Thursday, or Thereabouts - June 1, 2023

 

Summer has jumped the gun this year, rushing her entrance onto my doorstep a full three weeks before the solstice. Her usual entourage of bugs - black flies, mosquitoes, deer flies, and ants - are all present and correct for June 21 too. Even the "Bobbsey Twins", high humidity and poor air quality have shown up this week along with a heat warning in tow. My plants and flowers which last week were dodging frost, are this week crying out for copious drinks and umbrellas. There has been no rain here since May 20th and so the fire danger is high. Please, PLEASE be vigilant.

Watching my grandchildren splashing in their backyard wading pool this past Sunday brought back a flood of memories. 

Hot! Hot! Hot! So hot the tar bubbles up between the pebbles on the road; round, shiny black globs. I can smell the tar - acrid gasoline fumes rise up from the road surface. My flip flops stick haphazardly as I walk; sometimes a step is unhindered, other times the foam sole sticks then releases raising fine black strands of gooeyness. Round flat, black globs decorate the bottom of my favourite summer footwear. I scuff over to the lawn hoping the grass will wipe away the sticky tar. It's futile. Now I have flipflops with green grass clippings stuck to them. 

Happy days with wind in my face bike rides, 5¢ popsicles, 10¢ ice cream cones, Coppertone® sun tan lotion or maybe just a coating of baby oil (there was no sunscreen), big circulating fans swirling in the windows (the only A/C we had), family bbq's, and a backyard pool made summer an absolute delight.

me just chillin', 1972

Freshly filled in the first week of June each year, the water temperature began as a bracing 16°C (61°F) and then crawled it's way up to a blistering 23°C (74°F) by mid-August, aided at least in some small part by my mother and I dumping buckets of hot water to it while Dad was at work!

Dad's idea of chillin' in the pool, 1972

Mom 1971

My version of taking a dive, 1972

Stay cool folks. Be fire smart.

©2023 April Hoeller

Thursday, or Thereabouts - April 20, 2023

 

It's a big deal in my homeland. Every town, big and small has at least one hockey rink and scores of recreational and competitive teams. Larger towns and cities support multiple amateur leagues, the scouting grounds for the Olympics and the NHL. There are many hockey dreams in the land...

Once upon a time, there was a little girl who loved to play hockey. She dreamt about stick handling her way down the right wing, closing in on the net, then a quick wrist snap puts the puck in the top left corner It's all one fluid movement and she nails it every time.

That's the way it is with dreams...

As it so often does, reality told a different story. It was the 1960's, the time before helmets and face shields. Little girls were not supposed to like hockey. More than that, girls were not allowed to play hockey. And no wonder - girls skates, those bright white figure skates with the sharp picks at the front, were not made for hockey.

The little girl struggled in too narrow skates, hand-me-downs from a sister who skated perfectly through turns and twists, forward and backward. Though she tried and tried again, the little girl never mastered the task, defeated by those blasted picks that dug into the ice and sent her down too hard, too often. The laughter and taunts from the sidelines didn't help.

The best Christmas ever delivered an official hockey sweater of the Chicago Blackhawks - her favourite NHL team at the time - CCM gloves, and a Titan hockey stick. The dream lived on. Her Dad cutting up the ice with speed and wide turns, encouraged the dream.

The Mom tolerated the dream, taking all this hockey stuff in her stride for the most part, but she drew the line when the father suggested buying boys' tube skates. It was a bridge too far for the mother of the not so girly daughter.

No matter, out on the winter street, hard packed with snow, the neighbourhood boys always needed an extra player and the little girl was always dressed and ready to go in the sweater, gloves, stick, and boots. Living the dream.

The years passed and the girl grew and the boys grew and soon wanted nothing to do with the hockey girl who couldn't skate. She settled for Hockey Night in Canada to satisfy her desire, but mostly the dream fell asleep, and thirty years slipped by...

1998 - The Women broke onto the ice hockey scene at the Olympics in Nagano, Japan.  That little girl's dream tucked into a grown woman, stirred and stretched. Oh to have been born in the 70's instead of the 50's. 

She immersed herself in every game, cheering and jeering, sometimes holding her breath, sometimes sagging with disappointment but throughout it all, thrilled to see other women living her dream and theirs on the ice.

These days, the little girl's dream continues to live on in the Olympics and the IIHF world championships. Her favourite Canadian women's teams don't always have to win gold - that the games exist, that the women are there, and that they are playing at such a high skill level is more than enough fuel to keep the dream alive in this vintage gal!

Not all dreams are meant to be realized. Many are there just to keep me reaching forward, trying new things, and new ways, encouraging possibilities and even some new ones.

