Subject: Visit to grandma's house at 46 Norman St…could be the last time to visit her there

Grandma is seriously considering going into Anne Hathaway retirement residence to live permanently… would be by May 1...she had a wonderful experience there for the month of Feb…you might want to check your calendars and make time to visit her one last time in the house…it would be nice for her to share her memories and show you around…bring the kids along...

Several weeks ago, my mother sent this email to me and my siblings. In many ways, it was the type of point-form-separated-by-ellipses-stream-of-consciousness-and-haven’t-you-said-nearly-everything-in-your-subject-line-anyway? email that we were accustomed to receiving from my mother. The exception here though was that it was too easy to read between the lines. Without saying it, at least not clearly, my mother meant that our 92-year-old grandmother had decided to move out of the house she lived in for 53 years. And more than that, my mother wanted us to know that it was important - to my grandmother, to my mom, and for us - that we have one last visit with Grandma at her house before she moved.  

The weekend before my grandmother was scheduled to move, I took my kids to Stratford to see her. We stopped first at my parents’ place for lunch; a lovely chili, served on plate bowls. The chili was made by my sister, my mother told us, though it was unclear if she prepared it specifically for our visit, or even if she was aware we were now eating it. My kids can be picky eaters when presented with anything even slightly different from their usual food, but they devoured the chili and said nothing about the introduction of plate bowls into their lives, not even when the chili ran into the salad that accompanied our meal.

When we finished eating, my mother said, “Your grandmother might ask you if you’d like to take something from her house.” The comment seemed aimed at me, but she looked as much to my daughter as she said it.

My daughter looked at me, hoping I would jump in and tell her what she should take from Great Grandma’s house. I was of no help.  

   

“Maybe you’d like a teacup?” my mother said, now clearly speaking to my daughter.

My daughter’s mind raced. “Maybe?” was all that came out.  The matter settled we drove the short distance to my grandmother’s house.

As I drove, I became completely lost in thought. The car seemed to know when and where to turn without any input from me, leaving me to ponder my final visit to see Grandma at her house. The kids sang along to the radio and looked out their windows, lacking any signs that, for them, this visit was also bittersweet.

We reached her house, walked up the grey, painted, wooden porch steps, and pushed open the kitchen door. We never knocked at Grandma’s and the door was never locked.

“Hello!” we called. My grandmother was sitting at her kitchen table, facing the door, reading a hard cover book. Pushing herself away from the table, she reached for her walker and met us a few steps from her chair.  

“Hello Lauren, hello Alex, hello Rick,” she said.

“Hi Grandma”, “Hi Great Grandma,” we answered.

The kids hugged her, Alex seeming afraid of squeezing too hard. I put my arms around her and kissed her on the cheek.

“Great to see you, Grandma,” I said. “Were you reading a book?” I didn’t know why I’d asked the question, but she smiled and confirmed the obvious.

In some of my earliest memories of Grandma’s house, I’m younger than my kids are now, and I’m in this kitchen. Every Christmas, Grandma and Grandpa hosted the big family dinner. The adults ate in the dining room, while my siblings, my cousins, and I sat around this kitchen table – the kids’ table – mesmerized by what we heard from the other room.

There was an energy created by the adults - their voices, their jokes, their laughs, the buzz of food being served, cutlery clanking on plates. It filled the room, and drifted into ours, reminding us throughout dinner that theirs was the better party. When we were old enough, we left the kitchen, everyone crowding around the dining room table, sharing in the jokes and the buzz, adding to the energy. 

It was here, too, in this kitchen, that one our family’s finest traditions took place – Monday lunches at Grandma’s. The tradition began when my oldest cousin started high school, a few years before me, and he was invited to have lunch at Grandma’s every Monday. As each of the six grandchildren, who lived in Stratford, went to high school (at different times, we all went to the same school, two blocks down the hill from Grandma’s house) we were all invited to have our Monday lunches at Grandma’s.

My grandparents called their noontime meal dinner and dinners were grand affairs. Grandma served us a roast, or a turkey, with potatoes, and gravy, and a vegetable of some sort, sometimes two. There was usually a small plate of sweet pickles on the table, and sometimes a plate of beets. The beets, my grandfather told us, came from our Aunt Ruth’s garden. Aunt Ruth is Grandma’s sister, making her, technically, our great aunt, but if she was going to provide beets, she could go by any name she wished. For reasons I never understood, Grandpa referred to Aunt Ruth’s offering as “beet pickles” and the kids insisted that “pickled beets” made more sense. It was one of the few debates my grandfather allowed us to win, realizing perhaps that life was too short to worry about the proper naming of beets, or pickles.

We had white bread with butter, the white bread tasting so much better than the brown or whole wheat bread we had at home. Sometimes we’d put the leftover gravy on an extra slice of bread and enjoy an open faced, white bread, gravy sandwich.  Grandma always had a dessert for us, usually Jell-o or some sort of pie. When we were finished eating we enjoyed a hot cup of tea.

