The Family Picnic

The sun is shining, the sky is a crystal blue, the silos rise in the distance, the corn is just about ripe and a slight breeze is blowing on this perfect summer day.  A little girl clad in an orange bathing suit swims with her brother clad in a black suit with red flames on it.  The little girl wears a bright yellow life jacket.  She dips her head in the water like a little duck.  The boy whips down the water slide for the tenth time; then he does a cannon ball off the diving board.  The mother looks at the horizon and is struck by a sense of peace:  her cup runneth over.

This is an excerpt from my journal dated July 13, 2008, the day of the Tufts Family Picnic.  Every year we meet at the Kirkton Woodham Community Centre on the second Sunday in July to converse with our cousins and second cousins and great aunts and great uncles and grandparents.  I remember when my Grandma and Grandpa used to come in their old white Torino with the navy blue roof.  They used to drive all the way from Toronto.  My Grandma couldn't drive and if she got too tired and asked to go home, but my Grandad wasn't moving fast enough, she would say, "I guess I'll just walk home." 

On the cloth-draped table are many foods including potato salad, pasta, turkey, cold cuts, devilled eggs, dinner rolls and fried chicken.  This year we almost didn't bring the chicken, because I chose to make Cottage Cheese Pasta Casserole instead.  However, on our way through Paris, Ontario, Jacqueline asked:  "Are we going to stop at Kentucky Fried Chicken?"  We responded "No, we're eating pasta this year."  And the crocodile tears sprouted.  We stopped.  Luckily we did because once we got to the picnic, we found out that Jacqueline's third cousins, Maya and Savannah, look forward to the fried chicken tradition every year.  When their Dad said that there might not be any fried chicken this year, the girls reassured him that the bucket would definitely be on the picnic table.  We wouldn't want to prove them wrong. 

After stuffing our faces with homemade pie, ice cream and cookies and squares, we play games like Guess the Number of Jelly Beans in the Jar.  My husband Rob came within one of getting the right answer this year.  Last year my Mom won and she gave the jar to my kids.  I remember when my Grandad, a mathematician, used to play the jelly bean jar game; he would used a complicated formula to arrive at his answer.  Later, we head outside for the kiddie games where the children carry eggs on spoons or tie ropes around their ankles and run with a partner or throw water balloons at each other, which of course is their favourite game.  Some of the "big boys" play soccer; you can hear Rob screaming from a mile away when he scores a goal (or misses).  Others play football or even baseball.  My children finish off the afternoon by taking a dip in the community pool, the highlight of the picnic.

The Family Picnic wasn't always in Kirkton.  When I was little, in the 1970's, we used to go to my Dad's cousin Edwin's cottage in Bayfield and we would eat lunch at picnic tables, play games, and then descend the steep cliff to the rocky beach below for a dip in Lake Huron.  The picnic tradition has lasted for decades and I hope it will last for many more.  Giving my children a sense of history and roots is invaluable.  I look forward to the bucket of KFC and the jar of jelly beans on the table next year.  Thank you, Tufts Family, for a great tradition!



Photo courtesy www.supermarketguru.com

Narcisse Cantin

     Western Ontario could have boasted a canal running from Lake Huron to Lake Erie and St. Joseph could have been a boomtown if the plans of Narcisse Cantin had have been carried out.  It was in the hamlet of St. Joseph that Narcisse Cantin, son of a French-Canadian ship builder from Goderich, made plans to build a canal.  The young entrepreneur started out in the cattle trade, shipping his stock to Buffalo, New York.  He thought that a canal linking the two Great Lakes would make trade much easier between Canada and the United States. 

     Others agreed and sponsors lined up to support the Cantin Seaway Project including the CPR Railway, Bethlehem Steel, United States Steel, The Bank of Montreal, and the Hudson's Bay Company.  Wilfrid Laurier's Liberal government approved the project and initial plans got underway to support the population that such a project would attract.  The CPR erected a large hotel in St. Mary's Ontario on the Thames River, located between Lake Huron and Lake Erie.  A huge Roman Catholic Church was built in Mount Carmel, a settlement only miles from St. Joseph.  Cantin constructed the three-storey New Balmoral Hotel in St. Joseph and used it to entertain businessmen who could be potential sponsors of his seaway project.  The Saint Joseph area was also home to a brickyard, a wine factory, a pipe organ factory and a carriage factory.  The groundwork was laid for a boomtown.

     In the meantime, Narcisse married a woman named Josephine and they relocated to Buffalo, New York where they resided for seven years.  Upon their return to the St. Joseph area, the Cantin's had started a family which would total ten children in all.  Narcisse became a devoted family man with a deep religious faith, evident in the fact that he named the town formerly known as Lakeview, after Saint Joseph. 

