Tag Archives: John A Geddes

This school visit choked me up a bit

Posted on by
1

Last week while visiting a school in Nyanza Province with Dan, I experienced a particularly touching moment.

Two schools, Nyangulu Secondary School the adjacent primary school, also called Nyangulu are in a valley (Nyangulu apparently means “a place of valleys”) that’s down a very bumpy road that gets partly washed out by the rain. It rivals a bumper-car ride at the fair to get there. The schools are virtually on the equator.

The secondary school looked orderly and well managed. We were there to bring greetings on behalf of the CanAssist Trustees and donors and to officially turn over a new 10,000 litre water tank that was already full to the brim because of the late afternoon rains we have received in the past week. While I had been visiting the district for the previous week, the mornings were often bright and sunny and hot and then, at about four, thunder rolled in the distance and brought a brief but torrential downpour. Then the skies cleared in about an hour.

Video: Typical short afternoon cloudburst in Nyanza Province.

The Nyangulu secondary school has about 700 students who all met outside during their morning break to receive our greetings. One of the girls thanked CanAssist for their contributions to the school. She requested that CanAssist help next with some kitchen improvements. After the assembly, Dan and I strolled over to see where three cooks work to provide two meals a day for the 700 pupils. It was a tiny smokey shack with a couple of huge pots and a lean-to beside it with another open fire. It was unimaginable that they could provide food daily from this environment for all of these kids.

Video: Can you imagine preparing lunch did several hundred high school students in this “kitchen”?

Then we walked next door to the primary school where another water tank had just been installed. Once again we were greeted by staff and students and I went from classroom to classroom to say hello. In once class they sang for me.

Video: Grade 5 at Nyangulu Elementary School welcome me with a song,

As we were about to leave, we were directed to a group of very young students under a tree by the primary classes who wanted to greet me with a couple of poems.

One of the poems was about being a Good Samaritan and thanking CanAssist for the contributions made to the school.

Video: Outside under a tree, a grade three class recited a poem they had practiced about CanAssist being a Good Samaritan to them.

“A Good Samaritan becomes a good neighbor. A neighbour is anyone in need. We were in need of hand-washing containers, latrines, storybooks, balls for play and fresh water to drink. CanAssist was there for us. You provided all these. You are our Good Samaritan, a wonderful partner. God bless you and thank you.”

I found this very touching. I told them that I remembered a stained glass window depiction of the Good Samaritan in New St James Church in London, Ontario beside the pew where my family usually sat when I was a their age. I probably spent a lot of time looking up at that colorful window and daydreaming during the sermon.

This stained-glass window is like the one I remember from my childhood.

I realized as I heard these kids and thought about this childhood memory of the Good Samaritan window that the message of that parable must have had an influence on me in choosing both my vocation as a physician and the development work that I have done over the years. I reflected on what a privilege it has been for me to be able to work with communities in East Africa, to meet so many friends there and to have unique interactions with them. My life has been incredibly enriched by these experiences. Hearing the children recite this little poem triggered a surprisingly emotional response in me as and will be a moment that I will long remember.

NOTE: This post has a video image. If you are reading the post on an email you must click on the title of the post to be taken to the WordPress site where the video can be streamed.

Adam Nkuyan School – A Success Story

Posted on by
3

Driving to the Adam Nkuyan School deep in Maasai territory on the floor of the Rift Valley in Kenya has always been a bit of an adventure. Once, with a group of 20 CanAssist supporters in safari truck we ran out of gas, with no fuel available for miles. This time, my friend, Stephen drove me out to the school and once we got half an hour away from the main Magadi Road everything started to look the same. We took one (or maybe more) wrong turns and basically got lost in the middle of nowhere and with no phone service. We asked the few folks we saw for directions and eventually arrived at the school about 90 minutes late. On the bright side we did spot zebras and giraffes by the side of the “road”.

Video: Wildlife by the side of the road on our drive to Nkuyan School.

I had not been to the school for about 7 years and when I arrived I was very pleasantly surprised.