During lunch, my grandfather asked us about school, sports, and any other activities of ours that he was aware of.  He was keenly interested in all that we did and liked to give us advice. His lessons usually focused on: the value of hard work, the importance of family and good friends, and standing up for ourselves.  His thoughts on conflict resolution always went too far and following his suggestions literally seemed guaranteed to result in school suspensions, or possibly worse. So, we nodded and smiled, but silently disregarded what he suggested we do in these cases.   

Grandpa turned on the old radio that sat at the end of the table so we could listen to the news.  He commented on every story, sometimes before the announcer finished, easily angered by anything he felt was “what’s wrong with the world today.” On rare occasions, he would fly into a rage over something he heard and it seemed he might throw the radio through the window. He never did, of course, but Grandma had to calm him down, saying, “Oh, Bill,” laughing at his temper. I don’t think anything ever calmed my Grandpa down faster than my Grandma and these two words.

We knew to be quiet when the obituaries were read, my grandparents listening carefully for names they recognized. The radio announcers mispronounced names with great regularity and we had to look down at our plates to keep from laughing, which would have upset Grandpa. Some attempts by the announcers were so hopeless that laughing was simply unavoidable. Even Grandpa laughed at those, shaking his head, and muttering something about “the poor bugger,” possibly referring equally to the announcer and the deceased.

We sipped our tea, and Grandma poured us a second cup. Paul Harvey told us The Rest of the Story like a Sunday sermon.  Grandpa smiled and let the surprise sink in, relishing the twist.  Sometimes, he’d snap out of his silence and say, “How ‘bout that?” We knew he really enjoyed those ones.  

Grandma slipped in and out of the kitchen throughout the lunch hour - and it was a full hour - bringing food to the table, clearing plates, serving dessert, and boiling the water for our tea. No one ever helped Grandma with these meals, it likely never occurred to any of us to do so.

When she wasn’t serving us, Grandma took her place at the table, nearest the kitchen, opposite Grandpa. She asked each of us how we were doing and told us that what we were doing was wonderful, no matter the update.

Grandma made sure our plates were always filled with food. Though we spent our mornings sitting at desks, Grandma fed us like we had been doing hard labour in the fields since sunup.  By the end of lunch, our pants were tight and the tea gave us a gentle sweat. We pushed back our chairs and wondered how we might make it those two short blocks to school, even with the benefit of a downhill walk. Our classmates waited for us to return, anxious to ask what “Grandma” had made us for lunch. The answers, though similar week-to-week, brought astonishment just the same.

The memories swam in my head. I was once again standing in this kitchen, now hearing my grandmother say “We can go into the living room?”  

We followed her past the refrigerator, on which was featured several years of our wallet-sized school photographs. They looked back at us with fake smiles, from behind fridge magnets made to look like picture frames.  We walked past the oven, past the wooden cupboards that held the teacups and the impossibly small drinking glasses, in which we drank our apple or tomato juice each Christmas. We walked single file like a slow moving parade.

We stopped at the dining room table, bare except for some white envelopes - birthday cards for her grandchildren and great grandchildren – and a jigsaw puzzle, one-quarter complete. I never got used to the sight of empty chairs in this room, to the sound of silence. I remembered the energy created in this room that reached me all the way in the kitchen. It was strange to feel no sign of it during the daytime.

“We can go into the living room, she repeated. “I don’t have much to offer you…I could make some tea?” We didn’t need anything, but I wondered if, for Grandma, not being able to serve us a big meal, or even have any food prepared for our visit, might be the toughest part about aging.

We heard the kitchen door open and my parents walk in. “Hello?” my father said. It was part greeting, part, Anybody home?

Grandma eased herself into her chair, pushing away her walker. I took the seat closest to her so she could hear me. We talked about her shows, Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy. She asked me about my job, and how Lauren and Alex were making out with all of their activities. The kids grew bored and snuck back to the kitchen to raid Grandma’s peppermint jar.

This room had changed so little in my lifetime. There were chairs in all four corners, and a couch in front of the big window. A small wooden table that my grandfather won at a dance, many years ago, sat in front of the couch.  On the end wall was a fireplace. Above it, on the mantle, were 40-year-old pictures of my cousins and a wooden carving, done by my aunt’s brother and given as a gift to my grandfather, of an antique car driving down the road. Grandpa loved old cars and he loved this wood carving.

The chair in the corner, closest to the fireplace, had been Grandpa’s.  On the table next to his chair he kept stacks of crossword puzzle books, a bag of peanuts and a magnifying glass he used to read fine print. From his chair he could look out the window and see cars going up and down the hills, on both Norman and St. Vincent Streets. He could watch his grandchildren walk up the hill each Monday.  Grandma told us how much he used to enjoy doing that. He last looked out that window in 1999, his one regret, he told me, was that he wouldn’t get to see the start of another century. I haven’t been in this room since without looking at the empty chair in the corner and missing him terribly.

