Why we refer to our vehicles as "her"
Might be a strange thing to write about, but a vehicle is an integral part of your life, right? My very first car was a Vauxall Viva, a boxy little thing. I paid a whopping $100 for it and worked so lovingly on cleaning it from stem to stern. I barely had it a week when a drunk hit me on Queen Street in Brampton and totaled it.
The People in My Life
One of the biggest regrets of my life is that I lost touch with all of the people who made such a difference in my life. I think this is part of the reason that Facebook is so popular because it allows us to "friend" people and to stay in touch no matter where we go.
If I had it to do all over again I would get the names and addresses and email addresses for everyone I came into contact with. I regret that in a fit of cleaning up and reducing my luggage as much as I could when I returned from Panama I threw out a large file folder I had had for decades, called my "Idea File" in which I had not only umpteen business ideas but also a list of many friends from my married days. No idea why I threw it away.
My parents moved around a lot when I was a youngun and I don't have any memories until we lived on Hugo Street. I would have been about eight or nine and I went to Perth Avenue public school. I have no memory of anyone I went to school with, which only proves that we do, in fact, only use about three percent of our brains. I do remember my first childhood friend and that was Ralph Schomberg. He lived around the corner and we hung out all the time. His parents didn't speak a word of English which meant Ralph had to translate every word I said. I also had a crush on a girl who lived a few doors away, I think her name was Sharon. I vaguely remember she was a victim of polio and had a limp. The other person I remember from Hugo was the lovely Miss Penny, an elderly lady who babysat us. I guess she's long gone now, or she's a hundred and fifty.
When I was twelve we moved out to the country, to the middle of nowhere and I never forgave my parents. I went everywhere in Toronto, either on my bike or on transit. I would head off in the morning and not come back until dinner time. Those were the days when parents never worried about anything bad happening to their kids. Now I was in the middle of nowhere with no way to get anywhere. It was a tomb. All I had was my brother and sister to play with. I hated leaving the city.
I went to the proverbial three-room schoolhouse, with grades six, seven and eight in one room. Sad but I hardly remember anyone from that school. Roxanne, my first love; Wayne Wilson, the guy she ended up marrying; and a whole lot of kids I've long forgotten. Wonder where they all are now? I went to Streetsville Secondary for four years and met probably hundreds of friends, most of whom I don't remember. I wish I still had my yearbooks to jog my memory. I do remember the guys in my first band, the Tempests. David Kirk, Don Thurston, whose sister Pat I loved to death, and Chris Hayes. We're all in a picture I still have.
My first job was very transient, in that I moved through nine branches during my career with the TD Bank. Obviously I met and supervised lots of people during that period, but they are just distant memories. I do remember a couple of faces from the branch I worked at that was robbed. Funny how some things burn into your memory. I remember Mr. Murphy, my elderly manager, who was found hiding under his desk after the robbers left. There was also an Italian girl who was pregnant and who the guys from Head Office panicked over after the robbery I guess because they were worried she would lose the baby and the bank would be sued. Spent some time with Steve and Rosemary Vass.
There were many friends during my years in the band. Some were groupies, particularly when we were the house band at the Maple Leaf Ballroom in Toronto. All of us were married but the wives seldom came because they were so sick of the music, so we had four regular girls at the Maple Leaf ballroom who hung out with us between sets. We also met tons of people when we were the house band at the old Club Bluenote. Shawn Jackson. Eric Mercury. Grant Smith. George Oliver. David Clayton Thomas (never liked him) and many more. It's also where I met Pat, eventually the mother of my other son, Andrew.
About the only famous person I ever met was on the plane coming back from Montreal to Toronto. I sat beside David Lewis and had a most enjoyable conversation with him. There was just something about him. He was incredibly intelligent.
So sad that I have lost contact with every single member of my family. My Dad's family were all out West so I hardly had anything to do with them. About the only one I even knew at all was Dwight, my uncle Roy's son, but he was a piece of work and a little crazy. On my mother's side there was a lot more contact because we got together every Christmas Eve at my Uncle Frank and Aunt Daises place. Their kids were Bobby, Frank Jr and Donna. There was my Uncle Cliff and his daughter Joan (the one who took me in after Panama) and her daughter Cindy. I had cousins in Welland whose names I can't remember. There must have been a hundred family there over the years and I can hardly remember any of them.
My parents were always very social and we were always surrounded by family and friends, particularly after we moved out to the "farm". Every one of their friends came out from the city to party. My Dad had corn roasts and winter parties and pool parties. There was always tons of kids around every weekend and we played in the barns and around the house. Their best friends were Stan and Jean Rogers, whose kids were Steven, Daryl, Craig and I forgot. There was Chuck and Chicky Wimbs(?), who had three gorgeous daughters between them - Donna, Margaret and another one I was totally in love with, even though I can't remember her name. There was Gord and Betty Atwood and I don't think they had any kids. I think at one point, when my band was going to play for the group, I listed forty adults who were coming, plus a gaggle of kids.
Before I got married to Janice I had friends mainly because of the band. People like Tommy Connors loved to hang with the band. Janice had friends from school, of course and most of them became our married friends. Gary (the guy she eventually married after I left) and Brenda. Dale and Glen Ellis. Lynn and Brian Jamieson. Greg (our Realtor) and Laura Smith. Dave and Bobbi Rogers. Most of our marriage involved hockey with Chris and then soccer with both Chris and Heather. A lot of the kids on the hockey team were the same year after year, so we got to know the parents pretty well. Gerry and Billy, Kevin's parents. Rolly and Gina. Larry and Anne, his wife, Jay's parents. Matt. Again, so many I have forgotten. I also belonged to the racquetball club in Brampton and met many many friends there, mostly people I played with.
