Wonderings

Black Spring

I returned to my collection of Canadian literature and baseball books for February reads to commemorate Black History month. Lists from previous years published online recommended such well known Canadian authors as Lawrence Hill (Book of Negroes), and Esi Edugyan (Half-Blood Blues) both of which I have read and enjoyed. In perusing my shelves, I identified three fiction writers and a non-fiction baseball book to tackle.

When you look for lists of books to read for Black History month, David Chariandy’s name appears regularly, typically with his earlier novel, Brother, which won the 2017 Writers Trust Fiction Prize. I’ve Been Meaning to Tell You was published very shortly afterwards and is oft mentioned as a necessary read. It became my first book for the month and its stated purpose established the message for the rest of my February indulgences.

The book is a letter to Chariandy’s daughter to talk about the history of his family, their mixed Black and South Asian background, and their slavery experience in Trinidad before arriving in Canada as migrants. Chariandy describes his childhood growing up in Scarborough to help his daughter understand her current world and as a plea for a more inclusive existence where “we will finally learn to read and respectfully discuss our differences”.

The small book is a quick 120 page read with thoughtful imagery and compassionate, parental insight. I was also intrigued with the jacket art by Sandra Brewster whose work forms part of Seneca College’s permanent art collection. “Untitled Smiths 2011” is part of a series in which artist Sandra Brewster mocks the notion of a monolithic Black community: “The surname Smith takes up the bigger section of a Western telephone directory. Its volume conjures up ideas of sameness and commonality and invisibility as there are so many.”

Catherine Hernandez’s debut novel, Scarborough, was shortlisted for the 2017 Toronto Book Awards. Self-described as a book about community, Hernandez takes us through the lives of children and adults living in precarious situations, revolving around a community education project. The chapters alternate between the diverse characters, taking us into their homes and thoughts, spanning one school year in the at-risk neighbourhood. The people of the book represent the gamut of visible minorities within the city.

I found parts of the 255 pages to be heavy handed at times in its description and characterization of some of the people in the stories. Cory, for example, is the white, racist father of Laura who was dumped by her maternal parent. In the first chapter, Cory talks about “chinks”, “pakis”, “towelheads” and “crazy bitches” in his interactions with the people he meets trying to attend to the needs of his daughter. Near the end of the chapter, his actions are described as “awakened by his purebred, white trash instincts”. I did not need that label to understand the point; his actions and words alone would have clearly painted the picture. Nevertheless, the book did help me to understand a world which I have only witnessed from the periphery. The hopeful outcomes for some of the characters raises the importance of community togetherness and sends a message for survival and success.

February is also the start of spring training, signaling the beginning of another baseball season for watching and for reading. Henry Aaron passed away in January which prompted me to look for his biography. Howard Bryant published a work about the previous home run king, so I ordered it online. In the meantime, I remembered another baseball book by the same author on my shelves and thought to read it until the new one arrived.

Shut Out: A Story of Race and Baseball in Boston lays to bare the long-standing, organizational culture of racism against the inclusion of black ball players on the major league roster of the Boston Red Sox. The book details the rejection of Jackie Robinson and Willie Mays as possible recruits resulting in the team being the last one in major league baseball to field a black player in 1959. Starting at the top with the owner Tom Yawkney, the team overtly and subtly kept out black ball players, described in great detail by Bryant, against the backdrop of a city reeking with racial issues.

My challenge with the book is the structure. I found myself rereading the same points in subsequent chapters as if for the first time. It seems to me a better editor would have asked for the text to be tightened up. The most egregious example occurred on page 128 in a discussion of the pitcher, Luis Tiant: “There are a million stories about what Luis Tiant meant to the Boston Red Sox…..of how he kept the Red Sox loose and was the backbone of those exciting, perilously flawed teams. Tiant also knew how to keep a clubhouse loose.”

I also kept asking myself for comparisons and statistics about other baseball teams. Bryant hammered home the point about the number of years Jim Rice and then Ellis Burks would be the only black position players on the squad (a careful distinction because there were black pitchers) yet we are not made aware of the make-up of other teams. Only when Ellis Burks signs with the White Sox does the reader finally learn about another clubhouse with a “black presence” which included leaders like “Frank Thomas, Tim Raines, Lance Johnson and Bo Jackson, as well as Latino players…”. Similarly Bryant repeated in each chapter the inability of the Boston Red Sox to sign black free agents, when suddenly, on page 231 (of 252) he mentions that two had signed in 1993. Given Bryant spent several pages describing how the BoSox could not sign Kirby Puckett, you would have thought he could provide more than a sentence on the acquisition of Andre Dawson and Billy Hatcher.

Despite some of my issues with the structure and style, Shut Out is a significant contribution to the public acknowledgement of the racist history of the Boston Red Sox and baseball, a necessary precursor, as Howard Bryant describes, to rectify the wrongs of the past and change the direction of the organization and the league. For this reason alone, the book merits a read for baseball fans and social historians.

Frying Plantain is a collection of linked short stories, the debut work of Zalika Reid-Benta. It had been nominated for the 2020 Toronto Book Awards, the Trillium Awards and it was long listed for the 2019 Scotia Bank Giller Prize while winning a handful of less commonly known literary awards. No wonder the work made numerous lists for Black History Month. In an efficient 257 pages of unadorned, highly effective prose, the stories are told from the perspective of Karla growing up in Toronto’s little Jamaica, trying to navigate relationships with her mother, her grandparents, her friends and her neighbourhood.

Image result for zalika reid-benta frying plantain

The stories are relatable and a reader can easily imagine the situation or the conversations. The scenarios made me smile or nod my head and envision how they played out in some manner growing up. For example, there is a scene from middle school where a number of jaded students are brought to the gym to sit in a sharing circle for some group therapy led by two earnest counselors. A talking stick is introduced and is handed to the first student to talk about his biggest fears:

She gave him the stick and he immediately passed it to the person beside him, who handed it off to the girl next to her. Jason watched the Talking stick get transferred from student to student without pause. “Guys, remember, this is a safe space….” It was stupid of them to think that mattered, to think that something like that existed simply because they said it did.