Years ago, the TV set was replaced after everyone noticed that the colour was off. Way off. Everyone, that is, except Grandma and Grandpa, who somehow hadn’t noticed that hockey rinks had turned blue, baseball players had turned green, and Lawrence Welk looked like he was part Martian. I have to believe that the change had been subtle.

There were framed family pictures on the wall, taken at my grandparents’ 50^th wedding celebration. One in particular, that includes 17-year-old me, is hilarious to my children, who point at me and laugh uproariously each time they see it. According to my mother, at least one of my nieces has an identical reaction to my picture. All of these children will be surprised when their laughter is repaid in some fashion, perhaps years down the road, at their weddings.

My grandmother turned to Lauren and asked her if she’d like something from her house. We had been waiting for this question, but Lauren still didn’t know what to say. “I’ll be back in a minute,” Grandma said, and she walked into her bedroom. She returned with a small, heart-shaped, glass box, with pink trim and flowers painted on the top. She lifted the lid to reveal half a dozen brooches inside. “Here you go, dear,” she said.  

Before my grandmother could sit back down, my mother said, “Lauren, are you going to get a teacup?” loud enough for my grandmother to hear and quite likely her neighbours, too. 

A teacup was arranged and my grandmother asked Alex what he would like. He said he might like one of Grandma’s stuffed bears and quickly it was given. It felt a bit like the end of a garage sale and Grandma was happy to give away anything left on the table -anything that hadn’t sold.

My mother asked me if I wanted to take something from Grandma’s house. Again, she was yelling. My grandmother looked on, ready to give me the shingles off the roof if that was what I wanted, but I didn’t need anything, certainly not a teacup, or a teddy bear. 

What I needed was a chance to sit in Grandma’s kitchen and her living room one last time, to talk to her about the same old things. I needed to know that my grandmother would be okay with her upcoming move. I needed a final glance at the empty corner. I needed my kids to raid the peppermint jar and hope that, when they’re my age, they might remember this day, this house.

I needed an hour or so to let a lifetime of memories completely soak in. I needed my grandmother to know that we all loved her and that everything she had ever done for us, in this house, and elsewhere, meant everything to us. No, there wasn’t anything else that I needed, Grandma. You’ve given me more than enough. 

Today, like millions of people around the world, I was devastated by the news that 28 people, including 20 small children, were killed in Newtown, Connecticut when a gunman opened fire at a school.

Early reports are that the children killed were between five and 10 years old. As a parent, this is the kind of thing my mind just can’t comprehend. I’m shaken, confused and heartbroken. It’s undoubtedly pointless to try to make sense of this, but I’ve done just that, asking questions that can’t be answered, getting nowhere except to feel an even deeper sadness for the families of those affected.

The youngest of these victims, the five-year-olds, those who died and those who survived - still victims in my eyes – were or are just beginning their childhoods, their memories of meaningful experiences or events just starting to dance in their heads.  

I was five years old a very long time ago, but I still have vivid memories of what I had experienced, what my life was like at that time. Perhaps to help me put this in some perspective, to try to understand who we lost today and who will forever be affected, I thought back to who I was at that age.  

I woke up each morning before anyone else and crept down the stairs to the TV room, stopping at the door, terrified to reach inside the darkened room to turn on the lights, certain that one day someone or something would grab me. I’d have only a test pattern to watch on the black and white set, until eventually the national anthem would play, followed by a show like The Hilarious House of Frightenstein.

I’d walk to school alone, covering a distance that seemed normal then, but is laughable today and would surely have me taking a bus. I dawdled every step of the way, turning each trip into an hour long adventure, making me forever late and exasperating my parents.

I once accidentally painted a girl’s hair green.

Our teacher, Mrs. Schneider, taught us odd and even numbers by having Stephen and Moninder stand at the front of the class and count to ten, Stephen saying his numbers in a normal voice, Moninder whispering hers, Moninder seeming unsure of the exercise and her role the entire time.

We read Mr. Muggs.

I wore a shirt with Charlie Brown patterns on it for my school picture day, my unbrushed hair standing straight up on end.

There was a girl who waited for me after school every day, so she could walk across the road, never speaking to me, seeming just to watch me, years before I knew that this odd behaviour was called “stalking.”

At night, we played at Redford Park, unsupervised, and rode our bicycles with Charlie’s Angels trading cards stuck in the spokes so we sounded like motorcycles.

We walked to the Cambria Quick Stop, about halfway to the school, to spend our parents’ money on Lucky Elephant Pink Candy Popcorn and other treats.

I watched The Six Million Dollar Man on TV once a week, thinking the episodes that featured Bigfoot – a most ridiculous plot twist and quite obviously a man in an ape costume - pure television magic.

I had sleepovers at my friend Tommy’s house, one evening getting to run to his house after an episode of The Six Million Dollar Man, in a snowstorm, a freedom I’d never felt before.

On hot sunny days, when my grandfather would come to visit, I’d sit on the back of his pickup truck and stare at the rocks that lined my driveway, once falling and cracking open my forehead and blacking out.