No question I have had many, many jobs over my lifetime and met hundreds of people, both coworkers and clients. Some stand out more than others. Doug Jamieson, who was my broker and my mentor at Kyle-Jamieson Real Estate. Gerry Waterhouse, my manager and eventual partner in Canada Lift. John Farncomb, the Sales Manager at Emco. Bryan Snider, my manager at Hilti. Earl Lince, Doug Bryant, Morris and Frank Cook, all from Emco. Marie Dearlove, Jon Leheup, Heather Castonguay, Doug, Dave and Frank from Indal Products. Ciro, my manager at Clearview Industries. Grant Diamond, my manager at FBC. Ross Dickie and Jim Condon, the owners of Northern Computer. Brent, my tech at Shaw Fiberlink. During my years consulting I had over fifty clients and wish I remembered every single one of them. For some unknown reason I can remember the names of the companies, but not the people.
The largest group of friends I've had in my life I made in the Okanagan. Just after I arrived I joined the Courtplex to play racquetball and squash. My first real friend was the bartender at the club, Laura McKinnon, who I remained friends with for most of my years in the Okanagan. Then I met Linda Lichtaneggar, who also remained a close friend over the years. She even phoned me on my birthday from Turkey. In a very short time I had a group of about forty friends who hung out together. Some of them got together over the years, like Larry and Darleen, Don and Kathy, Mike and Charmaine and others. Wade Silver was my best buddy. There was John Grant, Tom and Debbie (my dance instructors), Brian and Linda, Brian Wall and Doris, Sue and Susan, Norma (my dream girl), Karla (my pretend wife), Stephanie, Tracy, Jackie, Heather, Doris, Bianca, Ron and Suzanne, Val, Crystal, Ans, Trish and SO many dance partners at the Corral (I was a very lucky guy). I know I am forgetting tons of people I met over the years.
I don't have a lot of people I would consider friends from my time in Panama. The only one who has made any attempt to stay in touch is Jim, the guy I worked for on his sister's house. The girl who I thought was my best friend, Verushka, ended up ripping me off for everything I owned. There was Terry and Judith. Amilkar, who worked for me but also ripped me off for a drill that he never paid me for. There was Mitzy at Panama travel and her lovely sister. There were acquaintances I met at Amigos all the time and the owners, Mark and Jennifer (great people) and, of course, my darling girlfriend, Magaly, who I miss very much.
London has not been so kind. I knew Sieg Pedde from Panama. I met Denise on the internet, then her daughter, Emily. I've met a few people through staying in shelters and working at both a call centre and Home Depot, but no one has become what I would call a friend. London is a very cold town and I can't get out of here fast enough. It's a very lonely existence here. How I ended up here is a tragedy in itself and I have no good reason to still be here, but my current circumstances mean I have little choice. I have no money to go anywhere. If that lottery ticket comes in I'll be on my way out West in a heartbeat!
UPDATE:
Oh, how the years have gone by too quickly! I have not added the friends I have met in places like Ecuador and, most importantly, almost two years in Mexico.
Although my time in Ecuador was shortened by the government denying me my pensions, I did meet a lot of great friends there. The only one I'm still in touch with after all these years is Debra Rambo. We had some great adventures and dinners together. At the aptly named "The Bar", the popular handout for Expats, I met a ton of people, including my new love, Patricia. When we first met out having a smoke she asked me if she could put her number in my phone and, of course, I said YES! When I got home and looked for her number she had added herself as Esposa, meaning "wife". We had a whirlwind romance for only a couple of weeks but we crammed a lot in including a trip to Quito to get my temporary document so I could fly back to Canada because my "consultant" had refused to return my passport, in addition to ripping me off for three hundred and fifty US dollars for nothing. Patricia and I had the most romantic weekend at a local popular resort and we were so in love. She came with me to the airport when I left and it was heart breaking to leave each other. I had no idea if or how I was going to come back to her, but we both hoped I could figure it out. That all changed when I got back because after some interesting sexting she started asking for money to pay her bills. Any romance was gone.
An interesting part of living in Ecuador was that I took photos with everyone I knew, something I wish I had done everywhere I lived, and those are in the Gallery for Ecuador.
After being forced back from Ecuador I ended up in Belleville for the first time. My dear friend, Heather Paul, who had worked for me years ago at Indal, said her son had a house he was renovating and would let me stay there for free if I helped with the renovations. It sounded good, but turned into yet another disaster when the pellet stove failed and I froze my butt off for five days and had to leave. That started my very long stint in group homes after ending up at the Salvation Army balling my eyes out basically having a nervous breakdown.
Over the next months I got moved around to various group homes until I had finally "earned" the right to go to the best one on Forin Avenue. Again, living with four other guys who came and went so none I would call friends. At Forin I was paying three hundred and ninety-four dollars for just a room. When I got a notice that it was going up to four hundred and ninety-four dollars I started researching somewhere with a lower cost of living, and found Mexico. At Forin I did meet Bob Cottrell, the President of All-Together Housing, who owned the group homes, and who was beyond helpful later in my life.