Many of the incidents are specific to being a teenage girl and to living in the Jamaican community:

[Kara] hates the way [the dress] falls on her like it’s a sheet. Hates the way it accentuates her lack of breasts, lack of curves, lack of the voluptuous beauty that makes her aunts and cousins laugh behind their hands and say, Yuh sure you a Jamaican gyal?

Reid-Benata sprinkles the stories with pieces of information, single sentences to build the background, fill-in the story of Kara’s mother, Eloise. Each mention guides the reader to build the narrative in their own imagination. Flying Plantain allows the reader to feel the experience for themselves rather than be told by the author.

[Kara] opened the car door to leave but Eloise had grabbed her by the wrist, pulling her back into the passenger’s seat. “I just want you to imagine something,” she said. “I was your age when you were born.”

I very much enjoyed the book and would highly recommend it for others.

St. Patrick’s Day is March 17, so the books for next month will be by Irish-Canadian writers. As always, suggestions are welcome. Happy reading everyone.

I hope your honeymoon lasts forever

My parents were married to each other twice, in the same month of the same year.

Dutch Catholic practice meant a couple would start their life together first with a civil wedding followed by a religious ceremony a short time later. Both days are captured in my parent’s photo collection, each revealing in comparison and in the details.

My father signing the registry at City Hall, the parents in the background.

The civil wedding took place on April 10, 1958 at the city hall in Tilburg. My parents would mention this occasion, bringing attention to the date each year, but never pretending to celebrate, just acknowledging its existence. They treated the day like the mere formality it appeared to be, a necessary step to ensure the legality of the marriage. Not even the bride and groom removed their winter coat indicating the brevity of the whole process.

The four photos in my parents collection documents the moment as if an official record. One shows an officer of the city, suitably dressed, standing behind a simple desk in a meeting room with rows of chairs, presiding over the pronouncement. There are two pictures, one each of Mom and Dad signing the document. And finally a fourth one of another civil servant handing a copy to the newly married couple. There are no smiles to be found. My Dad’s face is expressionless; my mother looks scared in two of them.

I recall seeing these pictures before but did not heed them any attention. Now, in the process of scanning, I noticed how the two sets of parents were in attendance; and in another photo, the two younger siblings from each side were seated, perhaps the designated witnesses. Given it was a Thursday, I expect the ceremony took place later in the afternoon enabling everyone to attend without losing a day of work. A careful examination also reveals a ring on the right hand of both my Mom and Dad. Whether the ring was placed there during the ceremony or they came to the service wearing them already is unclear. My mother never had an engagement ring so the wearing of the rings on the right hand may have been the sign of commitment.

The day always struck me as a curious process: Was the event celebrated in some manner? Did everyone go to my father’s home for coffee afterwards? At the end of the evening, did my parents go their separate ways or did they begin to cohabitate?

The second wedding took place in Kaatsheuval at St. Josef Kerk on Wednesday, April 30, 1958, the day my parents celebrate as their anniversary, the one forged in memory. The invitation announced two simultaneous events: the celebration of my maternal grandparents 40th wedding anniversary and the marriage between Piet de Cock and Riet van Rooij. My parents would be married by my Uncle Herman, one of Mom’s older ordained brothers, at 9:30 am followed by a mass which also commemorated the anniversary. All were invited to a reception from 1:30 to 2:30 across the street from the van Rooij home at a local bar/eatery.

One of the official photographs outside my Mom’s home in Kaatsheuvel.

The day also coincided with Queen Beatrix’s birthday, a national holiday. Coupled with the poverty of the van Rooij family, I expect it made sense to combine the two celebrations into one on a day when people could attend without missing any work time and the family saved the cost of two separate events.

Nevertheless, it was the big day, the one to remember. A professional photographer was hired as numerous staged shots are part of the picture collection. The rings from the civil ceremony are not evident until you see them on each of their left hands by the end of the ceremony. The handful of amateur pictures at the reception reflect some celebration and toasting of the new couple, a marked contrast to the earlier proceedings. Only years later did my Mom talk about some of the stresses of the day, particularly an ongoing friction with her mother.

A raising of glasses to the newly married couple at the afternoon reception.

As I sort through the pictures, the day also raises numerous questions. For example, the invitation lists the address of my Dad, not at the home of his parents, but rather at another place, on the same street, in what appears to be an apartment above a business. Was he living in his own place at the time? Is that where my parents retreated after the reception and began living? Did they go to work the next day or were they in the midst of preparing for their next move?

I expect when our kids look back at our wedding photos, questions will arise for which they can only speculate. There are always stories behind the pictures which unless unveiled in some manner will remain a secret or a mystery. I am reminded of a passage from The Saturday Night Ghost Club by Craig Davidson:

Reality never changes. Only our recollections of it do. Whenever a moment passes, we pass along with it into the realm of memory. And in that realm, geometries change. Contours shift, shades lighten, objectivities dissolve.

Memory becomes what we need it to be.

What we do know about my parents is that less than a month later, the newlyweds boarded a plane headed for Canada.

Their flight landed in Montreal, May 28. They passed through customs after midnight before joining a train headed for Woodstock to meet a “girlfriend” who would ferry them to the small town of Belmont. Their time there was short as was the relationship with this woman given there is no evidence of her after that summer. My parents eventually ended up in London, Ontario.

My parents pictured on second floor balcony of a duplex in Belmont, Ontario very shortly after their arrival.

They arrived as landed immigrants, acquired permanent resident status and attended English classes at Clarke Road Secondary School in order to help meet the test for passable English proficiency. Eight years later, with four boys in tow, having moved four times from one rental place to another before finally buying their home on Kostis Avenue, my parents became Canadian citizens on Thursday, May 19, 1966. There are no pictures to mark the day but they walked away with their papers and a congratulatory parchment from the Imperial Order Daughters of the Empire.

The most memorable story which my mother fondly repeated, however, was about the ceremony itself. At the beginning, the judge asked each of the candidates their reason for choosing Canada. Mom responded by saying they came here for their honeymoon and never left. After the swearing in, the judge handed each person their certificate. When he got to my parents, he presented the bible as a gift and welcomed them to the country with the unforgettable greeting,

“I hope your honeymoon lasts forever”.

Memoirs of a different time

Today I am beginning a new series writing about the books I have completed. At the end of each month I will provide a very brief description of the content and convey my impressions of the work. I do not intend these blogs to be book reviews; rather I hope they generate interest, or not, in something you had not considered or had your eyes on since the book was released.