Sometimes we’d get together on someone’s lawn and throw our Tonka Trucks as high into the air as we could, then watch them as they crashed to the ground. A Tonka Truck mishap resulted in another busted scalp, blackout, and a trip to the hospital.

At Christmas, my dad shook his gift and joked that it might be a hockey stick, an umbrella, maybe a car, before I yelled, “It’s a tie!” which made everyone laugh, though I didn’t understand the reason for the laughter.

I was terrified of the snow plow that cleared the sidewalk, seeming to sneak up on me each time from around the corner, filling me with adrenaline and sending me scurrying to the nearest driveway to safety.

I have no idea how similar or different these memories were or are from the Newtown kids, but this is what I know of 5-years-old, what I remember. This is who we lost.

I’ve done so much living since this time that it’s impossible for me to fathom, again as a parent, the knowledge that your child may only have had these experiences, these memories. So too is it impossible to think of the life of the child who now must also carry the burden of this terrible day, knowing tragedy that no 5-year-old should ever know.

I sincerely hope that after today, countries everywhere, including my own, will look more closely at gun control and do whatever needs to be done to make these tragedies less likely. We also need to ask if we’re doing all we can do to help people with mental illnesses.

If this doesn’t get people to act, I’m not sure what will. 

I don’t think I’ve ever been comfortable in line at Starbucks. Well, I suppose I was comfortable enough the first time, roughly twelve years ago, but that’s exactly when a lot of these problems began.

I was attending a business conference in Orlando, Florida and – my memory is a bit cloudy on the details – I was between meetings, likely the company financial update and the meeting where we were told we had just been named the single greatest concern in the history of business. There may have been a plaque, but as I said, my memory is not perfect on this point.

“I could really go for a coffee,” I said to one of my colleagues.

“Look! There’s a Starbucks right over there!” they said.

I had heard of Starbucks, but before it magically appeared that day in the hotel, I had never been a customer. Excitedly, I approached the counter. My excitement quickly disappeared though when I glanced at the menu and became confused beyond description. What I wanted was a coffee, “a normal, regular coffee,” I may have added, but nowhere did I see anything that matched this description. Not even close.

Behind the counter was what appeared to be a woman, but I later learned this was not a woman at all, but a barista. It is almost impossible to tell the difference, but these distinctions are part of the Starbucks charm and must be recognized.  Like all good baristas, she could sense that I was confused by the menu and offered to help me make my choice. I was thrilled that she spoke English, but remember I was new to the whole barista thing.  I told her that I really wanted a normal, regular coffee, and she impressed me by asking four or five qualifying questions that no one at my local coffee shop had ever taken the time to ask. I made a mental note to scold them when I returned home for their total disregard of my true coffee needs, relative to the Starbucks experience unfolding before me.

Having established exactly the type of normal, regular coffee that suited me perfectly, we moved onto the matter of size. Again, I was unable to quickly grasp the unique names of the different cups and resorted to demonstrating the size I wanted by holding my hands apart as a fisherman might do when describing the size of a largemouth bass, realizing only too late that pointing to the cups was a superior option.   Undaunted, I waited for my perfect coffee, served in the perfect cup, prepared by a barista -- which is practically like having an angel serve you. Really, it’s nearly the same thing.  

Little did I know, I was about to be surprised -- very surprised. The barista returned with my order, but it didn’t look at all like I was expecting. Instead, she presented what appeared to be a hot chocolate with cinnamon sprinkles, whipped cream, chocolate flakes and quite possibly a breadstick. There is no doubt that I should have realized something was going horribly wrong when my drink took seven minutes to create and required a blender, but I had been under an angel trance and missed all of it.

That was a long time ago and I’ve learned enough to never repeat the disaster of Orlando, but it’s hardly stress free to stand in line today. I’ve learned that normal, regular coffee is a Pike Place Roast, but as I stand in line, I practice saying “I’ll have a Pike Place Roast, please,” which is possibly the hardest thing I ever have to say. Even in my head it often comes out “I’ll have a Pike Pace Roast, Peese” or sometimes “a Plike Plake Roast, Peese,” the word “Roast” somehow always coming out as intended.

I’ve learned the sizes too: Short, Tall, Grande and Venti. I don’t practice saying Grande and Venti because I’m entirely unsure of the proper way to say them so it makes little difference if I say Grand-ay or Grand-ee, Vent-ee, Vent-ay or Vant-ay, so I simply blurt out whatever version comes out that day, fully expecting baristas to gather after work and imitate me to their families and friends. Nowhere else is my inability to speak Italian such a problem and when what comes next is “I’ll have a Pleak Paced Roast, Plike Please,” really, what difference does it make?

One of the things I genuinely enjoy about Starbucks is enjoying my coffee on one of the comfortable couches or chairs. At my last visit however, I looked around and saw that the only available seats were the less comfortable wooden seats, unless I wanted to share a small couch with a woman who seemed even less likely than me to enjoy the idea.

Just then, a group started to get up to leave and I thought I’d found my comfy seat! But before I could get there, a woman who had left her friends in line to hover near the comfortable seats claimed them all.  They were working in teams – a brilliant tactic! I hadn’t seen it coming, but really, what chance did I have?