A timely thing was that my original Canadian Tire credit card, which just getting was a surprise to me, had increased my credit limit from four hundred dollars to ten thousand dollars, so I could pay for the flights to Mexico. I packed all my "stuff" in storage bins that Bob agreed to store in the basement at Forin and off I went to Mexico. After my less than great experiences in Panama and Ecuador I was only going to Mexico for six months to check it out. A new friend, Francis, who I had met on the internet, had gone to check out the apartment I was looking to rent, and for the same money as my room, and he sent me photos and told me to go ahead and make the deposit. Francis also agreed to pick me up at the airport in Guadalajara.
When I finally arrived in Guadalajara of course there was no Francis. I learned after I met him that he thought my flight arrived at eight PM, not AM. I told a very friendly taxi driver to Ajijic. When we arrived I asked him if we wanted and coffee and he did so we stopped at a local coffee shop, one that I would come to frequent a lot over the next few months. The most important thing that happened that day was that any thoughts of just checking out Mexico went out the window and I immediately started trying to figure out how to stay forever. Clearly I had fallen in love with Ajijic.
After I had gotten settled in my new two bedroom apartment, which was awesome, I met Francis and his wife, Anastasia, and they took me on a whirlwind journey every night going to different restaurants to see incredible bands. I met so many musicians, among them Jonathan who would become a big part of my life, and many, many friends of Francis and Anastasia, all of them really fun people who shared my love of Ajijic. Not long after Jack Irish moved into the apartment below me and we became good friends. He took me everywhere including a great trip across the lake to a village that looked like it was in Sweden. Most unfortunately that friendship fell apart when Jack criticized my new relationship and got me involved in a really stupid scheme with bitcoin that ended up costing me thousands, all of it on my credit card.
There are those moments in your life that change everything. At one of my many nights at my favorite bar I met a gorgeous lady, Elba, sitting with my friends. She asked me to dance and we were incredible together. She was also younger than me so I never thought anything would come of it, but, boy, was I wrong! A few nights later my friend called and said Elba wanted me to come to a different restaurant close to me. I figured she just enjoyed dancing with me so off I went. After dinner and some dancing we went off to the grassy area to have a smoke. I felt something I hadn't felt in a very long time so I figured it might be time for a little kiss, but after what could only be called a peck she returned with the most delicious kiss I'd ever had in my life. Long story short she moved in. We got accidently engaged and my entire life plan changed to marrying her and living out my life in Mexico. I was never happier.
This whole affair has been covered in another post so I won't repeat it here, but she sent me a text message terminating our relationship. Nearly killed me when all I wanted to do was swim out in the lake too far to make it back. Thanks to friends, one of which, Don Row, she ended up marrying, I survived. I went from being the happiest man ever to feeling totally worthless. Not only was my heart shattered now I could not get my residency marrying her and would be forced to go back to Canada. When I needed to sell my stuff I did meet Annie who has been a friend ever since. We chat quite often on Messenger, although we only use the translations. We don't talk.
After a short and disastrous time in Chelem in the Yucatan I ended back in Belleville. My friend, Doral Crocker, picked me up where the bus dumped me, miles from downtown Belleville as I thought, and after a lot of turmoil I ended up back in a group home. This time I eventually qualified and moved to the apartment I am living in now.
Although life has been difficult feeling stuck in the last place on earth I ever figured I would live, it's now been five long years here. I have met a lot of people, of course, but until recently not anyone I would consider a close friend. Most of them have just been dance partners but never anything outside of dancing. Doral, of course, who was a close friend before. Three Darlenes, one of them the girlfriend of Jerry McCoy, a dance instructor. Marilyn. Keree. Sornia. Connie. Jassmin. Andrew. Mike Benson, President of our Legion. Nancee and all the people I play shuffleboard with. Also many of the ones in local bands, like Vicki, Donnie, David, Kenn, Ben, Peter and many others, but none of them close friends.
The only close friend I've met is Keith Sage who I met last February when he organized bowling for our singles group. He has been an amazing friend, helping me for hours with my horrible apartment floors; getting me set up with IPTV; assembling furniture for me, and giving me rides everywhere. I real "buddy".
Stay tuned.
Career/Jobs
Not sure exactly why, but I'm one of those people who've had a lot of different jobs in my life, from working in a factory to being in Real Estate. Some were great. Some were horrible. I've enjoyed being self-employed the most, no question. It's said that those who are self-employed have an idiot for a boss, and this may well be true, but, for me anyway, I prefer to control my own destiny and I've had far too many experiences working a "normal" job that have frustrated the hell out of me. So many companies seem to succeed in spite of themselves and I've just never understood why they don't want to do things better.
The Women in My Life
This is a tough one for me, only because I revere women and my memory isn't what it used to be, so I am terrified of leaving someone out. I doubt many of them will even remember me, so hopefully that means they won't be offended. The ones who were special to me know who they are.
My first love was Roxanne Rollings. We both attended Churchville Public School, now long gone. She lived right in Churchville and I lived several roads away, in the fifth line. Each line is normally about a mile apart, so I think where she lived was the third line, making it two miles between us, but that's as the crow flies and I had to ride my bike and that added about another mile or so, some of it down the dirt road to her house. She was a real sweetheart, but I don't think she ever really knew how I felt about her. She eventually married Wayne Wilson. I found her on Classmates recently, but she didn't respond.