I am a collector of first printing Canadian literature, a number of which are signed by the author. I own an extensive collection but have read only about a third. I continue to purchase, new and used, making them my first choice when I am looking for something new to indulge my reading pleasure. I have my favourite authors (Miriam Toews, Helen Humphries, Craig Davidson, Michael Redhill/Inger Ashe Wolfe) from whom I immediately purchase and consume everything they have published. Simultaneously, I am building a selection of baseball books which have become my preferred non-fiction genre for summer enjoyment. None of the first three books of 2021 match any of these criteria, making January an unusual reading month for me.

I received A Promised Land as a Christmas gift from Olga. In our home, regardless of whatever else is purchased, everyone receives a book. This 700 page tome is intimidating at the first flip through the pages. The print is small, the paragraphs long, and the dialogue minimal. I expected it would take me weeks to complete (being a slow reader), anticipating I would put it aside and peruse something else in between sections for a break. Once I started, however, I could not put the book down grabbing it at every spare moment of the day. The book is so well written, it’s length was a non-issue forgotten in the magnificent prose. He utilized “impact” properly as a noun and only once included a derivation (impactful…one of my literary pet peeves). Obama used the word “torpor”. West Wing fans will recall a debate about including it in a speech, those against arguing people would not understand its meaning. Jed Bartlett settled the decision declaring, “they can look it up”.

Indeed, reading this book was akin to watching West Wing which seemed to have played out years earlier many of the scenarios depicted in Obama’s biography during his time in the White House. The memoir starts with the idealism of fresh players in Washington becoming frustrated when much of their legislative intentions are compromised in order to make only incremental change. Obama provides considerable context to each situation, explaining arguments of competing sides, before delving into the actions and ending each chapter with honest, personal reflections. It is both a reminder and a primer of the major events in America during his first four years in office. I am anxiously looking forward to volume 2 (yes, this is the planned first of two).

Having enjoyed A Promised Land, I was curious about Michelle Obama’s memoir, Becoming, published a few years earlier. It became an instant bestseller breaking all first week records for sales, only to be surpassed by Barack Obama’s own. Olga and I read the entire 421 pages out loud to each other in the span of a couple weeks.

The book is much more personal, detailing the thoughts and emotions and development of Michelle from her very early days growing up on the southside of Chicago, through her brief stint as a corporate lawyer, to her marriage and eventual First Lady of the United States. We got an insight into the life of a woman of colour striving to find her true calling in a country where the positions of power and influence are dominated by white males. Her analysis of the politics of Washington and the foreshadowing of recent events are prescient.

Becoming is also a complement to A Promised Land because Michelle reveals considerable detail into the personality of Barack himself. Combined, the two books are a compelling read into America’s first Black president. The book stands on it’s own as well. Olga and I would highly recommend it, suggesting couples might consider reading it out loud to each other.

The final book for January was also a Christmas present, this one from Olena and Daniel. Olena has found various ways to support my aspirations to write more, including a notebook and a previous book on writing workshops. I started Stephen King’s, On Writing, after completing Obama’s memoir and as my evening entertainment when Olga and I retreated to our solo readings before bed.

King has some helpful advice on writing even if I question his dislike of descriptive prose and disdain for the use of unfamiliar vocabulary. His contempt for adverbs spans several pages in the section on the Toolbox, and we are constantly reminded of his opinion afterwards. The point is valid and the example of an edited first draft helps an aspiring writer look more critically at his/her work. Advice on second readers, the timing for revision and how to become published all have merits worth considering.

I did not enjoy the writing at all. The tone and the language resembled that of a nineteen year old who thinks vulgarity and macho imagery are appropriate descriptors. A number of his metaphors do not stand up well today. If he decides to publish a fourth edition, the editors would be advised to slash a number of those incriminating sections. I had not read a Stephen King novel before and this book did not entice me to seek them out.

In February I will be exploring new books to celebrate Black History month. I welcome any suggestions. Till then, happy reading.

For those who paint the rocks

When 2020 started, I made a commitment to walk an average of 10,000 steps per day.

I deliberately used the word average knowing there would be numerous days when I would not meet that target but would compensate on other occasions with a larger number of steps. My goal was publicly announced in front of a room full of professors at a new faculty orientation in the first week of January back when I was gainfully employed and everyone was going into work, in person. Remember those days?

While working, I was able to manage four to six thousand steps in a day through regular activity up and down the stairs at home, walking in from the parking lot to my office, attending meetings at multiple locations on the campus or visiting a colleague’s department. The remaining steps could easily be attained with a short walk around the neighbourhood after dinner. I found creative ways to hit the target even on days when sitting was the default position, such as walking loops around the airport waiting to board the plane or following a continuous path through the living room and kitchen in the house on stormy evenings, reversing the direction to get a different view.

The COVID shutdown meant work was completed exclusively in front of a computer screen for every interaction. Attending meetings was the click of a button and the only exercise was a trip to the bathroom to expel the increased number of coffees consumed or to pop downstairs for some lunch. Reaching my step target would mean, therefore, more deliberate attention to time and distance. I would eye the day’s calendar, determine where there would be a half hour window where I could walk the block with the knowledge the route would be about 20 minutes and accumulate 2,000 steps. I began to think only in step counts: back and forth to the drug store was 2,700 steps; the street circling the community was 5,200, a jaunt to the grocery store was 6,200. When I retired from work at the end of June the challenge was to discover longer walks for a change in scenery and to avoid a Groundhog Day scenario each time I ventured out the door.

One of the preferred paths took me through the local park, around the small ski hill, and back home along a paved trail beside the creek where I strolled past a fledgling display of encouragement assembling at the base of a tree.

The effort appeared very quaint. The square sign summed up the effort best: “Sharing joy through painted rocks. See a rock, paint a rock & bring a rock. Join our rock garden use our hashtag, #EtobicokeRocks”. I thought the idea to be sweet, a creative effort to keep people optimistic as we endured the restrictions of COVID. Walking was one of the only safe methods to maintain some exercise and this display provided encouragement, an appeal to all who pass to share in support of each other. The effort made me smile.

The idea appeared to catch on. Some garbage around the tree was cleaned up, more painted rocks were added, people were paying attention. Some smart aleck deposited an empty beer can amongst the rocks. It was gone a few days later as the more thoughtful additions were piling up.