I guess that’s just one more thing to worry about.

Everyone’s gone to the washroom? You’re all wearing your seatbelts? Ok, let’s go.

You sure we didn’t forget anything? Ok.

I love this road because there’s never any traffic. I’ll bet a lot of people don’t even know of this road. Yes, I know you got a ticket on this road once, but in all the times I’ve been on this road, I’ve never seen any speed traps. It doesn’t mean I’m going to speed, I’m just saying I’ve never seen...never mind.

That’s an amazing house on that corner, but I’d never want to live this far from town. Yes, I suppose it’s not really that far from town.

Yes, that smell is coming from outside the van...it’s that farm over there. Yes, I know, they’re chicken coops, but how you think you know the difference between chicken coops and other farms and smells....

Isn’t that nice? Look at the fresh hay bales in that field! I love that. Doesn’t that look amazing the way they sit in that field, on the hills? They look so much better when they’re round rather than those squares that you still see sometimes. I suppose it would be cubes not squares.

Ugh! Why is it that someone is always driving this speed on this road when there’s no chance to pass? I know, we’re at our corner in a minute anyway. I know.

Did you know that it may not be called Marden Road on this stretch? Yeah, I noticed the last time through that it’s something else on this side of highway six. Yeah, we’re never actually on Marden Road. Not sure what this is called. I’m sure we’ll keep calling it Marden Road...passes through Marden, so that’s what it is to me.

Kids, do we need to go to the washroom? Because we’re in Fergus and this is the last washroom we’re going to see. No, we still have a long way to go...we just left Cambridge about half an hour ago.

This is my turn here isn’t it? Don’t know why I always think it’s the next turn. I think I still feel like we’re going to the next corner like we used to even though we haven’t gone that way in years. It was nice driving through Fergus, past the ball diamond where I played when I was a kid, but this is faster, that’s for sure. It’s not a ball diamond now, but seems to be where they have the Highland Games. I’ve told you about the time I got pulled over going around this corner in a snowstorm when the officer said I wasn’t in the turning lane? I don’t know how anyone could have seen a turning lane on a day like that...yeah, I thought I’d told you.

This is Bellwood Lake, kids. Wow, this lake always looks so nice. We really should look at what it would cost to have a place here. Nope, no one jumping off the bridge today. Wonder why there are either 20 people or no one jumping off the bridge? Maybe depends on the time of day.

Haha! That guy still has that sign on his lawn that says, “It’s 50 you idiot.” Man, he must be so mad at people driving too fast. It’s a weird speed limit though, coming down that hill, it’s impossible to be going 50 unless you turn at the corner like we do and have to slow down...

No, I had to change it because we were losing the station. No, I’m not going back to that song. You’ve got your iPod, why don’t you just listen to that? Well, maybe we’ll get that song for you. No, not now, later. When we’re home. Just listen to your—

I know, I always take that curve too fast. One of these days I’ll be going the right speed. I know, in the van I can’t be going as fast as my car. I know.

This is a funny four way stop. Why do they even have those two roads? Have you ever, even once, seen a car on either of those roads? Ah well, makes no difference I suppose.

Look kids, see that hawk? Up there! Over there! Look at where I’m pointing...no, you’re not looking where I’m—

You can’t see it now. Well, I can’t do anything about it. I know you wanted to see it, I can’t—

I don’t know why I point these out. I still think it’s interesting to see a hawk, but I realize that I’ve created this thought in my head that hawks are really rare and I like to point them out, but they’re really not. When I was a kid, I thought they were rare...

The speed limit in this town is a little crazy. Why do they make us go 40 through here? If you were actually doing 40, by the time you got up that hill, you’d be stopped.

Do you remember the time we came through here and they had the sign saying the road was going to be closed for something, but it wasn’t for an hour, but it was closed already? That was so weird...how do they just close the road an hour earlier than what the sign said?

Wow, I just noticed they have a Sears store, but it’s just a place where you can order things and pick up packages. I remember those from when I was a kid, but thought they had all gone away. Wow.

That restaurant is advertising hot coffee, that little ma and pa. Wonder if anyone stops just for that? I remember they have that sign too that says washrooms are for paying customers only. Do you remember the time we had to buy a coffee because the kids needed to use the washroom? Yeah, we probably didn’t need to buy anything...

I swear, some of these vehicles have been for sale for about eight years. When do you give up? Must be a pain to always have a truck like that parked at the end of your driveway for eight years.

Yep, it’s been eight years that we’ve been taking this way to the cottage. I know...hard to believe. Lauren was only two and Alex wasn’t even born yet. We had our other van too, we didn’t have this one yet.

Yes, this is where you lost your “Stitch” doll. No, probably not still there. That was a few years ago wasn’t it? I know you got another one. No, I’m sure someone picked it up or it disintegrated along the side of the road. I know you have a new one, so no need to worry.