Through High School I was in the band, originally The Tempests and this seemed to attract a lot of women. I don't remember anyone too special - just a lot of groupies. I was in the band for over ten years and these women were always around. No idea what the attraction was because we certainly were never "rock stars". I don't remember ever having a special relationship with anyone in high school. I remember Francis Carkner, who I also saw recently on Classmates. My first sexual experience was when I was thirteen, with Renatta, and I was pathetic. I had no clue what to do, but thankfully she did. Best two minutes ever!
During a period when the band, at this time called the Bow Street Runners, was the house band at the old Club Bluenote at Yonge and Gerrard I started going out with Pat, a gorgeous little blonde, who worked for Al, greeting people at the door and other things. I was barely sixteen at the time and she was twenty-one, which got a lot of ribbing from my band-mates and my parents weren't too thrilled either. I think, as uncomfortable as it was for them, they knew that if they forbid me to see her that would only make me more determined to continue just to spite them. We all rebel against our parents about something.
We did some fun stuff, although I have no idea how I ever find time to be with her. I was working at the TD bank full-time during the day and playing at the Bluenote Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights until four or five in the morning. We backed up acts that were appearing in Toronto and would come over after their shows to play our floor show. There were too many days when I drove home and couldn't remember getting there.
Pat was a very beautiful girl and, well, one thing led to another and we made love and it was amazing. Naturally, and stupidly, I assumed she was on the pill, but she wasn't. I don't remember every circumstance at the time, but I think we weren't still playing at the club. My Dad's advice at the time was pretty simple. First he asked me if I loved her and I said I didn't really think it was love. I was too young to know. He asked me if it was mine and I said I couldn't be absolutely sure. His advice at the time, right or wrong, was to cut-off all communication with her, which I did, albeit not comfortable with this decision. Months later my father told me a story that she had shown up at our house, threatening to kill herself and painted a picture of a crazy woman. He said he had "handled it" and to put it out of my mind. Not until recently did I learn the truth about what happened, and it saddened me, not only because what he said had happened was all lies, but because these lies were what my decisions were based on.
(Years later I had my family and my aunt at Ontario Place and we were leaving. I had gone on ahead to get the car, when I young boy came up to me and called me "Daddy". When I said he was mistaken he pointed back to his Mum and told me she said I was his Dad. With my family coming up behind me, admittedly I panicked, more because of my aunt than my wife, because she didn't know anything about this. My wife did. I couldn't get out of there fast enough. It was a very traumatic experience.)
Moving on, there were a couple of girlfriends, like Marilyn Adams, before I met my soon to be wife, Janice. Heather lived in Mimico and we got along really well. I'm not sure why we never went anywhere. I do know it was fun convincing my wife that when it came time to name my daughter, Heather, it had nothing to do with my former girlfriend. Honestly. The night I met my soon to be wife I was at a party with my then girlfriend, Bev Jackson. When Janice walked down the stairs I literally left Bev, walked over to Janice and the first thing I said to her was to ask
her to marry me. She told me later that her friend, Lynn, had warned her that I was a sucker for blondes. She told me to beat it, but I told her she was going to marry me, now or later, and she might as well get used to it now. I later discovered she had a boyfriend, Doug, who treated her like you know what. We had a confrontation and he spit in her face in front of her mother, which ended it for him. Janice got pregnant with my son, Chris, and we got married August 16th, 1969 in Streetsville. The reception at her parents' home was a riot, mixing her Scottish relatives with my English ones. They all got on great and hardly noticed we were there. I still remember Uncle Billy falling down the stairs carrying a case of beer, and all he worried about was if he broke any of the beers (he didn't).
Janice and I spent twenty-three long years together and I could write a book on just that one relationship, but save to say we drifted apart and never came back together as the people who married. She never really forgave me for getting her pregnant and we went years with no physical relationship at all and that killed me. I stuck around hoping it would someday get better, but it never did. In 1992, when I had moved out and was basically making appointments to see my kids, I realized just how much I wanted to be out West with my own family. I figured the kids would come out to vacation with me, plus they had encouraged me to go. So, in July 1993 I packed everything into the van and moved out West. No question. It became the best fifteen years of my life, excluding that the kids abandoned me for some unknown reason and I haven't spoken to them since. Janice remarried my best friend, Gary, who unfortunately passed away last year. I sent her a card but never heard from her either. Didn't expect to given how she has poisoned my kids against me. Still don't know why.
No one can really understand how hard it is for someone as romantic as me to have no love at home. Believe me, I tried, for years. We never slept together the night we got married or anytime on our honeymoon. It was not a good start. My first temptation was with her friend, Bobbi Rogers. She was babysitting for a friend and asked me to come over to talk about something. She was another gorgeous blonde, just like my wife, but she was VERY friendly. It was all I could do to resist the temptation and nothing happened. I wasn't as lucky the next time. During most of my career at various jobs I had the opportunity, especially traveling as much as I did, to get involved with other women. Sometimes it was as innocent as just dancing, but sometimes it was more. I don't want to count notches in my gun, but there were a couple of special ones. Brenda, who I met on a flight from Dartmouth to Montreal, and who I spent an amazing night with; Cheryl, who was my customs broker and we fell deeply in love and she was the only woman I ever really thought about leaving my wife for; Carolyn, who worked as a receptionist for a company I was with and with whom I had some very long lunches. I actually slept with her at her house when her husband could have come home any minute. Not one of the smarter things I've done in my life. There was also Marie, my very best friend girl ever and someone I would have left my wife for if she did not have a boyfriend. We worked together at Indal Products. Her and I and Heather were the three musketeers. We had such fun. We actually ended up in a motel room one night after a lot of wine and tried to make love, but they were my best friends and it just didn't work. Later Marie 
asked me over for dinner and seduced me, but the sex wasn't good because we were such great friends. I loved her in so many ways. After I had moved out and was working at Fellowes in Markham I started seeing Gale-Ann, the President's secretary. Although we had to sneak around at work, obviously, we ended up moving in with each other. She was the only real 10 I've had the good fortune to go out with. It all ended when I flew her out West to see Kelowna and she had no intention of moving. I put her on a plane back after only a week out of the planned three week vacation. It was a bitter break-up but I did see her years later when I drove down to Toronto.