The rock garden had grown with colourful and clever additions. The messages were for hope and happiness and fun, in an assortment of shapes (the square rubics cube) and sizes, some from children and a number from adults. The greenery of the tree contributed to an aesthetic of enjoyment for all passersby. I couldn’t help but stop to pause and scour the ground for new additions, read the words of wisdom, reflect on the message, and contemplate on what my contribution would be.

As the fall rolled around the number of COVID infections increased again, restrictions came back, and the fatigue of a prolonged pandemic settled into the psyche. The end appeared further away and new painted rocks were scarce. At the end of November we received our first snowfall, covering the collective effort to spread cheer and joy. Renewed lockdowns only added to the darker and gloomier days leading into the new year.

But rocks don’t melt. They are undaunted by foul weather. They remain firm and steadfast. The messages of joy and hope displayed in this grassroots monument to collective healing, however battered, persist to form the foundation for a spring, to help us endure and knowing all this too shall pass. It is the continued acts of kindness and consideration and every effort, small or large, to find ways to smile or laugh which keep our eyes on the horizon for the day when we will all get back together, again.

I completed my goal despite challenges in December to end the year with an average daily step count of 11,687. To answer the skeptics call of “pics or it didn’t happen”, I am including a screen shot from December 31st of the Pacer app on my phone which documented every leg movement in 2020. My new challenge will be to replace the time I spent walking with other forms of exercise. The discipline necessary to achieve this objective will prove more difficult than finding the time for walking but I will remember and recall the messages of the painted rocks with their words of encouragement and hope to overcome and “bee happy”.

So for those who work in our hospitals and in our nursing homes, for those who abide by the protocols, for those who still greet you with a smile and a good morning as you pass them six feet apart, for those who share stories across driveways or balconies or computers, for those who paint the rocks, we salute you.

Borje Salming

The first winter in Belmont, Ontario would have been an eye opener for my parents in 1958. I expect they understood Canada was colder, the winters longer, and the snow more abundant; yet that inaugural snowy season was not exactly in line with what they would have imagined.

Nevertheless, Mom and Dad adapted to their new home with the exuberance of original settlers, skating on the frozen waterways, building backyard ice rinks, and adopting hockey as their sport of choice. Their endurance of the season, shoveling the snow, bracing against the minus temperatures, claiming hockey was better than soccer became bragging points to relatives back home and a badge of honour for their decision.

Indeed there was some obvious enthusiasm with the weather, early photographs capturing escapades on ice. Several emanated from an afternoon spent on a large expanse of ice, a frozen field with open space to test your balance. The saved pictures show Dad displaying his prowess in one, another of him skating with a group joined together by hands, and this one above with Mom. The tops of her footwear suggests she was in boots, escorted by Dad, across the ice, hopefully very carefully given she would have been as much as three quarters of the way into her first pregnancy.

By the time they moved into their first house in 1963, there were three boys, ages four, three and two. In 1965, the family grew by one more son. With the small house, we spent alot of time outdoors. In the winter it would be playing hockey on the street and learning to skate on the home made ice rink in the large backyard.

Every winter when the temperature stayed cold for any length of time, Dad tamped down the snow, patiently soaked the pad, smoothed out the bumps and cleared the snow to create walls for the boys to play within, skating circles and more often, engaging in a spirited game of hockey. My parents were practical, not seeing the value of new skates which would be outgrown by the following season. I don’t recall ever having a new pair until I bought my own as a young adult. Mine were most likely to be hand-me downs from my older brother Gary, purchased second hand or rummaged from a neighbour or work colleague.

That same sensibility and the realistic constraints of a working class single income meant none of us were enrolled in organized hockey as kids. If one of us were to begin, then the others would need to join and how would the family manage the time or the money. My parents bet the odds of success were with an education rather than a career in the National Hockey League playing for the Maple Leafs.

As we grew into teenagers, we built the rinks ourselves, bigger to accommodate our size.

Watching hockey was akin to religion in our household. Every Saturday night we plunked ourselves in front of the TV for the next edition of Hockey Night in Canada, accompanied by loud commentaries on the action, arguments about the merits of fighting, and yelps of SCORE!, in unison, when the puck crossed the goal line for the home team. Bobby Orr was Dad’s favourite hockey player despite being a griping fan of the Maple Leafs. Mom, on the other hand, proudly cheered the blue and white, remembering the last time they won the Stanley Cup, ever hopeful this year would be the next. Her favourite player was Borje Salming. Mom would not countenance any utterance of disrespect or negative assessment of the man or his abilities. She simply ignored any reports of Salming snorting cocaine, believing the stories were the construct of a media biased against Swedish hockey players.

I think she identified with Salming as a pioneer to the NHL, a foreigner in a strange land, the first successful European to break into the ultra macho world of North American hockey. Mom would spit the name of Mel Bridgeman who badly bloodied Salming in a one-sided fight during one playoff game with the Broad Street Bullies. Her boy would persevere, stay in the game, and eventually be inducted into the hall of fame, not like that Bridgeman bum.

Early rendition of this year’s ice rink, waiting for a frigid cold to perfect.

These stories all came back to me the last couple days as I shoveled the lake snow to uncover my own ice rink, remembering the endless hours outdoors playing hockey in the back yard, on fields, on the narrow creek, or between the trees dodging branches and my brothers. Our rebuilt cottage is winterized and I look forward to every new Year’s day to build the rink and recall the joy of skating outside in the brisk, fresh air, firing pucks at the net, falling into the snow from exhaustion, laughing as the flakes float down from the sky. The physical exertion to shovel the snow, dragging the hose at night in the ongoing challenge to smooth out the bumps, experiencing again all for the simple pleasures of childhood when my parents embraced their new world.

A good rink and a vigorous skate always makes for a promising start to another year. I have more opportunities this time round to make this one better than the previous year, hopefully boding well for 2021.

Happy New Year everyone.

What can we give them?

When my parents moved to Canada, they were the only ones who ventured more than a 100 kilometre radius away from Tilburg. With the exception of my missionary aunt and uncle who left for Africa, everyone else stayed in the city or established homes in nearby Waalwijk, or Goirle, or St. Michelsgestel. Uncle Herman was in a Belgian parish less than an hour ride from family.