Hey kids, we’re coming up on the windmills! Yep, half way there. An hour to go. One hour. That’s two TV shows. No, that’s more than an hour. It’s going to take us an hour to get there. The whole trip is two hours. We’ve been on the road for an hour.

Wow, there are a lot of signs around here for these windmills. The quarry too. We need to protect the fish! No idea where the quarry is going. Must be somewhere around here.

Wow, people here sure seem to have problems with these windmills. Look at that one – Wind Turbines Destroy Communities. Wind Turbines We All Lose. I have no idea what the problem is, must be something. I wonder how they got so many, but now everyone hates them? Yeah, that’s strange.

Look at those hay bales! Isn’t that nice? Seriously, the way the sun hits them in that field, with the blue sky, I can’t get enough of that.

Kids, do you need to use the washroom? We’re coming up to the gas station. Do we need more gas? We’ll wait until we get to Collingwood? Ok. So we are getting gas? Ok, how much? Ok.

I will never understand how this next gas station with only two pumps can always be so much more expensive than the bigger one that we just passed, the one with the washroom! I mean, really, does anyone ever buy their gas from that guy? You’d have to not know about the other station and mistakenly buy gas from him, the price is always more. It’s crazy.

Looks like the hockey team is collecting again. I think they must be out here every weekend collecting money! Do you have some change? Yeah, that’s good. Perfect.

They’re collecting for their hockey team. Must need money for something. I know you play hockey. Yep, maybe you’ll be collecting like they are.

Yes, we are on the hill. Oh, I don’t know...another half an hour, maybe less? One TV show...

There are a lot of little places off of this road. I wonder if we’ll ever get to any of them. Probably not.

It said “Mad River.” It’s the name of the river we just crossed. Not sure why it’s called Mad River...no, it doesn’t seem very mad to me either. Maybe it’s mad somewhere else, just not at the road.

Yep, almost there. We’ll be there in about 10 minutes. Not sure what we’re going to do when we get to the cottage, we’re not there yet. We’ll figure it out then, ok?

Ok.

The other night, on my way home from work, I stopped at the grocery store. I don’t buy the family groceries, but I frequently stop in after work to pick up the items that we forgot, ran out of, or have recently decided we’d like to eat. I am by far the biggest contributor to the new items on our grocery list, so I don’t mind being the one to stop in on my way home from work.

On this particular trip I picked up some eggs and a package of spring mix, which is really just a collection of different lettuces, with no actual ties to any particular season, and approached the check-out aisle.  I use the aisle that caters to those shoppers who only ever come to the grocery store on their way home from work, the one for eight items or fewer, and loaded my food onto the conveyor belt.

The woman working at the counter is someone I’ve seen several times before, never striking me as friendly or unfriendly, she’s just pleasant enough. My assessment of the check-out woman will factor into the story in just a bit.

While my eggs and spring mix took their short ride to the front of the line, the check-out woman noticed her co-worker walking by, pushing a cart loaded with boxes, apparently on her way to stock some shelves.

“Make sure you take it easy, Janice!” she yelled over my shoulder.

“I will,” said Janice.

Turning back to me, the check-out woman said, “She’s pregnant.”

“Ah,” I said. That’s what you say when you really have no reaction, but don’t want to seem like you don’t care at all.

“It’s not that bad,” she said.

“Hmm?” I asked. That’s what you say when you hadn’t said anything in the first place, making you wonder what the response is in reference to, while also wondering if the person you’re talking to believes they are able to read your mind.  

“Working here, it’s not that tiring for someone who’s pregnant.”

“Oh!” I said, wondering why she might think I was concerned about how tired Janice would be from her cart pushing and shelf stocking.

“I tended bar right up until my due date, it’s not that tiring,” she volunteered, now seeming surer of her ability to know and respond to my every unspoken thought.

“Oh, really?” I offered, though I hadn’t at any point expected her to provide me with details of her own pregnancy, had I known there was ever a pregnancy to discuss.  

“And there’s no reason to put on a lot of weight when you’re pregnant,” she added with the hint of disdain you might expect when talking to an infrequent grocery shopper who obviously had been misinformed about the proper weight gain of pregnant women and needed to be set straight.

“Nope,” she carried on, “when I was pregnant, I actually lost weight! I was 113 pounds when I got pregnant and 117 pounds after.”

Wait, what? That doesn’t even make—

“A woman should put on the weight of the baby, plus 10 pounds of water weight, and that’s it. There’s no reason for any woman to put on more than that.” I thought she might pound her fist on the conveyor belt or throw my spring mix at me for emphasis.

Though this check-out woman would have no way of knowing, I have two kids of my own, have witnessed many family members, friends and co-workers go through pregnancies and I know that being pregnant seems to turn you into a magnet for advice and criticism. But what I’d never witnessed before was the nerve one could strike simply by trying to buy some eggs and spring mix, actions so rarely associated with confrontation, and saying “Ah,” “Hmm?” and “Oh!” When did it become so acceptable to offer pregnancy advice that even infrequent grocery shoppers - men no less! - would have to worry about people dispelling myths they didn’t promote and stand corrected on thoughts they never had?