Sad as this is, I really don't remember who my first "girlfriend" was out West. I had so many really great women
friends - Laura, Linda, Darleen, Norma, Sue, Karla, Bianca, and many others. I love spending time with them and just never got serious with any of them because it would spoil a great friendship. I met tons of women at my favorite bar, The OK Corral, but this usually didn't lead to a relationship outside of the Corral. Exceptions were Jackie, who I was with for three years until she screwed around on me, and Heather, who I had a brief relationship with. I spent a couple of years living with Karen Falloon, but that ended when she planned the rest
of my life for me.
I met the first true love I ever had, Tracy, when she was actually going out with a buddy. That ended and Tracy and I ended up moving in
together and spent the most wonderful time of my life. We were so very much in love. We joked that we could not go fifteen minutes without kissing when we were together. We had
"special moments" every day. We talked for hours. We told each other we loved each other all the time. I loved her so deeply and figured we would spend the rest of our lives together.
She was twenty-two years younger than me, but it was never an issue for us or for our friends. We were very good together. We always joked that I was young for my age and she was old for her age. Whatever we were doing, and we did a lot, she always had a hard time keeping up.
One thing we enjoyed was me pushing Mads and Bray in one of those wheeled carts with me roller-blading. They would squeal with delight when I said we were all going to crash. I would look back and there was Tracy huffing and puffing trying to keep up.
When we did the stairs at Lynn Canyon in North Van (I think there were four hundred or so) we joked about who would be helping who in twenty years. She started to question how things would be in twenty years though and this broke us apart. She asked me to move out and leaving her and the kids was the hardest thing I 
had ever done in my life. I left my own wife of twenty-three years without a single tear, but leaving Tracy destroyed me. I cried like a baby for weeks and really fell apart. I thought I would never love again.
Some years later I met Crystal at the Corral. She and I were pure magic on the dance floor and I tried as hard as I could to be more than a friend to her, but she was just never there. We slept together but nothing happened. We spent a lot of time together but it ended abruptly after a very bad "vacation" in Puerto Vallarta and she went out with someone else. The very biggest regret of my entire life is that her
parents helped me out financially and I could not pay them back. I keep hoping that I will somehow have the money before it is too late. I don't want to leave this earth until I have paid these great people back. I think of them every day and know how badly they think of me. I would love to win the lottery and give them a hundred thousand dollars for their kindness. They did not deserve to be hurt.
In Panama I had the most unusual relationship of my life. My girlfriend, Magaly, was twenty-five years younger than me, which was fine, but she didn't speak a word of English and my Spanish was poor. Somehow we had a great relationship, I think partly because we couldn't argue because neither of us would understand each other. If she got upset I just kept saying I'm sorry in Spanish until she was over it. We made love every night and went on a wonderful vacation in Costa Rica that I will never forget. I felt so incredibly bad for her when I had to return to Canada. She has done nothing wrong and I hurt her by leaving, but I had no choice.
Back in Toronto women were the last thing on my mind, but "life is what happens when you are making other plans". I met a girl on the internet and she eventually came to Toronto. For me it was love at first sight. I thought I would spend the rest of my life with her and I moved to London to be with her. We had a great love, but something was obviously missing for her. She went away one weekend to spend time with another guy and lied to me about it. My only two requirements in any relationship are trust and respect. I had lost both with her. They ended up breaking up but the damage was done. As much as I love her daughter like she was my own, her mom is simply too destructive for me to stay with as a friend. Even my doctor warned me that she was just using me and told me to end it with her long ago, but I cared and was stupid enough to think something might be there, but now I've learned that it's just never going to happen. I still care for her despite everything she's done to me, and I miss her terribly. I am in a strange town and know no one and have no friends. It is tough to live without the one friend I thought I had, but with her is worse than without her, horrible as that sounds.
Well, there you have it, at least as much as I can remember. I'm sure I've forgotten someone along the way. Before I dated Bev I remember going out with the most gorgeous, but shy, girl whose name I just can't remember. Oh, and at one point I went out a couple of times with Miss Brampton, whose name I also can't remember. There's a couple of one night stands, like Sally in Chicago, and a couple of late night flings with girls from the Corral, but no one else of any consequence, at least not that I can remember. Sorry if I missed you.
I hope there will be more to the story. It's been a very long dry spell and I'm very lonely. I can only hope that I find I way to get back out West and find someone to love again before I die.