Distance from the Netherlands made Christmas particularly special for my parents. There was no gathering up of the kids to visit grandparents, or welcoming uncles, aunts or cousins for a drink and a meal, or exchanging of gifts among relatives. Christmas was contained amongst ourselves, celebrating only with our immediate family, and a nod to the relations abroad.

Mom and Dad relished the opportunity to express their joy of family with the sharing of gifts; simple when we were young, more expensive when their own fortunes improved. Regardless of the financial circumstances, my parents ensured there was always something to open in the morning. Some of these memories are etched forever, others rejuvenated from photographs of those very early years.

I stumbled on this picture from 1965. From left to right, in order of age, Gary, Henry and Peter. Michael was an infant, just born in the late summer. The tree was real, bought from a man encamped in his trailer parked in the Woolco lot, spiritedly negotiated to it’s lowest agreeable price, nailed to a wooden Coca-Cola crate and propped in front of the living room window on Kostis Ave. I don’t recall this particular Christmas although Gary reminded me of the chairs and the accompanying table. It was part of the gift for the three of us; we were positioned beside our haul for the photo. The quality of the image limits the zooming capabilities in an attempt to identify some of the bounty; nevertheless, humorously, one cannot help but notice how a number of the presents came in threes: a box of Cracker Jacks; a paint set; a holster with a toy gun; a balloon pump; a hockey stick; and, a piggy bank. Clearly, our parents were encouraging us to be savers.

The display also includes individual items foreshadowing an aspect of our current reality. Gary drew on an Etch-a-Sketch to practice for his career in structural steel drafting; Peter delighted in a barn to help identify the animals he would foster on his hobby farm; and I played with a xylophone to hone up on my musical talents for guitar and bagpipe performances.

The receipt of presents related to Canada’s official sport was common throughout the years. At another Christmas, pictured below, a hockey game was the prominent feature.

Putting the hockey game together Christmas Day, 1968.

Notice me in a tie (clearly a signal of my working days ahead) while the others had already abandoned theirs after mass. Attending church was important to my parents and played a significant role in the festivities. We dressed up special for Christmas mass, decked out in our best shirts and tie; bow in the early years, necktie in the latter. Midnight mass was a highlight, after which we were allowed to open one present as a teaser before heading for bed till the morning, rising first for breakfast, then opening the remainder of the gifts – a lesson in delayed gratification. As we got older, our parents would allow us to stay up longer. My mother prepared blindevinken, a special Dutch meat dish, eaten after midnight mass, followed with present opening to three o’clock in the morning. I devoured my chocolate letter before going to bed, not risking it getting stale by the morning.

Over the years, some presents stick out as memories: a toboggan leaning against the wall, as tall as the tree, greeted us at the bottom of the stairs one morning; the wooden “sjoelbak” (shuffleboard), too big for wrapping, and providing hours and then years of enjoyment. Not all gifts were store bought. My mother was an avid seamstress and knitter, making coats one year for each of us and sweaters in another. She carried on this love of making and giving with her grandchildren, creating one-of-a-kind gifts, never to be forgotten.

Teddy Bears for our daughter Olena and her cousin, Justine

My parent’s joy of giving and sharing and celebrating together remains as their most important legacy. They relished the company of their immediate family: eating, singing, rejoicing in the season. My mother loved Boney M’s version of Mary’s Boy Child, the perfect combination of reverence and fun, embodying her approach to the holiday. While I struggle to recall the individual gifts, I will never forget the feeling of Christmas, the joy of giving, the importance of being together. The day has become my favourite time of the year, to express my love with a thoughtful gift that induces a smile, a hug and a kiss. I am grateful our children were able to enjoy Christmas with their Oma and Opa, Baba and Dido, and a growing, extended family. As I sit by my lighted tree each day with my morning cup of coffee, I miss the phone call from Mom or Dad about preparations, the arrival of that special card, the questions about about when we would be in London and what did we get the kids this year.

Olga and I have attempted to retain their fun and joy and celebration through different activities over the years. We hosted a gingerbread baking fest in our small apartment for our first Christmas as a couple, inviting my brothers and parents to participate. We continued this tradition with our children until they were no longer at home. In another year we suggested, and others reluctantly accepted, decorating the tree with hand-made ornaments. Dad had some difficulty with the concept but finally succumbed to the collective insistence for his contribution by stapling some tinfoil together in the shape of a star.

For several Christmases we drew names from a hat to select the lucky recipient of a hand made gift. Gary fondly remembers carving Olga’s name into a wooden cutting board while receiving placemats and oven mitts from Mom in the same year. When the ideas for making gifts waned, we switched to assembling the package to reflect the person receiving the present. The idea stemmed from Dad’s story of constructing a cardboard needle to deliver his gift to his beloved, my Mom, a nurse. You get the idea.

In this year of COVID, we refuse to allow the limitations to dampen our celebration. Olga and I have devised a treat for our children and their special loved one which we hope will bring the same smiles and memories and fun and joy with their families. As we sing about what we can give them, we pause and remember to relish the moment, rejoice in the present, be grateful for what we have and give them our heart.

Merry Christmas.

A Life Lived

*reposted with permission of the author, Dr. Bohdan Kordan

Obituary

A Life Lived

Fenna (Kapeluch) Kordan

Wife. Mother. Grandmother. Survivor. Born on April 6, 1918 in Vyslik Velykyj, Galicia, Austro-Hungarian Empire; died December 13, 2020, in Toronto, under COVD conditions.

Fenna Kapeluch was born in the Carpathian mountain village of Vyslik Velykyj during the 1918 flu pandemic, the end of the Great War, and the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The daughter of Chrystyna (Drozd) and father Andrij, she was one of eleven children. Compelled to work as an itinerant worker at a tender age because of poverty, she was left unschooled. However, she was not without a book or pen in life, having learned, unaided, to read and write through strength of will and purpose.

Fenna would marry before the onset of the Second World War. The German invasion of Poland introduced turmoil to her life. She would lose her husband to war, who was seized by Nazi authorities and sent to a concentration camp. She was transported as forced labour to Germany and, from there, taken to Austria. Alongside French prisoners of war, she was compelled to work as an agricultural worker on a farm near Klagenfurt, Austria, labouring for four years under harsh and trying conditions.