The Nkuyan School was CanAssist’s first project. We officially opened it in 2009. There might have been 30 students in the single tin classroom.

Alex and Judith Adam open the tin sheet classroom that started the Nkuyan School in 2009. Now there are 8 permanent classrooms and three din sheet classrooms including this original structure.

Gradually a couple of permanent classrooms were added as well as water tanks and latrines. Eventually the school became registered with the Government who ended up paying for 4 more classrooms. The school now has enrollment of 250 students and 11 teachers, four of them paid for by the government. There are another couple of tin structures for the very young kids and they have students from preschool age to class eight.

The school now has 250 students from preschool age to Grade 8

In the National exams last year for the Class 8 students they had the best marks of the 40 schools in their district. In addition, the enrollment at the school is equal numbers of boys and girls.

Fifteen more pupils have joined the Nkuyan school since this chart was made.

We were met by the Chairman of the School Board, the teachers led by the Deputy Head Teacher, a group of parents, including three that are on the parent’s committee. The whole community is involved and supportive and most grateful for this school in their very remote community. Without this school, children in this community might have to walk as far as 13 km to school each day which would mean many would go without their basic education.

The bottom line is that this school has grown incredibly, and has even received some government funding to help it grow. The community is taking care of the resources that have been given to them, is actively supporting the school and encouraging their children to acquire and education. The pupils are showing excellent academic performance. The help that CanAssist provided and continues to provide in partnership with two Kenyan NGO’s (MPIDO and MANDO) has kickstarted a school that is making a big difference for this remote Maasai community. This is the kind of success we dreamed about when we started the CanAssist African Relief Trust 15 years ago.

Video: The students of Nkuyan School entertained me with traditional song and dance.

NOTE: This post has a video image. If you are reading the post on an email you must click on the title of the post to be taken to the WordPress site where the video can be streamed.

I came across this photo of the Nkuyan School in 2009

Visit to a rural Kenyan Elementary School

Posted on by
1

This morning, Dan and I dropped in to the Ramula Primary School, a rural public school that has about 700 pupils from grade 1 to 8. Although I am no longer a Trustee with the CanAssist African Relief Trust, the CanAssist board asked me to look in on a few project partners while I am here in Kenya.

The purpose of Dan’s visit to the school this morning was to sign an MOU with the head teacher of the school to confirm the building of an 8 stall pit latrine for the boys. Last year CanAssist built a girls latrine at the school and also supplied some much needed desks.

Dan Otieno, CsnAssist’s African Field Representative signing an MOU for a new boys latrine with the Head Teacher, chairman of the school board and chairman of the PTA of Ramula Primary School.

You would not believe the state of the current boys latrines. They are old and in very poor condition (I won’t disgust you with photos.) I watched as three or four boys opened doors looking for a stall that was useable. Toilets that are collapsing and I’m poor repair are not uncommon in Kenyan elementary schools. Although these schools are publicly run, there seems to be no money for many basic needs, like text books and sanitation. CanAssist has helped several schools in East Africa over the years to help with water collection, sanitation and other infrastructure.

Girls’ latrine built last year at the Ramula Primary School.

CanAssist does not work on a cookie-cutter mold. Every project is different and tailored to the needs expressed by the school or hospital or community. This morning a young woman in grade 8 asked if they could have a couple of cupboards for books – essentially asking for book shelves. I told her that I would pass on this request to the CanAssist trustees. And one of the teachers who teaches language and English asked if they could get some storybooks in English and Swahili to help with reading and literacy.

Literacy teacher Frederick Kolanyo
Student Lucy Atieno

For the past few years the Ontario Teacher’s federation has generously funded purchase of requested books for two or three schools annually through CanAssist. Dan usually asks the teachers what they need and the books specific to their needs are purchased from local booksellers. I am sure that when this funding comes through later this year he will be asking this teacher for his recommendations. (Thanks OTF for your ongoing support.)