My Life
My recent health scare has got me to thinking back on my life and asking myself if I have made a difference. I've made my share of mistakes, no question, and I never thought I would be where I find myself today. For the first time in my life I am aware of my frailties and accept that I am not indestructible anymore. At previous times in my life I have been very active and felt fantastic and the thought of dying never crossed my mind. Not anymore. Now I am pleasantly surprised when I wake up every day. My body is a wreck, full of aches and pains I never thought I would have. I feel so very old.
While I still have my mind, or most of it, I am going to take this opportunity to chronicle various aspects of my life, hopefully for the amusement of friends who have shared my life, and for my children, who have brought me the most joy and the most pain in my life. That I have two children and five grandchildren, none of whom will talk to me, is the biggest regret of my life. I have never understood what I did to deserve being cutoff completely, or why they cut my entire family out of their lives either. It will be a regret I take to the grave.
I do have a website where I hoped to make a difference - onelifetosave.org, but I can't afford to host it anymore so my thoughts will now be posted here, for what they are worth. I am going to deal with things like my various work experience, the women of my life, where I have lived my life, the friends I have known and, in general, try to document my life in a way that is a good read, at least for someone.
The Month From Hell
After being bounced through all three shelters in London through the month I have finally landed on my feet, sort of, although only the struggles have changed. It was a challenge to find anywhere to live in this town, especially with no money for rent.
By pure chance I had met a guy at the lunch at St. Pauls. He was telling me about his place and I ended up going over to see it. Again, by pure chance, the landlord's fix-it guy happened to be there installing a deadbolt. He mentioned that they had just bought the building and they had a couple of studio and bachelor apartments. He showed me one that had just been completely renovated. Although it was nice, my first reaction wasn't great because it had no windows. It did have three skylights so it was plenty bright in there, but the thought of living in a place where you couldn't open a window was unusual to say the least.
It's a long story, but between a new caseworker at Ontario Works and a most compassionate and understanding landlord I managed to move in just before the end of the month and left the Unity Project shelter at the end of August, ending a month that can best be described as one of the most difficult of my life. There were times I thought of giving up completely. It all seemed so hopeless. The worst moment was probably lying in the stifling heat in the filthy dorm at the Mission, wondering how things had ever got this bad? Eight guys ended up in the hospital that horrible night from heat exhaustion. It was deplorable!
My first night in the new place was spent sleeping on the hard floor because I have no bed or furniture of any kind. I had applied for a discretionary benefit through OW to get some basic furniture, but they lost it in the system and I've heard nothing yet. I did manage to find some very cheap items at one of the furniture stores that accepts vouchers from OW, but it will no doubt be gone by the time OW gets their act together. I bought a hunk of foam that I'm sleeping on so my back isn't broken. Also, a friend from when I worked the Bluesfest is moving out West at the end of this month and he is giving me stuff he can't take, so that will make things a little better, but it will be a tough month until he leaves.
The only way I managed to survive was to sell my $800 ring for $80; my $300 cue and case for $70 and my bike carrier for $30. Except for my bike, which I really enjoy, I have little left to sell. I'm down to my office chair, which is the only furniture I have and my computer, which I could not live without.
The job is going okay, although I am not getting enough hours to be able to pay my rent. OW will take what I make off my allowance, so I will not be any further ahead. My rent is steep and, of course, I am now feeding myself, although I continue to go to the churches for meals. Thank God for them or I would starve to death. When you line up with the hundreds of people who eat at the churches you have to wonder how these people would survive without the generosity of the church community. It says a lot about the state of our economy when so many people need these soup kitchens to survive.
It is a very lonely time for me. My friends out West have given up on me and I don't have any friends here in London. My biggest regret of my life is losing contact with my kids. Even with how bad my life is right now I'd still love to talk to my kids and see how they are doing. I have four grandchildren, only one of which I've ever seen and that was when she was just a baby. I search for them everyday but haven't had any luck finding them. My son, Chris, was in Brampton back in 2007 and my daughter, Heather, was in Burlington, but there's no sign of them on any website anywhere. I've tried everything.
For anyone who might still care this is just letting you know what's up with me.
Take care.
From the streets
The welfare system seems to be designed not to help you in your time of need, but rather to punish you for the mistakes you may have made.
My analogy is that I was quite a few rungs up that proverbial ladder, with a promising job and a place to live and food in my belly. Through various circumstances I slipped off and fell down a few rungs on the ladder, eventually falling off the ladder onto the ground, laying in my filthy bed at the Mission in oppressive heat and I knew I had hit rock bottom.
But I was wrong. OW called them last thing Friday night and told them I could not stay there either. It’s as though I’m on the ground, trying to get to my feet, and OW is there, cowering over me, punching me back down every time I try to get up.
If there is one lesson you learn from being homeless it is to never take what you have for granted. After being denied a bed at both the Centre of Hope and the Mission; sleeping on a friend’s office floor because I was too terrified to sleep in a park, I landed at the Unity Project. The wonderful, caring people there made a phone call and managed to speak to someone with compassion at OW, a rarity, and they agreed to let me stay, at least until the end of the month. Throughout all this horrible ordeal I was also going through a series of job interviews with a local retailer. It was incredibly hard to buck up and put on my game face with them through the interviews, but I managed to get the job, albeit temporary part-time for now. If OW wasn’t just going to deduct whatever I make it would help me to get back on my feet, but at least it’s something. I had no choice but to go out and buy safety shoes with my last dollar for my first shift on Sunday, but OW has me on suspension and hasn’t reimbursed me for them.