As I stood there, dumbfounded, I thought the following:

I don’t know why you’re telling me this...Hmm, I don’t even know your name, but I’m going to call you ‘Sally’ for the rest of this thought, not because it’s your name, quite likely it isn’t, but it makes it easier on me and I’m getting a little pleasure out of calling you a name I suspect to be wrong. Listen, Sally, I don’t know how I offended you with my spring mix and my eggs, or maybe it’s the fact that I don’t come in as often as some and sure, I only ever go to the aisle with eight items or fewer. But I follow your rules, I never exceed the eight items, except once and several of those items were the same thing (and there’s no way you even knew about that). I bring my own bags, even though I forget them half the time in my car because I don’t do this very often, but I try, Sally, I try. And yeah, I see that there’s now someone behind me who has three cans of cat food, a bottle of Diet Pepsi and some celery and I’m as confused as you are about how any of that goes together and I know that if this thought goes on too long, we’re going to have to open another line.

But Sally, you’re wrong about me. I don’t judge you or any other pregnant woman for the weight she gains, the shelves she stocks or the bar she tends. I think it’s weird that people just put their hands on the bellies of pregnant women without asking and think more people need to just stop doing that.  I wish more people would keep their opinions to themselves and unless some harm is going to come to a baby by not speaking up, can’t we please just let each woman experience her pregnancy her own way?

I am not going to ever benefit from your advice, I have never violated these rules, nor have I ever gained so much weight to warrant this lecture. I have no idea why you’re angry, how the conversation ever got this far, or why we couldn’t just stick to what I came in here for in the first place.

I need some eggs and spring mix.

And for the first time, I hoped she could read my mind.

As we stood outside the toy store, watching a dizzying number of people walk up and down Hurontario Street, a street many towns would refer to as Main Street, we spotted our first Elvis.

The unmistakeable jet-black hair, the bright yellow blazer, set against black pants and two-tone dress shoes, he seemed to rise above the crowd as he walked past.  We were only five minutes into our afternoon at the 18^th annual Collingwood Elvis Festival and already the kids, looking over toys they didn’t need, had missed what we had come to see.

They were disappointed when they emerged from the store, but we told them they had nothing to worry about, because this weekend Elvis was everywhere.

He was on posters and on life-size cardboard cut-outs in storefront windows, squished beside mannequins, vacuum cleaners and offers of great savings on beach getaways. He was in the bank, waiting to use the ATM and sampling hot sauces from a vendor at a temporary location on the street. He was inside car dealerships and on cookies at Tim Horton’s. According to the banner above the main entrance, he was at All Saints Church on Saturday, parishioners also enjoying bacon on a bun in the parking lot from 10 am to 7 pm. 

He was old, young, thin, heavy, wearing jewel encrusted jump suits, capes and blazers of blindingly brilliant colours. There truly was an Elvis for everyone.

If you’re wondering about a connection between Collingwood and Elvis, and why this event has come to be held here, as far as I can tell there isn’t one.  But the Elvis Festival, which celebrates the man, the music, and the nostalgia of Elvis Presley, brings fans and tribute artists (the preferred term over impersonators)  to Collingwood from all around the world for four days each year, making this the largest Elvis Festival held anywhere.

Anxious to take in the festival, we walked farther down the street, hearing Elvis songs played over loudspeakers that lined the sidewalk. We passed an Elvis fan singing a karaoke version of Love me Tender, surrounding most notes but drawing a good crowd nonetheless. As we walked on, I heard the announcer say, “We have lots of songs to choose from, not just Elvis, we have Johnny Cash...Patsy Cline...” his voice trailing off, perhaps unsure if his song selection truly was very expansive.

At the corner of Hurontario and Simcoe Streets there was an area cordoned off for the different Elvises to perform on the street. A female Elvis was set to perform, her white SUV with Florida license plates parked nearby, pictures on the vehicle indicating she called herself “Lady E,” a bumper sticker urging people not to re-elect Barack Obama revealing that she is also likely a Republican.  

Just as she was about to sing, Lady E realized her microphone wasn’t working, causing the sound man and a giant Elvis, who moments earlier had been standing behind me in the crowd, to try to fix the problem. While the 200 people watched and waited in the hot sun, I watched Lady E for any hint that she was upset that she had driven all the way from Florida and now couldn’t perform, but instead, saw her smile and pose for pictures. Knowing we had much more to see, we left before the problem was resolved and only hope she was finally able to do her set.

Around the corner was the main stage where both amateur and professional tribute artists were performing for a panel of judges and a crowd of 1,200 people.  The first three performers that we saw were from Japan, Denmark and Brazil, removing any doubt that this had indeed become an international event.

“The preliminary rounds were held at the curling club so you know the people on the main stage can all sing,” said the master of ceremonies, in the first of many offhand remarks we would hear.