Fleeing at the end of the war from servitude, Fenna returned to her mountain home on the Polish-Soviet frontier. There she found chaos, the result of conflict between the anti-communist Ukrainian insurgency and government forces. The conflict led to untold suffering among the population, culminating in the forced resettlement of the local Ukrainian inhabitants by Soviet and Polish authorities who sought to defeat the rebels this way. In the cycle of violence that ensued, in her arms, Fenna’s mother would die of starvation. Fenna would flee and take refuge in the mountain forest wilderness, making her way eventually to Czechoslovakia and onto Western Germany. In 1948, she would migrate to Canada as a displaced person.

The memory of conflict was never far away, shaping her worldview, state of mind, and personality. Nevertheless, despite the cruelty of war, she sought normalcy. Fenna remarried (Andrij), made a home, raised children (Olga [and Henry]), Bohdan [and Bohdanna]) and cherished her grandchildren (Nicholas [and Hung Chiu], Olena [and Daniel], Christian). She took great comfort in family, speaking lovingly and with admiration of their achievements. She valued her garden, delighting in dahlias and going gaga over geraniums. The munificence of her vegetable harvest served to remind her of the bounty and richness of life.

Fenna took pride in the dignity of work: first, as a nursing assistant at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Toronto, but then, wanting freedom in work, chose to be a domestic. Cultural identity was also dear to her. She celebrated holy days and family gatherings with the dinner table groaning under mounds of Ukrainian food – borscht, holubtsi, varenyky, patychky. As a believer, she kept her faith close by, never losing sight that through God’s love we might find peace and salvation. Widowed for thirty-four years, she knew loneliness, but found strength in her perseverance and accomplishments. She maintained her garden until she was 98 years of age and lived alone in her home until 99. At 102 years of age, she survived an operation on her broken hip, but not the isolation of the pandemic – the second in her life.

In the end, Fenna was disciplined, uncompromising, and even fearless in her approach to life. Above all, she believed that no matter how simple her life, her life was deserving of respect. When she received restitution from the government of Austria for her mistreatment during the war, she gave the money away. What she simply wanted was for there to be a record and an acknowledgement of what happened; to have others know that she mattered – that, in fact, we all mattered.

We bow our heads before her in remembrance and with love and respect.

Sisters

Several pages in a photo album dedicated to my mother and her siblings is populated with photographs of my Tante Lina from her time as a missionary nun in the Congo.

Whereas my father would describe particular stories of my Uncle Kees related to his time in Uganda, I cannot recall anything similar about Tante Lina. I have been questioned about my interest in documenting my uncle’s life rather than my aunt’s even though both dedicated their lives to missionary work. The lack of information and subsequently minimal knowledge would be the biggest factor. In digitizing the photographs, however, I have developed a renewed interest and I am also reminded of the power of family dynamics.

Angeline van Rooij, born in Loon op Zand, the Netherlands, May 15, 1922, was the third child of an eventual eight in total and the first daughter of Nicolaas and Maria van Rooij. My mother would become her only sister as the sixth offspring, born in 1928. Two more sons ensued to complete the family. Tante Lina would follow the lead of her two older siblings into the Salvatorian religious order, as did the next to be born. All of the last four pursued secular careers. My aunt completed her final vows and became a nun on May 1, 1948. Why the van Rooij family chose to follow the Salvatorian order, with its roots in Italy and a base in Belgium, has never been explained to me. The Netherlands appeared to be an active recruiting ground for international missionary societies at the time and with the Belgium border a short distance from Kaatsheuval, where the van Rooij family settled, another country with the same language would not have been a barrier.

The vast number of pictures with Tante Lina appear to be in the late 1950’s. Tante Lina was among the original four nuns of the Belgian Salvatorian Sisters to be appointed to the very first mission in Kapanga of the Belgium Congo, September 7, 1958. My Mom and Dad will have already left for Canada, so Tante Lina would have sent the photos to them, many with a description on the back, in Dutch, in her own handwriting.

Perhaps my mother knew more and may have even attempted to convey additional information but I can only remember her saying Tante Lina worked at an orphanage in the Congo. The pictures appear to bear out that description as does the mission of the Salvatorian Sisters as listed on the website. I only just discovered the name of the place in the Congo, not realizing the massiveness of the country. The Democratic Republic of the Congo is the second largest country by land mass in Africa, double the size of South Africa, and eleventh in the world. With 90 million people it boasts the largest speaking French population on the planet, and it’s capital, Kinshasa, dwarfs Paris.

I first met Tante Lina when she visited Canada. Unlike other relatives, she had only a rudimentary understanding of English so communication was difficult. I imagine she would have been better in French but alas, my grasp of Canada’s other official language was lost years ago.

She measured only 4 foot 11, lean and always stood erect. Her size belied a strength born from a life of frugality and hard work in a difficult country. Possessed with a strong grip, she would greet you with a broad smile and a vigorous handshake that threatened to dislodge your arm from its shoulder socket. Tante Lina eschewed elaborate meals, relying on simple servings despite my parents efforts to introduce her to some of the luxuries of the western world. My mother spoke of her naivety to the everyday aspects of modern living we all took for granted.

Perhaps the most telling story of Tante Lina’s experience was a visit to the University of Western Ontario’s new hospital. My mother being a nurse, was curious about the new building on campus so they proceeded to drop into London’s newest hospital, like a tourist site. It already had a reputation for possessing the latest in new building design and surpassed the quality of the older Victoria and St. Josephs hospitals. My mom equated the entrance to the lobby of a fine hotel. Tante Lina cried when she witnessed the opulence, especially compared to her experience in the Congo.

Curiously the pictures of her time in Canada are scarce. My mother had organized the photo albums into themes. There is one album devoted to the times my parents visited the Netherlands; another combines all the pictures of family coming to our home. Tante Lina has disappeared from the visiting Canada book even though she has prominence in the van Rooij family album. I suspect the absence was intentional, a possible victim of family politics.

Sisters together in 1983 at the home of Uncle Herman on one of their trips to the Netherlands.

There is a rigid hierarchy within the church, including between priests and nuns; there has been traditional hierarchy within families, with males favoured over females, and those in a religious order ranking above all others particularly in a time period where children going into vocations raised the family’s status within the community. For the poor and the working class, the choice of religious life provided an opportunity to be university educated, escaping the determination of their position.