     In Cantin's master plan, he had proposed other canals including:  one linking Port Dalhousie and the Port Colborne area; one linking Prescott and Ottawa; and one linking Lake Ontario and the Atlantic Ocean.  Sound familiar?  Yes, Narcisse Cantin was the original architect of the Saint Lawrence Seaway.  Unfortunately, certain events interrupted the entrepeneur's plans.  The First World War stalled Cantin's plans as all materials were mobilized for the war effort.  Then the government changed:  the Conservatives canned Cantin's project and it would not see the light of day until the 1950's when the Saint Lawrence Seaway was finally constructed.  Furthermore, Cantin's plan to finance his canal with profits from power projects along the Saint Lawrence River was dashed by competition from new investors in the 1920's and 1930's.

     Saint Joseph, in the meantime, became a ghost town.  The New Balmoral Hotel was demolished in 1920.  The old organ factory is now a residential home.  All that remains is the Roman Catholic Church.  The St. Joseph & Area Historical Society will stage a play there this summer in honour of Narcisse Cantin written by Grand Bend resident, Paul Ciufo, the next-door neighbour of my parents.  For ten nights in July, Saint Joseph will come alive, entertaining crowds as it did in the early 20th Century.  And Narcisse Cantin will be smiling.


Photo courtesy www.stjosephmuseum.ca

DETAILS:

Play:  "Narcisse"
Dates:  July 19 - 30, 2011.
Time:  6:00 pm (Tuesdays - Fridays); 6:30 pm (Saturdays)
Place:  St. Peter's Roman Catholic Church, St. Joseph, Ontario (Highway 21 north of Grand Bend)
Website:  narcissetheplay.com

The Wall of Fame

     My sister-in-law once said that I was the happiest pregnant woman she had ever met.  If you read my post "The Berenstain Bears and A Leap of Faith" you already know that Rob and I adopted our son, Thomas, back in 1998.  However, I haven't told you the story of how we got our daughter, Jacqueline, in 2003.  We always agreed we wanted to have children and a couple of years after we married, we tried to start a family.  I was pregnant in 1995, 1996 and 1997, but I suffered three miscarriages in a row. 

     By the summer of 1997, I was referred to a brilliant fertility specialist at McMaster University in Hamilton who put me through a series of tests where I was poked and prodded and where I underwent major surgery.  Rob was impressed to see that Dr. Daya, rather than guessing at the problem as every other doctor had done, approached the problem like a true scientist and tried to eliminate every possibility before arriving at a diagnosis.  In the end, he determined that I had three problems:  low progesterone (easily fixed), a uterine septum (or what my husband called the Berlin Wall) and endometriosis (the hardest of the three to fix).  Dr. Daya performed surgery to eliminate the uterine septum during which he had to remove one ovary as well due to damage from endometriosis. 

     Thanks to the surgeon's touch and the grace of God, I came out of the surgery stronger than ever.  It took several months, but I was finally given the green light to conceive again.  Two weeks later, we got the call to adopt our son.  One social worker had wanted a commitment from Rob and I to either adopt or to give birth; however, we did not want to be put in a box like that and secretly continued to work towards both goals.  "Afterall," I said to Rob, "they're not the baby police."  Of course, within seven months of getting on the adoption agency's waiting list, we brought home a bouncing baby boy.  Thomas became our family; we knew if we had one child or ten we were parents now.

     In the meantime, we kept trying to have a biological child while not eliminating the possibility of adopting a second time.  When Thomas turned 4, I took him to the doctor for a yearly check-up and as an afterthought, I asked for a pregnancy test.  Shocked, I found out that I was almost two months pregnant since I had already taken a home pregnancy test that came out negative.  Back to Hamilton I went to Dr. Daya who watched me like a hawk for the next three months, giving me several ultrasounds.  Finally, like a lioness letting her young cub out into the wild, the specialist said that I was ready to graduate to the next doctor since he specialized in fertility rather than obstetrics.  Dr. Daya had given me such confidence; what would I do without him?

     Thankfully, my new doctors, who would oversee trimesters two and three of my pregnancy, were quite competent.  With each month, my confidence grew.  On St. Patrick's Day, I had a 20-week ultrasound that showed my baby was right on target.  I had been holding my breath for 5 months and I finally let a sigh escape:  "Hey, I think I can do this!" The doctors said I needed no further ultrasounds; once again, I felt a little lost.  What would I do without the reassurance of that tiny form on the screen?  My new source of comfort became my baby's kicks.  Often when I laid down at night she would kick up a storm.  The regular kicking sensation, rather than annoying me, was a constant form of reassurance.  The regular visits to the doctor's office also gave me a chance to hear the baby's heart beat. 