I have registered for emergency housing, but have heard nothing. Apparently, even if you are homeless, it can take up to a month at the minimum. Without a permanent address OW will not help you. How do you find a place in this very expensive town when you have no money for a deposit or to pay rent? The fact that you are working and doing your very best to get off the system doesn’t seem to register with anyone. It should be a requirement to work for OW that you surrender everything you have and spend a week on the streets, fending for yourself. If you make it through the ordeal, then and only then do you get the government job. At least you would understand what we are dealing with every day and maybe show some compassion.
And thank God, literally, for the fact that the churches in London feed the homeless and the hungry. Without them you would be stepping over the dead bodies of people who have starved to death. These soup kitchens are staffed by very caring people who understand our plight and do more than their fair share to keep us alive.
Then there’s the guy who sets up his barbeque every night downtown and cooks up hotdogs for anyone who lines up. No inquisition. No judgment. Just food for the soul. Thank you, kind sir!
How much can one man take?
When you fall down that ladder, one rung at a time, and finally slip off the bottom rung and fall on the ground, you believe, bad as it is, that you have finally hit rock bottom. There’s nowhere left to go, right?
My journey to the bottom has been full of challenges, some admittedly of my own doing, and others just plain bad luck. When I offered safe haven to the Panamanian family who were going to be out on the street for two weeks, how did I know it would end up taking me two weeks to get them out after calling the police, or that they would rip me off for everything I owned, leaving me virtually penniless in a foreign country? They never even paid me a cent of the eight hundred or so dollars I spent to feed their huge family. They left me with no choice but to return to Canada and, had it not been for the kind offer of a roof over my head from my cousin in Toronto, I have no idea what I could have done.
Life is what happens while you are making other plans, they say. By pure chance I met a woman on the internet who lived in London. We fell hopelessly in love, at least I thought so, and I ended up moving to London to be with her. Circumstances prevented us from living together, which I guess turned out to be the right thing. A few months into what I felt was the best relationship I had ever had in my life, and she spent the weekend with another man, who has now moved in with her, and I’m toast.
Thankfully a colleague had got me a job working for a call centre and this kept me alive for a few months at least. There were plans for another show in Calgary and, for a time, I was on my way to Calgary, which suited me just fine, as it got me out of here, but it all fell through and I was out of work. I spent all day, every day, doing my best to find a job, any job. Tim Horton’s, factory work, any kind of sales job, you name it. I was lucky enough to be selected from over three hundred candidates to get the job as Regional Manager for a wireless security company. They told me they had all kinds of “hot leads” for London and all I had to do was follow them up and close them. It was straight commission, but I was confident in the product and my abilities to close and I seized the opportunity like a pit-bull. Despite my efforts, The truth was they had no leads, no clients who had systems and no prospects of any kind.
I soon discovered that the market in London is like no other. Business here has no morals of any kind and no respect for your time and effort. Among many, many prospects was a recycling company who had four locations around London. I spent two full days visiting each location, taking pictures, drafting drawings, meeting with each location manager and preparing the detailed quote. I presented the quote and answered all of their questions. The final statement from the VP was they didn’t know if they would start with two locations, or go for all four. Needless to say, as someone who had spent his whole life in sales, I know a closing statement when I hear one. Keep in mind that this represented about a seven thousand dollar commission, which would change my whole life.
I gave it a few days for them to discuss it and then started following up with emails and phone calls. Nothing. No response. Days went by, then weeks and I could not figure out what I had done wrong, for the life of me. Finally I had our Head Office call and they told them the decision would be delayed for a month or two. Why they couldn’t tell me I will never know.
It was the same story with other prospects. I cold called. I emailed. I phoned. Our Marketing Department sent out a five hundred piece mailer to targeted accounts, a piece that had gotten a good response in other areas and closed some deals. London? Not one response. Our telemarketing department, in two months of calling, got one appointment, which turned out to be a total waste of time. After driving way out of town and spending an hour with the guy, he said he was “just curious” and had no need for a system right now. It was all becoming more and more hopeless.
At the same time I knew I was just about out of money. I hadn’t paid the rent, so I volunteered to do a bunch of work my landlady needed done. I was hoping to work off the rent I owed and, although I freely admit I should have got a firm agreement in place before starting all the work, I assumed she would offer, given that I did about fifty hours of work, completely reorganizing her disaster of a garage, repairing the railings around her above ground pool, building a bookcase unit and some small stuff. When the work was done she didn’t offer me a dollar, in fact, I had spent some money on supplies and she calculated the rent right to the dollar.
Over the next couple of weeks she made my life a living hell. I was afraid to even run into her because she took every opportunity to yell at me and treat me like you know what. She shut the air-conditioning off on me, at a time when we have been suffering through a horrible heat wave. My place was the loft of the house, poorly insulated and not vented properly, so it was about forty degrees up there. I couldn’t work or sleep, which took its toll on me, this on top of not having my diabetic medications for six weeks. She impounded my bike and carrier, so I lost my only form of recreation and she became more threatening about what she would do if I didn't come up with the rent for August as well. I was a mess.
When she told me she was going out of town for a couple of days I realized it was an opportunity to escape. I had nowhere to go, but I just prayed I would find somewhere. I knew I would crack if I didn’t get out of there fast. I took most of my stuff to my friend’s business and started running all over town looking for something. With all the students for Fanshawe college and the University, this is a crazy place to find anything decent. If I were a young female student, no problem, but there is nothing for an older man. The places I looked at were disgusting and too expensive anyway.