I have a sense my mother’s parents exhibited favourites and she was not among them, perhaps not living up to the accomplishments of an elder sibling of the same gender who made the family proud by becoming a nun. How those feelings played out in the dynamic between the two sisters is unclear. The differential treatment probably played a role in the decision of my parents to move to Canada, which I expect was initiated by my mother who wanted to exert her independence. The distance from immediate family came at a cost and may have further exasperated the differences among sisters. Although time and distance generally heal wounds, my mother was particularly stubborn and held onto grudges, never forgetting any transgressions, refusing to acknowledge mistakes. I have no knowledge of how Tante Lina’s actions will have played a role. People who join the clergy are human too, not always the saints we associate with the vocation. What Tante Lina contributed to the apparent tension or how the personality of youth influenced responses remains unspoken.

My intent here is not to conjure up ghosts; rather, my hope is to tell the story as a cautionary tale for you, for me, for all of us. The friction in their lives should serve as a reminder to understand the circumstances of others and to understand our own role in a relationship. It is a call for reflection, an honest look inward, an objective assessment of our own actions and inactions. I recognize in myself my mother’s tendency towards stubbornness and a penchant to be unforgiving of certain actions, summarily dismissive sometimes. I expect this trait will have had a negative impact in different areas of my life. I cannot alter what has happened; I can only affect how I respond and how I will learn to be a better person.

Tante Lina passed away in 2010. My Mom left this earth in 2005. Both were accomplished in their own worlds and I prefer to think they both found peace with each other in the end. I believe it is our family which will endure as we nourish our relationships with our parents, our extended family, our close friends, our brothers;

And our sisters.

All I’ve got is a photograph

One of my projects in retirement has been to digitize and organize our family collection of photographs.

The idea arose after my Dad’s passing last year. Everyone in the family had gathered their favourite pictures for the screen display at the the funeral home, played on a loop for all the visitors. At the same time, the albums with physical photographs were available at the tables for people to turn through the pages of my parent’s lives. There is only one copy and the question of distribution to the four boys would be simplified if everyone were to receive a digital copy and one person would retain the original version.

After purchasing a quality scanner and setting up a dual monitor display on my desk, I have begun with my Mom and Dad’s photograph albums, ten in total, which will give me the practice to turn my attention at another point in the future to tackle those from Olga’s and my life together.

My Mom’s birthday was this past October 7 which would have been her 92nd; she passed away in 2005. Today, November 27, would have been my Dad’s 88th birthday. The date felt like an appropriate time to begin a series of blogs about their life together, as told through the pictures they retained from before their marriage in 1958 until my father’s passing in 2019. The series will be entitled, Honeymoon Sweet, because they always maintained they immigrated to Canada for their honeymoon and never left.

My mother was the person who sorted the photo albums. She created individual collections for each of the four children, showing pictures from their birth to that of their own children. My Mom put together something similar for herself and my Dad, including pictures before their marriage and of each of their respective siblings. There is a separate album of the their early years in Canada which is of particular interest. To this point I have managed to scan the albums specific for each of my parents.

The album for my Mom has dates and markings, sometimes illegible, for quite a number of the pictures. On a few she had written what appear to be songs, liedjes, which would have been sung for the occasion captured in the photograph. The detail and organization reflects her training as a nurse. My Dad’s on the other hand is notoriously lacking in dates; those showing his time in New Guinea as part of the Dutch navy clearly were extracted from another album but without any description, as if he would always have been around to explain for anyone interested. I have chosen a select few from each, a taste of their content.

My Dad was stationed in New Guinea while serving in the Dutch Navy as part of the mandatory military service in the Netherlands.

One of my favourite pictures of my Dad as a child shows him sitting on the ground, at the feet of three other siblings (the eldest missing, the youngest not yet born), grubby from playing in the dirt or quite possibly coal. My Uncle Kees stands behind, dressed as if he just came home from school; Tante Toos is the child on her knees with that ever present smile; Tante Jo sits beside my Dad, not enthused by the picture taking. Given my Dad’s age, the picture is likely from 1933, perhaps at the back door of the family row house in Tilburg. Each child reflects a bit of their personalities from what I can recall. My Dad was a boy’s boy who seemed to relish the rambunctious moments.

The same four are pictured as adults, probably from 1956 based on my understanding of when Uncle Kees, the missionary priest, had returned to the Netherlands for a scheduled vacation from his station in Uganda. My Dad cleaned up well, but the laugh on his face exhibits a delight captured in this photograph after some unknown, off-camera mischievous lark.

Finding pictures of my Mom as a child has proven difficult. She possesses only a handful; worn, unclear and unflattering. The van Rooij family appears to have very little from that time period. In Uncle Nico’s biographical, self-published book, there is a picture of the family at it’s fullest when he was born in 1933 (two of the brothers died later, before reaching adulthood). My Mom is the young, smiling girl in the middle. The remainder of Uncle Nico’s book is equally bereft of photographs of my mother but does provide some more background of her upbringing in Kaatsheuvel. In my Mom’s photograph album, there are numerous pictures of her nursing training with fellow students and colleagues; none with her standing alone. The pictures clearly show her pride in this accomplishment.

My Mom receiving congratulations for completion and/or graduation for her nursing training in 1954.

The van Rooij family in 1954, including two sister-in-laws.

The shadow of family looms large for all of us, and in the case of the van Rooijs, their moniker as the Holy Family is evident from the 1954 family photo and my Mom’s photo album which features numerous pages devoted to Tante Lina, a missionary nun in the Congo and of Uncle Herman, a parish priest in Belgium. Despite my mother being physically taller, she appears shorter than Tante Lina in this photograph, a symbolic representation of her parents’ behaviour, a hurt which manifested itself in unforeseen future decisions.

Very few pictures of my parents as a couple before their wedding, dating or engaged, appear in any of the albums. I recall each of them telling the story of my grandmother, Oma on my Dad’s side, being in the hospitable where my Mom was a nurse. If memory is correct, Oma may even have encouraged the linkage. The earliest picture of them together is dated 1956, looking to be in the kitchen of the house in Tilburg. I know little else about their courtship.

Undated photo, probably from the annual fair in Tilburg.