©2023 April Hoeller

Thursday, or Thereabouts - March 23, 2023

Most mornings I wake up with a tune playing in my head. It might be an orchestral piece but most often it is a song and barring any upheavals during the day, this music sets the tone for my day. This morning as I walked from bed to bathroom, I did so to the tune of the Banana Boat song bubbling around in my brain.Here's the song made famous by Harry Belafonte in 1956 - have a listen:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYYkJ0kwNss

It was a regular occurrence in my childhood home for either one of my parents to suddenly break into song and this tune popping into my head this morning took me back to any Saturday morning in that living room. My sisters and I are sitting around quietly doing our own things, my mother in the kitchen clearing away breakfast dishes when Dad ambles into the living room without any apparent purpose, stops then BELLOWS,  "Day-O! Day-ay-ay-o!" 

We all knew the song so well, that once we recovered from the surprise, we jumped to our feet singing along, "Daylight come and me wan' go home..." and forming up a conga line dance behind my Dad, a turn of two around the living room before moving through the hall to the kitchen, through the dining room and back to the living room. Such great fun!

A happy welcome to Puerto Limon, Costa Rica, Feb. 21, 2023

Singing was an integral part of all family gatherings. A lull in the conversation, especially if the subject matter had become controversial or solemn, provided the perfect opportunity for someone one in the clan to break into song, or even just begin humming one. That's all it took. We all joined in, some introducing a little harmony, some inventing new words to throw us off and evoke uproarious laughter. Such great fun. Such joyous memories on this rainy day. 

I'm off to do a few more calypso turns around the kitchen, then on with my day. Cheers!

©2023 April Hoeller

 

Thursday, or Thereabouts – February 11, 2021

Train of Thought

While the polar vortex chugs along outside, I’m happy to be stuck at home today letting my mind do the traveling. A little time travel seems right. Back to the early 1960’s…

A blue station wagon pulls in the driveway of my house and out pops a young guy delivering the groceries my Mom bought at the IGA earlier in the day. He plunks the boxes down in the front hall. The deal is that if I help unpack and put away the stuff, I get to spend the rest of the afternoon with the boxes. I eagerly and often way too quickly empty the boxes of tins, jars, cartons, and packages. The magical time is about to begin. No construction, no decoration required, just two empty boxes full of possibility. And two empty grocery boxes become trains. 

I cram myself into the front car. The car behind me might be carrying coal, or gold, or my little sister.  “All Aboard!” I shout then “Wooo! Wooo!”  I lurch my body forward, “ Chuga, chuga, chug, chug.”  And we’re off bouncing and jiggling our way along the rails, steel-on-steel screeching around curves. There is no destination in mind, no amazing scenery to behold, no point to the travel other than just the wonderful imaginary experience of riding the rails, and it was grand!

If my Dad was home, he put on the record of train sounds that he had and turned the volume way up.  Now that just boosted the experience to a whole new level of reality. Have a listen: here. The album cover pictured in the link is different but this is the cover we had.

Not only were the sound effects unique (the recording was made in the rain along the tracks of the New York Central Railway in 1952), but the record itself was a deep cranberry colour vinyl not the usual black. Very special to my primary school self.

Ah well, time to return to the here and now. A truck pulled into the driveway earlier and my grocery order now sits in the kitchen awaiting sorting.

Can you hear the train whistle?

All Aboard!

 

©2021 April Hoeller

Thursday, or Thereabouts - June 13, 2019

Remembering Dad

In 1914, 30% of households had a telephone and 20% had electricity; less than 20% had a cooking stove and less than 10% had a car. The crackle of radios, the hum of refrigerators, and the gurgle of clothes washers had yet to enter homes.

Jim and Ella Cudbird of Carlaw Avenue in Toronto welcomed a son into this world on December 4, 1914. They named him Beverley Swann Vassar Cudbird.

Dad with his Mum - Spring/Summer 1915

First Day of School - September 1919

His eyes were on the clouds and stars as he went on to university. Meteorology won over astronomy and so began his career as a weatherman.

1937 - Trinity College, U. of T.

He married his "American Beauty" in November 1944 then swept her off to Newfoundland, where he was posted during WWII.

After the war, they lived in Ottawa for a time where, in 1947, their first daughter was born. The 1950s saw the family settling in the Toronto suburb of Etobicoke. Two more daughters were born, me in 1953 and my younger sister in 1959.

1962 - Dad's girls

Dad's career progressed at great speed as computers began to appear. He was a key figure in the development of weather data processing techniques. In the 1960s that expertise took him to Nigeria to assist in that country's entry into the digitizing of weather data. For this work, the federal government awarded him the Canadian Centennial Medal in 1967 for having provided valuable service to the country.

My wedding in 1975 offered the perfect opportunity to wear the medal.

A cancer diagnosis in the late 1970s did not stop Dad from doing what he loved - forecasting the weather. He retired from Environment Canada and became the staff meteorologist for radio station CFRB. I like to think he pioneered that media role. Of course, radio has some definite advantages over TV; presenters don't have to worry about what they're wearing, and as in my Dad's case, one doesn't even have to be in the studio. Most of Dad's broadcasts came from the upstairs den in my parents' condo in Etobicoke. If you listened carefully to some of those broadcasts you could hear the chattering of the two teletype machines that spewed out the latest observations and forecasts on reams of newsprint paper.

