazing. A Canadian pastime is now becoming something for all Americans to see! I am trying to convince Terry to make our summer vacation to Washington. Not to see the Smithsonian or anything like that but to play road hockey! The only thing missing is that no one needs to yell “CAR!” (I think only the Canadian readers out there will get that)