We were received warmly. The students, the teaching staff, the Chairman of the school’s Board, and the head of the Parent-Teachers Association all expressed appreciation for the gifts that Canadian donors make to the school through CanAssist.

I was happy to bring greetings from Canada on behalf of the donors and trustees of the CanAssist African Relief Trust.

Arrived in Siaya District, Nyanza Province, Kenya

Posted on by
5

 After a long day of travel (my Kenya Airways Flight from JFK in New York direct to Nairobi was almost 14 hours!) I am now comfortably ensconced at Dan Otieno’s place near Ramula, Kenya. We are quite literally on the Equator.  I can cross the equator, changing hemispheres back and forth within an half hour’s walk along the road.  I haven’t (yet)  done the test to see if water drains in a different circular direction in the North than in the South.

Morning coffee in bright African sunshine.

I have known Dan since 2004 and have see him one place or another in East Africa almost annually up until the COVID pandemic shut down international travel. We are like family. I am not sure who adopted whom. I have been to this homestead three times previously. The last time was to attend his marriage to Mercy, who is a Clinical Officer at a clinic about three hours away. His 4-year-old daughter is named Heather Maddie. We have quickly become fast friends, bonding over Paw Patrol. She speaks pretty fluent English with a Kenyan accent and will soon learn both Luo and Swahili as well. She looks at books, turning the pages and taking in the photos and when she closes the book she says “and they all lived happily ever after.”

Reacquainting with my African “granddaughter” over Paw Patrol.

Like my family at home, they all call me Dedo here.  I took on that name when first granddaughter, Maddy, was born 21 years ago. I was working in Bosnia at the time and wasn’t quite ready to be “Grandpa” so I took on the Bosnian name for Grandfather, Dedo. It stuck.  Now adults and children alike here in this household call me Dedo.

Dan has hired a young fellow from Kisumu named Evans to help make food when I am around so he and Mercy won’t be preoccupied with meal preparation .  He is working in a little kitchen area that is just outside the house. It is quite common for Kenyan homes, in addition to an indoor kitchen, to have an separate building with a wood-burning stove that they use for cooking. It is a bit of a throwback to the traditional ways of preparing food.

Evans preparing our lunch in the separate kitchen

I was amazed to hear that this building was actually made out of mud. To build it, a frame was made out of wood and mud from the yard was packed into the frame and allowed to harden for two to three months during the dry season. Another layer was later applied and smoothed and than the outside was painted. It looks like stucco and feels firm. The paint protects against rain damage and termites. It is not expensive and reasonably durable. Rainwater from the roof of the main hose supplies all the water.



The finished mud house kitchen

Tomorrow I am going to show Evansf how to make focaccia!  He works as a cook in Kisumu so he can return with a recipe for Focaccia to impress his friends.  We are having lots of fresh fruits including pineapple that we picked up at a street market on our way here. It was picked yesterday and is ripe and sweet and totally unlike the pineapple we get from Costa Rica in Food Basics.

There are chickens in the yard that produce a few fresh eggs.  There are also a few goats, a couple of geese, a stray cat and some vervet monkeys in the trees.  

Network coverage in this very rural setting is a big hit and miss so posting might be more of a challenge than I anticipated.  Hang in.

Life imitating art. Or is it the other way around?

Posted on by
Reply

I got an unexpected and sad reply from a friend in Africa when I sent him a birthday greeting this weekend. And it all resonated particularly harshly because of the theatre piece I saw last night. 

Tobias is the Beach Management Unit Chairman at the Kamin Oningo beach on Lake Victoria, a small fishing community in Kenya where I have visited several times.Through The CanAssist African Relief Trust we have been able to build up a small school there. The school, in fact, is named after my Dad as is one of the kids in the community!

Tobias responded to my cheery birthday note with the sad news of the death of two relatively young people in the village.  

Now I will take one step back.