Dad inspired my love of photography. He began with 35mm slides to which in the sixties, an 8mm movie camera was added along with a "portable" tape recorder, all of which were slung over and around his shoulders throughout the family trip to Europe in 1964.

Dad also loved Dixieland Jazz, Willie Nelson, and military brass bands, especially the Coldstream Guards. Broomstick in hand (instead of a rifle), he marched around the living room often with his daughters following in behind. Sometimes he added a deliberate and exaggerated limp to his step.



He loved the New York Mets but was happy to embrace the Toronto Blue Jays - as long as the Mets weren't in town!











I find it hard to believe that he's been gone since the Spring of 1984. Seems like just yesterday he and I took to the waves off Breezy Point.

Happy Father's Day, Dad! 

©2019 April Hoeller

Thursday, or Thereabouts - September 27, 2018

She stoops to ...
                             Conkers! 

I love finding horse chestnuts in the Fall.  It’s a real thrill to pry open the thick spiny green shell -- a bit like opening a gift-wrapped present. There is such an anticipation of delight.  My recent finds are no exception.  The outer shell gives way to reveal a gorgeous nugget of deep red-brown roundness with a creamy top.  It reminds me of a perfect espresso with a crema top.  The delicate swirls of pattern invite my thumb to trace the contours over smooth shiny curves.   Fifty-five years melt away...

I look up from my English notebook to make sure nobody is watching me.  The teacher is writing in her daybook, and the other kids all have heads down, pencils scratching out a story.  My story isn’t going very well.  It’s stupid.  I can never come up with anything good. 


But recess is just minutes away, so I reach into my desk, past the packet of Dad’s oatmeal cookies to find the tangle of shoelaces. I tease through the tangle to grasp the two smooth round chestnuts.



Just yesterday I found these beauties under the big tree in a neighbour’s yard.  I raced home and headed right downstairs to my Dad’s workbench to get the hammer and a big nail.  It was a little tricky -- the chestnuts were a bit slippery and didn’t want to stay still on the floor -- but I got a good hole through two of them.  A third one split.  Oh well, good thing I picked up three!

Then I had to go find shoelaces. Big thick ones are the best, like the ones I found in my sister’s skates. Perfect! I put a good knot at the end of the laces and strung a chestnut on each one.  Two perfect conkers ready for action.

Ring!  The recess bell makes me jump, but in no time I'm in line, ready to head out the door. Danny, the boy with the ‘five-year bully’ (meaning he had beaten five others with this conker) already has a bunch of boys gathered around him, ready to try their luck.  I slip my way into the group.  They tease me as usual, being the only girl and all, but I don’t like skipping or hopscotch.  I like conkers!

One by one chestnuts smash against each other and one by one the boys ahead of me leave behind broken bits.  Now it’s my turn to get demolished – well that’s what the boys say!  I crouch down on my knees and take out the really big conker and lay it in the pit.  I close my eyes and Danny takes his best shot with his now eight-year bully.  SMACK!  “It’s your turn now.” somebody says.

“What?” I stammer, “My conker is still in one piece?”  I dry my hands on my pants, then grab the end of the shoelace and hold it tightly with my right hand.  I wrap my left thumb and forefinger around my conker and draw the shoelace up tight.  SNAP!  I see bits of chestnut flying in the air.  My heart sinks.

"Hey, the girl did it!" I hear someone shout.

I look down at the shoelace in my hand, follow the line to see a whole chestnut at its end. WOW!  I just smashed an eight-year bully to smithereens!  “I did it!  I did it!”

The bell ending recess reverberates through the playground.  I scramble to my feet,  stuffing my best ever conker into my pocket and skip back into school. Now I have something good to write about and a one year bully in my pocket.

©2018 April Hoeller

Thursday, or Thereabouts - September 6, 2018

On this day...
      ...A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away

White lace and promises

a kiss for luck...

...and we're on our way.

We'd only just begun.

Three years later, we cleared the land on a property on Cherry Street.

And built a house.

September 1978

1978 - With Gramps the Engineer

May 1980 - Norbert and my Dad

May 1980 - Mom & I

Then we got a dog of course: Sheba our first German Shepherd.

Children took a little longer, but arrive they did.

January 1985

March 1985

March 1987

Christmas 1987

We grew, we traveled.
.

Austria 1996

Spain 2005

We walked two dogs across the rainbow bridge when their time came, Sheba and Sasha.

#3 - Sophie is keeping us in line these days.

Sasha

Sophie

Cuba 2012

The house got a make-over and then a sunroom.

Wedding bells rang out again, and we grew some more.

June 2011

July 2015

July 2015

So here we are in 2018, 43 years later and still traveling together.

Iceland - June 2018

"Sharing horizons that are new to us
Watching the signs along the way
Talkin' it over, just the two of us
Workin' together day to day
Together, Together."




Songwriters: Roger S. Nichols / Paul H. Williams; performed by The Carpenters













©2018 April Hoeller