With nowhere to go I ended up at the Salvation Army Centre of Hope. Having never been in a place like this before, I had no idea what to expect. After a lengthy check-in process, they showed me to my dorm room, shared with three other guys. Everything is pretty sparse, like one shower for about fifty guys on the floor and the blanket they give you is paper thin and the bed is like sleeping on cardboard, but it’s a roof over your head. Also, thankfully, cool, in fact, sometimes downright cold. There’s a TV room, but you can only watch what the first person in the room watches. No fun for a channel flicker like me.
Doesn’t sound too bad, right? Well, when they checked me in they asked me if I was on Ontario Works, which I was. They asked for my Health card, which they told me covered two nights. I had no idea what happened after that, but my brain couldn’t handle anything more right then, so I figured someone would tell me later. They kick you out of the place during the day, which is challenging enough now. No idea what you do in the winter. When I came back to my dorm there was a note on my bed to speak to the office “immediately”. They informed me that I had to pay $15 a night and I could pay in the morning. The first thing you have to do each morning is sign the bed sheet indicating you will be there for another night. If you don’t they give up your bed, cut your lock off if you have one and donate your “stuff” to charity. Nice. In the morning my name was not on the list and panic set in.
I went down and paid, then brought the receipt back to the floor office. When I handed the receipt to him he immediately told me I could not stay. I carefully explained what I had been told and, after writing a novel on their computer, he told me he would “do me a favor” and let me stay until Tuesday, but then I had to be out. We left it that I would speak to my Ontario Works case worker on Tuesday and take it from there. I have no idea what else to do. I looked at another place, but now I don’t have enough money to pay the rent he wants anyway. It’s all more than one man can take. I have never been so low in all my life or felt so helpless.
They kicked me out of the shelter today. Can’t win.
The Walls are Closing in on Me
No idea why I keep blogging about all this. No one cares. That's obvious. I guess it some perverse idea that I don't want to just keel over from not having my meds and no one knows why. If it happens, I am reminded of that wise old saying about how much you'll be missed. It reads "put your hand in a bucket of water and then remove it and see how much you have affected it." Yes, a brief ripple and then no one knows you were ever there. Fitting.
My world is crashing in on me. I had applied for welfare to at least get me my meds before it's too late, but they are jerking me around. I had hoped that I would hear something today because they knew how critical it was, but, when I finally managed to contact my worker, she said she had sent me a letter! A letter? How urgent is that? Typical government worker. Not a clue about the real world.
Tonight is my last meal, literally, as that is all the food I have left. I can't go to the food bank because I don't have my authorization from welfare. The food bank only gives you a pathetic three days of lousy food anyway, so I have no idea how you are expected to live on that. My landlady, for whom I did about forty hours of tough work on her house for with little thanks and certainly no break on the rent, now wants me to go and stay at the mens Mission. I've missed two payments on my car, so I guess it might be a good idea to sleep in it somewhere else so they can't grab it from me, knowing my address.
Thanks to the disasters of the last few years I have nothing much left to sell. I've put my blades and my pool cue on Kijiji. I've been holding off putting my bike on because I might need it, but now my landlady might scoop it for rent. Other than clothes nobody wants, all I have is my computer and printer and they're not worth a whole lot. I see selling them as completely giving up, which I'm close to today. I have about fifteen dollars to my name and, without welfare, I won't survive. No meds is suicidal enough. Not eating on top of that for a diabetic is completely insane. At this point I would welcome the end of all this stress though.
There is so much I wanted to accomplish still. I hoped to one day be reunited with my kids, who I miss desperately each and every day. If they somehow find out that I am gone I wonder if it will mean anything to them after all these years? I was so hopeful when my son and I reconnected in 2007, but he just as quickly disappeared and I haven't spoken to him since. I can't even find Danielle, his daughter, who chatted with me often, but who has now also disappeared.
I have been compiling a list of the joyous moments of my life. Not sure why. I guess maybe to believe that my life has not been a waste. No matter what the memory or who was part of it, I found that all it did was make me angry that those people are not in my life, or helping me now when I helped them so much in the past. Even thinking about the kids gets me upset because I know I did nothing wrong. My kids knew I was stuck in a horrible marriage and they were the ones who encouraged me to move out West to start over. There was never any talk of them then abandoning me or my entire side of the family. I tried for years to connect with them, even driving down from BC to Ontario in the depths of the winter to see my daughter, who they hid away from me. It was all so cruel. Why do people do that to others? I figured that when my kids were adults they would come to their senses and contact us again, but that never happened. Both my father and mother passed away without ever hearing from their grand-kids again. Unbelievably sad and so undeserved.
No idea what will happen if I don't get my drug card tomorrow. I guess without food it will all be academic anyway.
Diary of a Diabetic
Had to happen. After a sleepless night Thursday because my feet were cramping up so bad, I knew I had to see my doctor. He phoned the pharmacy to order emergency meds for me, then gave me money out of his own pocket to pay for them. He's such a great guy! When he tested my sugar, which came back at a whopping 24.5, he said I needed to go straight to emergency, which I did. Took hours, but they watched me while my sugars came down slowly and they gave me enough Metphormin to make it through the weekend. Going without my meds has been stupid, but I've had no choice. God, how I wish I could find a job, any job!