Several other performers from near and far took the stage and excited the crowd to varying degrees. One performer, singing The Impossible Dream, stopped after the first line and asked if he could start again as the song was too low and the judges allowed it without a problem. I assume the performers have their songs on CDs and aside from simply not being prepared, it was puzzling how the song could ever be too low, but to his credit he did a great job of the song the second time around. Clearly, while the Elvis Festival has grown to be a significant international event, the handling of situations like this let you know that the focus is still on the performers and the fans and it hasn’t taken itself too seriously.

The master of ceremonies took the stage again and talked about the time, money and effort that each of the tribute artists puts into their craft, in particular getting to Collingwood to compete against their peers and to entertain all of the Elvis fans that assemble. Each has made enormous sacrifices to be here, he told us, before adding the cringe inducing, “The prize money is not that good.”

While better words could surely have been used to capture the thought, he did make a good point – very few of the people we saw on that stage were able to make a decent living, or a living at all, from their act, but they do it for the thrill of performing, to pay tribute to Elvis Presley and to take part in festivals such as this.

And as long as there are Elvis fans, tribute artists and events like the Elvis Festival, there will be a special kind of entertainment in Collingwood and I’ll try to attend every year.

The other night, I was at an industry event that began with a “get to know someone new” kind of game. I generally dislike these games because I’m not overly willing to open up to people I don’t know well and it makes it harder to insist that no one ever takes the time to get to know the real me. That’s harder not impossible.

My partner and I very quickly hit on eleven things we did not have in common before she asked me something that caught me totally by surprise, “What’s on your bucket list?”

I’m not sure how long people have been talking about bucket lists, but the first I heard of it was a few years ago, around the release of the movie of the same name, starring Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson. (I’ve never seen the movie, but hear it’s quite good, none of which is relevant to this story).

The concept of a bucket list is listing those things you wish to do before you die, or “kick the bucket,” a phrase that likely has some literal meaning that someday I must look up to make myself an even greater bore at parties. 

While it may seem unlikely, I believe this was the first time I’ve ever been asked this question and since I had no prepared answer, certainly not one I’m comfortable sharing with someone I don’t know overly well, who may take this an opportunity to tell the world that I’m an open book, it fell into the category of questions I’ve been asked throughout my life to which I can only provide disappointing answers:

What did you do on your summer vacation?
Um... is it possible I didn’t do anything?

You had a day to yourself, what have you been doing all this time?
Um...

So, what do you do for a living?
I’m in Communications, which means that, I... um...

How was your weekend?
(Remembering nothing)  It was good, but too short! *hilarious laughter*

But getting back to the bucket list, you may ask, “Why would this be tough to answer?”  Is it because I never think of dying and therefore have no sense of urgency to create such a list? No, I know as well as anyone that I may be hit by a bus tomorrow, contract scurvy or spontaneously combust, so that can’t be it.

Is it because I’m not a list maker? No, I spend a great deal of time making lists of all kinds: “To do” lists, grocery lists...ok, I expected there to be more lists, but the point is that I do make them.

So, why then have I never come up with a bucket list? I think the answer is that I don’t think my bucket list captures the wondrous, near magical experiences and adventures that I hear from others when they openly share their bucket lists with me.  

They want to skydive, attend the Olympics, sleep in ice hotels, visit every continent over a long weekend, and have picnics in outer space. These are the items that I hear on bucket lists. This is what is expected.

My list is quite different.

Just once, I’d like to leave my house without breaking a spider web with my face. I’d like put on a t-shirt and not have an antiperspirant mark.  On many a weekend, my goal is simply, to not shave.

How do you tell people this is your bucket list?

Just once, I’d like to accidentally eat too much horseradish and not feel like I’ve been “Maced.” I’d like to someday have a blog post go viral (and just because I once wrote a post that contained the phrase “swimming with sharks” that gets five daily page views forever, that doesn’t count). I’d like to know once and for all which way I’m supposed to point my toes when I get a cramp in my calf muscle.

These are not the items that most people have on their bucket lists.

I’d like to someday be comfortable with people telling me I look five years younger than I am before I wake up to realize that I look 10 years older than my age, likely caused by the stress of this impossible to explain attitude toward looking younger.

I’d like to someday throw away my glasses and contacts, but realize that laser eye surgery is a simple solution that I’m avoiding due to a fear of lasers ever being pointed at my eyes. So, at best, this belongs on the list of “incomplete ideas” not the bucket list.

You see the trouble I’m having?

I’d like to someday find my unread copy of On the Road which is lost somewhere in my house or possibly borrowed by my father-in-law and never returned. I’d like to know the difference between a zucchini and an English cucumber, though admittedly I’ve only cared since seeing them side by side at the grocery store one evening this week.

I’d like to know how Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony were ever married. This doesn’t have anything to do with anything, but none of it sits right with me.

These are my priorities.

I suppose I should try to be better prepared to answer the question the next time I’m asked. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not likely to share my true list with too many people, so I’ll avoid all that and give them what they expect, what they want.

Before I die I really want to ride my bicycle clear across Italy, stopping occasionally to learn the language from the locals, to drink wine and to eat cheese, lots and lots of cheese.

This is my dream.