One remarkable, untold story is depicted in this photograph of my Dad showing off his marksmanship at a booth at the annual fair (kermas?) in Tilburg. The photo probably accompanies the price for the opportunity to shoot at the targets and win a prize. I expect the printed copy was given to my mother for keepsake as it can be found in her album. The full details of the photograph are unknown and are now subject to conjecture and interpretation all these years later.

My parents lives and that of their immediate families are those of the ordinary people seldom discussed in the history books or eulogized in documentaries or glamorized in the movies. Yet story after story emerges from the photographs as I wade through the collection; some from my own memory of the event or from my recollection of my parent’s telling. I am reminded of the 1999 Giller award winning novel, A Good House, by Bonnie Burnard, described in the flaps as a novel about an “ordinary” family where “each character must live out his or her own destiny, not knowing what triumphs or tragedies lie ahead”. In one critics view at the time, “Burnard spins her engrossing debut novel, a traditional saga that unfolds with quiet grace and measure…the book traces the upheavals and affirmations of the very ordinary Chambers family…There are no saints, no Jobs, no Hamlets in Burnard’s tale, just flawed people making the best possible choices given the passions and options of the moment…”. https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-8050-6495-7

Now that my Mom and Dad have both passed, I will have to piece together what I can glean from the pictures, many with people I don’t recognize or in places I don’t know. My parents are no longer here to explain and I did not take enough time to ask when they were with us, when I had the chance. I expect my brothers will be able to fill in some of the gaps but many stories will remain buried.

For now, all I have is a photograph to piece together their life with the hope to capture it with accuracy and dignity.

The streets have no names

Verifying the third “fact” about Fr. Kees de Cock proved to be the most difficult challenge as I embarked on a hunt to discover the street bearing his name.

My first step was to conduct a Google map search of Kampala, the city where my Dad believes the street is located. I have employed Google maps on innumerable occasions to obtain a picture of a building for many of my destinations. If someone were to visit my home, for example, they would receive directions spoken over the phone and could retrieve a picture of our house to ensure arriving at the correct location. I recall with great fondness how my Dad, from the comfort of our home, was able to show his grandchildren the house where he lived in Tilburg, the Netherlands, and walk them down the street to explain the various buildings, the school he attended, the church where he was a member. As a tool it is mind boggling.

I had expected, naively perhaps, the default map view of Kampala within Google would reveal my Uncle’s street; zooming ever closer to see increasing detail, I found most of them unmarked. I systematically and methodically surveyed squares of all parts of the city, moving from the northwest corner down to the southwest, back up north, eventually to the southeast section. I could not find any street even remotely labelled in a manner to suggest it might bear Fr. Kees de Cock’s name sake.

There are roads and streets named after people: Wilson Road, Ben Mali Road, Prince Luswata Road and probably more but I am unfamiliar with the language and the history. My search also revealed large inconsistencies in what Google displays. Sections of Kampala show areas with an abundance of labels and where names are common: Oakland Lane, Mango Tree Lane, Valeria Road, Dream Home Road, Semukuutu Road, Murihira Land; and others are clearly numbered: B17, A31 C25. The roads around and within Makerere University all bear an appellation.

Street view of a section of Kampala where the streets are entitled Oakland Lane, Mango Tree Lane, Valeria Road, etc.

In numerous corners of the city, however, whole sections are untitled, showing only the curves and bends of neighbourhoods without a sense of place. The satellite view provides an overhead look at the roofs of houses and buildings, the trees and greenery, the paved and dirt roads. When you add the street view option, the limitations of Google maps to find very specific locales are revealed.

A street view of a random section of Kampala unmarked by Google or obvious signs

Any city of significance in the western world where all dead end streets, each court, and every lane way are displayed, you can locate the address of your choice; Kampala, the capital of Uganda, home to 3,280,000 people has been photographed selectively. You cannot get any more specific than major intersections; the maps are bereft of considerable detail.

Satellite and street view map from a random section of Kampala

The logic of Google maps in determining which landmarks to display can be mystifying. A search shows the location of religious buildings, schools, and municipal buildings, all which make sense for the interested. Paradoxically, Google also decided to mark “Kisa day one old chicks”, “Happy Boyz Bar” and “Ani alemesa pork joint”, examples of the obscure and curious to be found perusing maps of Kampala or those of other towns.

A search of Kamuli, thinking possibly my Dad mixed up the location, proved even more fruitless. Kamuli Road and Gabula Road, the two main thoroughfares in and out of the town (population between 15 and 54,000 depending on who is counting) are labelled; and curiously, a small artery, Temple Road, is also marked. Names of other streets do not appear to exist. Furthermore, not a single spot on the Kamuli town map and for miles around it have pictures in the street view look.

The lyrics for U2’s song, Where the Streets Have No Names, were intended to represent an ideal world where a person is recognized for themselves rather than be judged by the location of their home and street:

The lyrics were inspired by a story that Bono heard about Belfast, Northern Ireland, where a person’s religion and income were evident by the street on which they lived. He contrasted this with the anonymity he felt when visiting Ethiopia, saying: “the guy in the song recognizes this contrast and thinks about a world where there aren’t such divisions, a place where the streets have no name.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_the_Streets_Have_No_Name

Google has turned Bono’s intention on its head. Not having a name attached to your street reflects a lower rung of the hierarchy in a world of consumers and users; and is concomitantly, emblematic of your perceived global importance.

The absence of a street bearing the name, Fr. Kees de Cock Boulevard/Road/Avenue, in itself is not evidence of its non-existence. It may not be in an area to meet Google’s standards for inclusion; it may have been an adopted name rather than an official designation. My father may have mistaken the place and instead, the street is a humble lane in Kamuli where only the major roads are marked.

Rather than dismiss his assertion, I choose to believe the street exists without seeing it, holding faith in my Dad’s repeated recollections. He was correct in the other two “facts” and therefore, likely was accurate in this claim as well; the proof is just not as easily found. I expect the street is close to my Uncle’s parish in Kamuli, known only to its inhabitants because of the enduring influence of Dikoko and the pillars he helped build. It would be populated by the ordinary people he served. Not being identified by Google maps may indeed be a badge of honour.

And if the street has no name, then it reflects Fr. Kees de Cock, because he treated everyone equally.

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