Last night, I attended the Theatre Kingston performance of What a Young Wife Ought to Know.   The show was really well produced and there were some very funny and intimate moments. The general theme was a tough one, however.  It centred on the desperation of young women in Canada in the early 1900’s to limit their family size .  Living in relative poverty put them at increased health risk and they were simply not able to care for either themselves or their children adequately.   Their family planning choices were limited and sometimes the only choice was abstinence, a solution that strained their marriages. Desperate attempts to terminate the pregnancy were life-threatening and distressing. The show was dramatic and intense and personal and, for us in Canada now, it was “historical”.

Well in some parts of the world it is not history. 

One of the deaths at Kamin Oningo was a 35 year old woman who already had four kids and who delivered the fifth two weeks ago.  She must have been anemic during the pregnancy or, like many there, had some post-partum bleeding that was not fully addressed.  Like many African mothers, there really was no time to recuperate and she had to take up the usual household tasks immediately.  Apparently she had been given some iron tablets for the severe anemia  but she collapsed on Saturday and died at home.  Three of the older kids go to the SP Geddes school from pre-school age to grade 2. The husband, a fisherman with a meagre and unreliable income, is left with this young family. 

So this news drove home the message of the play even more (not that it needed any more driving home).  It was not that long ago that this conundrum was being played out in Ottawa.  It still is a concern in Africa and with people I know there. And women die. Less than two years ago, another young mother that I know died with a post-partum hemorrhage.  The baby survived but without a mother. 

The other fellow who passed away in the community this week, a 32 year old fisherman with three young children, died of what sounds to me like an Upper Gi Bleed.  Here, he would likely have had access to the medical care to prevent or manage this.  In Kamin Oningo there is no medical care in close proximity and most people can not afford transport to the nearest facilities that can deal with this or the meagre fees that are charged for health services.  So they leave it too late.  

Tobias has reached out to his friends for financial help so the families can achieve  release of the bodies of these two community members from the mortuary and to help to provide a funeral and burial for them.  I struggle to imagine what it is like to lose your wife, have a newborn baby at home and four other children and not have enough money to retrieve the body from the mortuary. Of course, the families will also be distraught by the deaths and suffer even more financially.

If anyone feels they want to reach out in support, I will be pleased to receive any donations and forward them directly to Africa where they will be used in support of these two bereaved families.  Even $10 will help.   An online transfer is best (john.a.geddes@gmail.com) or give me ten bucks when you see me next.  I promise that every cent will reach this community and the grieving families.

(This is not a CanAssist request, by the way, but a personal one from me.)

I would also recommend you seeing What a Young Wife Ought to Know at the Baby Grand – playing from now until February 16. And when you see it, realize what many women/families around the world are still going through and how it is not that long ago that this was the situation here in Canada.

The Kamin Oningo fishing community is suffering this week more than usual.

I have always enjoyed a good party.

Posted on by
2

Last fall, my friend Margi McKay interviewed me as part of a Kingston Public Library project to have people select an old photo from their past and talk about it.  You might enjoy listening to the 22 minute interview.  I am happy to have it preserved.  Some day my grandchildren or great grandchildren will be able to hear me talk about my childhood.

And how things have changed in my lifetime.  I feel like a bit of a pioneer.  The TV set in the photo was the latest technology.  Now everyone has this in their pocket.

There is a link below to an edited version of the interview but if you have the 20 minutes, the longer interview is better as it is more thoughtful and complete.  You can access it by clicking on the photo below or here.

2016-09-14-1315_GEDDES-Halloween-party-recto

For the shorter edited version you can click here.  It is a bit more rushed and the editing sounds like I have had about 4 cups of coffee prior to the interview.  But in these days of shorter attention span, this works well.  Click here for the abbreviated version.

I talk about 448 Mornington Ave, London in the interview.  It is where the party took place. Here is my brother Bob and I on the front porch of that house about the same time.

2016-09-14-1315_John-and-Bob-Geddes-circa-1953

James Stevenson – mixing his metaphors in a letter – 1880

Posted on by
Reply

This is a letter from my great great grandfather, James Stevenson ( b.1810 ) in July 1880.  He died  in September 1880. I think it is to his brother-in-law James Crinklaw who lived in Marietta Nebraska.