     Although I was convinced the doctor would order me to bed before the pregnancy was full term, it never happened.  I taught right until the end of the school year.  With my belly expanding, I was thrilled to finally look the part.  Pregnancy was a surreal experience for me; it felt like it was happening to someone else.  I still refused to buy any baby clothes or toys.  But I did allow my husband to take my photograph once I reached my third trimester.  I needed some proof of this pregnancy. 

     On July 11, 2003, Rob and I dined at Al Dente's for our 11th wedding anniversary.  That night while I was sleeping, I felt a slight tug in the middle of my back, but thought nothing of it.  The next morning, I discovered that I had slight spotting.  I had not spotted through the entire pregnancy and eventhough I was not due for another 3 weeks, we decided to visit McMaster to check it out.  The doctors hooked me up to a baby monitor and after three hours, sent me home saying that it was just a false alarm.  I laid down for a couple of hours to see if the spotting would stop; however, when I stood up again, it was like Niagara Falls had let loose. 

      On the second trip to the hospital I actually experienced labour pains.  They examined me and said that I was definitely in the early stages of labour.  We arrived at 8 pm and my little girl was born at 9:41 pm via C-Section (due to my earlier surgery, the doctors did not want me to have a regular birth).  She weighed 6 pounds, was 18 inches long and was in perfect health.  Hallelujah!  In the end, I had a textbook pregnancy and went full term at 37 weeks gestation. Our daughter's baby photo was posted on Dr. Daya's "Wall of Fame" along with dozens of other miracle children whom he had helped bring into this world.  Our son held his new sister, beaming with pride.  He adored his little sister right from the start and became a devoted big brother. 

     My little girl turns 8 years old today.  I can't cuddle her anymore.  I don't feed her bottles.  I no longer burp her.  And I don't change her diapers.  But she'll always be my little girl.  Thank you for being my girl, Jacqueline.  Happy Birthday!



Photo courtesy http://image.shutterstock.com

Happy Anniversary, Rob!

I'll always remember my year of Teacher's College with fondness:  the walks along the Detroit River, the dinners at Swiss Chalet, the visit to Point Pelee, the trip to Fort Malden, the semi-formal in McPherson Hall, the trips to Devonshire Mall.  Nineteen-ninety was our year and Windsor was our town.  Your roomate James said that we were meant for each other when we realized that we both had the 40 presidents of the United States memorized.  I remember how unseasonably warm Windsor was since it was so far south.  Although it was autumn, it still felt like summer.  I recall a certain trip to Devonshire Mall in the K-car and on the way home, all of a sudden, you hit the steering wheel and announced:  "Okay, let's go out!"  I was taken aback by the way you said it, but then I said yes.  Later, I realized that you blurted it out so that you wouldn't lose your nerve.  Our first date was Thanksgiving weekend back in our hometown, Hamilton.  That evening remains a blur in my memory since I was floating on air.  Within two weeks, you introduced me to your parents.  By November, you said the three words everyone longs to hear:  "I love you."  Our first Christmas together was so exciting.  On Boxing Day, you said:  "I'm going to ask you to marry me" and took me by surprise once again.  Knowing marriage was forever, I was 99 % sure, but I wanted to be 100% sure before I said yes.  I got my answer on New Year's Eve.  We attended a house party and at midnight, I couldn't find you to wish you a Happy New Year.  You were only in the next room, but a strong feeling came over me:  I knew I could not live without you.  We shopped for a ring at Devonshire Mall in January.  On February 27, you hid the ring in a Bette Midler cassette case, knowing that I always played "our song".  Your carefully laid plans did not work, however; somehow, I opened the case without disturbing the ring.  So you asked me to open it again at which point I did find the ring.  Down on one knee, you proposed and I screamed "Yes!"  Back to Hamilton we went on the March Break to make the big announcement to our parents.  I remember hiding the ring from my Mom because I wanted it to be a surprise -- was it ever!  On July 11, 1992, my Dad walked me down the aisle at Olivet United Church in Hamilton.  I had never been so confident about a decision as this one.  You waited patiently at the front of the church.  One of the bridesmaids sang "Give Me the Gift of Love" by Bette Midler and we cried happy tears.  We exchanged our vows and exited the church as Mr. and Mrs. Robert Jonasson.  After the ceremony the photographer took his mandatory 1000 shots as the sun shone down on us and a gentle breeze blew across the Dundas Valley.  Just when we were ready to collapse, the photographer dismissed us.  What a great celebration we had overlooking the escarpment at the Golf & Curling Club.  Every guest was in a good mood.  The Tufts and the Jonasson's got along famously.  We danced to "From a Distance" and our parents danced to "Faithfully"; even my Dad had a smile on his face, despite the musical selections.  Thanks for nineteen wonderful years.  Happy Anniversary, Rob!