Sand Creek, 24th July 1880

Friend James,  Your letter was received …time and thanks for the information which was contained in it. Janet paid us a visit 2 weeks ago and I showed her your letter, as those you sent to her were all short ones. I got through taking the cures for a good  time but I have been sick ever since; in fact I was not well when I began it.  But you know that “need makes the wife trot” _ I wished to calm a little to keep the wolf from showing his nose at the door.  If we sit all day with our hands folded it is not to be expected that the Almighty will put a piece of bread into our mouths. He helps those who help themselves. This waiting, for “something to turn up” has been the rumination of thousands. Looking to the top of a ladder will never get one to the top of a building. So if we wish to surmount difficulties which may be in our way, we must not listlessly look at them as obstacles which it is out of our power to overcome; but with a firm resolve and a disposition which will stand no opposition, trample them down one by one as they approach as mountains in appearance will make them dwindle down to the size of molehills; and with health of body and God’s blessing added, success must ultimately follow. _ My liver is badly affected, and I have been taking medicine for 2 weeks. It has helped me somewhat, but the pain in my side is not gone yet.  My strength and what ambition I had, seem to have left me.  I have a sluggish feeling and am inclined to sleep. Bess has stood out all summer hoeing + weeding. I could get no one to hire. Not a potato or any other vegetable would we have had is she had not seen to the garden.  We will have more potatoes than will serve us, if they are a good crop.  Besides working in the garden she has all along seen tot he watering, feeding and pulling weeds for the hogs, which have done well under her management.   She is in good health being able to eat her breakfast between 5+6 every morning.  There is some talk of Ellen Fleming going west in September to take up hadn’t in Holt Co where her brother Andrew and John Gaiene are going. She told Bess that she was going your way to get a carpet wove and offered to take Bess + her carpet along with her.  I have no doubt but what she will go , provided my health Improves any, as she is anxious to see all who are connected with her.Harvest has just commenced, Wheat is late this season but will be a better yield than was expected some time ago, _ Corn will be an abundant crop.  Bess wished Georgina to tell Ellen that she is well and will perhaps see her before too long.  I send you a “Face Press” along with this letter,  I should like to go to Knox Co to see the folks, giving you a visit as I passed along, but I must wait for more strength to undergo the journey. My respects to Georgina and all your family, in the meantime believe me to be yours truly,  

 

James Stevenson

P.S. write when you feel like it.

*** Linda D. Crinklaw,  who has done extensive research about the Crinklaw family adds this information about James and the “James” to whom the letter is addressed:

“I believe the letter was sent to Neligh, Antelope Co., Nebraska to James Bainard [1817 Coventry, England- 1894 Neligh, Antelope Co., Nebraska] , husband of Georgina Spiers (Crinklaw) Bainard, half-sister of your Elizabeth (Crinklaw) Stevenson, wife of James Stevenson.   Georgina (Crinklaw) Bainard is Family #9 in George Fraser’s book.  Note that the letter ends, “My respects to Georgina and all your family.”  I think the Janet to whom the last letter from the James (person being sent this letter by James Stevenson) is Janet Elizabeth Bainard, daughter of Georgina (Crinklaw) and James Bainard.  In other words, James Stevenson showed her the letter written to him by her father, James Bainard, who wrote her only short letters.  Janet Bainard was a school teacher, and after teaching in Illinois in the 1870s, she taught by 1879 in Saunders Co., Nebraska four miles from the home of her uncle, Walter Crinklaw, Sr., in Marietta, Saunders Co., Nebraska.  Her aunt, Janet (Crinklaw) Gilchrist and her husband, James Gilchrist, also lived in Marietta, Saunders Co., Nebraska in 1880. Your Stevensons were living in Sand Creek, Saunders Co., Nebraska in 1880.  The Bainards (James and Georgina) moved from their farm in Illinois to Neligh, Antelope Co., Nebraska in 1880.  James Crinklaw, Jr. had apparently from your letter left the Stevensons after setting up the garden for them in 1879 according to my letter. He must have been gone in 1880 and not there to help your Elizabeth.  James Crinklaw, Jr. had his own homestead in Antelope Co., Nebraska by 1885, but left it c. 1886 and disappeared for awhile. “

Looking back at 2014

Posted on by
Reply

Facebook has been offering photos from the past year as a rehash but it only uses photos that were posted on my Facebook page.  Anyone who knows me also knows that I like to do things my way.  So here is my version of 2014 in review.

In addition to these photographic glimpses, there were many more moments/hours with family, medical residents, friends who share my passion for helping in Africa, the cast and crew of Fault, Starbucks chatters and my KIngs Town Players Brew Pub buds – lots of friends and family to hug and laugh with throughout the year.  Thanks to all of you who were part of this.  And for those who missed out in 2014… we are starting a new year if you want to be in next year’s collection of happy memories, I am always willing to have coffee or a beer or dinner or lunch or just a chat.

My best wishes  for a healthy and satisfying 2015.

Where is this heading?

Posted on by
6

I am worried about Ebola. It is rapidly spinning out of control.

Photo from internet

Photo from internet

I can’t imagine what it would be like to be a four-year old African child whose mother is dying of Ebola and I can not hug her or comfort her as she is dragged off by people looking like space travellers. I can not imagine what it is like to be a health care worker in a facility where there is no clean water supply, limited resources and few beds and knowing that just touching someone who is infected to provide care for them or make them more comfortable is risking my own life.

It annoys me somewhat when I see the panicked response of the U.S. or Spain when they get one case that is treated in health care systems that have funding many, many times that of the West African countries that are struggling to manage it. When the outbreak affects thousands in Liberia, far away, the response is muted. When one person in North America is treated with it, the response is a cascade of protective efforts, likely costing billions in the long run. I am not saying this is wrong, just imbalanced and so self-absorbed.

It frustrates me to know that the international community has dragged their feet in responding to this outbreak … until it becomes obvious that, with international travel, it is only a matter of time that the disease reaches us. It worries me that other African countries will soon be at risk and that their health care systems will do their best, but are woefully inadequate to cope with the anticipated exponential spread of this virus.   It troubles me to know that economies in many African countries, already struggling with poverty, will be decimated. Tourism is a major source of income. What traveller is going to pick an African vacation for their family with all this negative press and uncertainty?

When I graduated from medical school in 1974 there was no AIDS. Well, there were a few cases, scattered somewhere, but we didn’t know about it. Now millions have been infected and died of AIDS and although we have medications to manage it, we do not have a cure, nor effective immunization against it. Will Ebola be the next AIDS? Or worse?

What can we do about it? What can I do about it? So far the Canadian government has allocated about 5-6 million dollars to this crisis. They have also just approved an air bombing campaign in Iraq of undetermined cost but with estimates of 100 million dollars or more.   It costs close to $17,000 per hour to operate a CF-18 and each JDAM-equipped bomb that is dropped costs about $25,000. Can we get our priorities straight? Or at least balance them? How do we influence these decisions?

I have worked for the past five years to help to provide infrastructure improvements for schools, clinics and communities in East Africa through the CanAssist African Relief Trust. Will this be at all helpful if Ebola spreads eastward in Africa? I would like to think it will help. Education about spread of the disease and protection from it is essential to avoid infection and schools are a resource to help with that. CanAssist has supported clinics in several communities and has provided improved water and sanitation to communities and schools. Hopefully this will help if the need arises. Without adequate sanitation or access to clean water, how can anyone avoid contamination? CanAssist’s work involves only a few communities – we have limited resources despite a never-ending need. But hopefully, by preparing some communities a bit with infrastructure to help manage any possible outbreak (of Ebola or any other health threat) we can, in fact, save a few lives.