Photo of Detroit River & Skyline courtesy www.deskpicture.com

She's Scared of That Little Guy

She's scared of that little guy, whispered the little girl as she pointed to a cherub-faced doll with a tuft of hair on its head.  The little girl was my 3-year-old niece who was attending our wedding rehearsal party at my future in-law's house.  The "little guy" was a friend of my fiance's who was making googly eyes at my niece but she wanted no part of him.  The doll was my future sister-in-law's doll that she played with as a young girl.  I remember that evening as if it were yesterday; and yet it was 19 years ago. 

My niece, Amanda, is 22 years old today.  What happened to the little girl who complained about a bee in the "towlet" when she went into her Grandma and Grandpa's washroom?  What happened to my flower girl who, dressed in a white satin gown to match mine, ran down the church aisle with my bouquet when she saw her daddy waiting at the front with his camera?  What happened to the little girl who came to my apartment to sleep over a few months after Rob and I got married, ate a box full of Smarties and threw up on our duvet?  What happened to the niece who danced to the Lenny Kravitz song "Always on the Run" that her uncle used to play?  What happened to the little girl who sang solos in the Hamilton Children's Choir at the magnificent Christ Church Cathedral on James Street North?

Well, Amanda's all grown up now.  Although she still has a beautiful singing voice, she is the teacher now rather than the student.  She continues to dance to music, although it might be on her new I PAD rather than on CD's.  She still likes chocolate, although her sister likes it more.  She still looks pretty in a white dress, but she is more likely to wear a bridal gown than a flower girl dress in the near future.  She continues to stay away from creepy guys who make googly eyes at her.  And she still complains about bees in the "towlet".  Thank you, Amanda, for all of the memories.  Happy Birthday!




Photo of Hamilton Children's Choir courtesy http://www.kathaumixw.org/ 
Amanda is located in the 3rd row from the front, the third girl from the left.

Roger's Ride

On this day in 1960 a seven-year-old boy plunged over Niagara Falls in nothing more than a life jacket and lived to tell the tale.  Roger Woodward and his sister were invited by family friend Jim Honeycutt to go fishing for the day on his motorboat in the Niagara River.  As they travelled down the river closer to the Falls, the boat's motor cut out after hitting a rock.  Jim could not fight the strong current and the threesome headed closer and closer to the precipice at the Horshoe Falls.  The boat capsized, throwing its three occupants into the frothy waters of the river.  Jim, not wearing a life jacket, was pulled over the Falls and drowned at the bottom of the chute.  Roger's sister, Deanne, who had thrown on a lifejacket, managed to grab on to something solid and was rescued by two tourists only 20 feet from the edge of the Falls.  Roger, in his lifejacket, was pulled over the Falls, landing in a pool of water rather than on the jagged rocks in the whirlpool, and bouncing back up like a cork.  After swimming for a few minutes, he was rescued by the Maid of the Mist.  What was Roger's first word upon being rescued?  "Gosh!"  Although suffering a mild concussion and some scrapes and bruises, Roger was able to make a full recovery from his plunge over Niagara Falls.



Photo courtesy http://www.niagarafrontier.com/

My Writer's Club

Three years ago I joined a Writer's Club.  We meet once a month and exhange our writing for critiquing.  Although our group is small, I have learned a lot from our members.  Every November, we have participated in Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month) together.  The task of writing a 50,000-word novel in a month can be overwhelming, but not when you have three other people tackling the same task.  Healthy competition spurs us on.  Well, what have we done with our novels?  My first book sits on a shelf right now.  However, I have turned my second book, about the British Home Children, into a children's picture book and am now seeking a publisher.  One member of our writers' group, Heather, is researching and writing an historical novel about Paris, Ontario during the Great Depression.  Karen, our leader, is working on a fantasy piece.  Our most recent member, Mary Ann, just had her short story published in A Second Cup of Hot Apple Cider!  She is an inspiration to us all.  Last month we attended the Christian Writer's Conference in Guelph.  The faculty packed an incredible amount of information into three days worth of sessions.  What fun it was to drive back and forth together and to share this amazing experience with my Writer's Club mates.  Yes, joining the Writer's Club was a great decision and one that I recommend for any aspiring writer.   Thank you, fellow authors!



Cartoon courtesy http://www.cartoonstock.com/