I plan to return to East Africa early in 2015. In addition to continuing to monitor and support new and existing projects through CanAssist (at no cost to our donors, by the way) I will be thinking about helping to provide some medical information about Ebola to the communities that I visit in preparation for what I fervently hope does not happen there. I have often felt that if Africa was educated about HIV/AIDS early on that this scourge would not have taken hold the way it did. Maybe with some warning and information, countries neighbouring those currently affected by Ebola can prepare to prevent it from engulfing in their communities. Not a panicked, emergency response but a practical preparation for a possible threat. It is worth a try.

“If I am only for myself, then what am I? And, if not now, when?” Rabbi Hillel, 50 BC

Slums in Africa house millions of people with little access to health facilities, clean water or sanitation. How would you contain it if an Ebola strikes here?

Slums in Africa house millions of people with little access to health facilities, clean water or sanitation. How would you contain it if  Ebola strikes here?

1957-58

Posted on by
2

John 57-58

My post about 1953 seemed to be a popular one.  I have another school photo from 1957-58 so I will tell you about that year, too.

Our family had moved from Mornington Ave to Victoria Street in London and I was going to Ryerson Public School. I would have turned ten that year.  I have a granddaughter older than that now.

When I look at the class photo (Grade 5) i can name all the kids in the photo. Some are just first names but 57 years later I still remember these names. Some of us stuck together through high school. Last  week, on Facebook, I saw a photo of some (I initially put the word “old” in here but took it out as they all looked pretty good and I was referring to the duration of our friendship, not the ladies themselves)  friends from high school and the girl with the ponytail and the white dress near the middle of the class picture was in the photo.  1957

I wonder what became of these schoolmates.  One of them became an Ontario Member of Parliament for several years. His brother was Premier of the province for some time. Where are you now, Alan Cotton, Sandra Hansford, Mina Orenstein, Phillip Somerville, Nancy Lamon, Diane Kendall, Susan Sherlock? I could list them all.

I think it may have been in grade 5 that I started my acting “career”.  I wrote, directed and starred in a class production of “The Emperor’s New Clothes”.   Sort of the Kevin Costner (or maybe more like the Woody Allen) of my school.

I also remember one of the girls in the middle row putting her tongue on a metal pole in the winter on our way home for lunch and having an episode very similar to  Flick in A Christmas Story.  She left  little shards of tongue on the pole as she tore it off.

What else was happening in 1957? It seems that Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly were popular – Elvis hitting it big on Ed Sullivan and then with his movie, Jailhouse Rock. That year he bought Graceland. When he appeared on network television they would only show him from the waist up, even when he was singing songs like Peace in the Valley. His pelvic gyrations were the 1957 equivalent of twerking and definitely not meant for children to see.

Queen Elizabeth visited Canada to open parliament. John Diefenbaker (Dief the Chief) was Prime Minister of Canada. The USSR put the first orbiting spacecraft into space – a two-foot big satellite called Sputnik. It was a big deal.

That summer I cut my foot on a piece of glass in Gibbons Park that summer. My Dad took me to a doctor friend of his to get stitches and I was pulled around in a wagon for a week and sat by the garage making Plaster of Paris frogs and cars and little soldiers.

dodge 1957 canada (7)At some point we had a 1957 Dodge – white with turquoise strip and huge pointed fins on the back of it. My mom, who used to sing in a band during the war years, got an advertising gig on CFPL radio singing about the “daring new Dodge”. I thought my mom was famous.

 

With Grandpa Vardon (often in his undershirt) in the Grosvenor Street yard in 1957. The infamous fire pit was off to the left.

With Grandpa Vardon (often in his undershirt) in the Grosvenor Street yard in 1957. The infamous fire pit was off to the left.

My Grandparents lived a few blocks away on Grosvenor Street.  They were lots of fun.  Grandma Vardon played the accordion – earlier in her life she was a piano player for silent movies.  She also liked to have bonfires in her back yard barbecue pit – something that perhaps was not welcomed by the neighbours as evidenced by the occasional arrival of the fire department. I remember vividly roasting marshmallows over the fire as a hoard of firemen with hats and coats and hoses burst into the yard around the garage.