when Diane was not around, I would sit for hours on the front veranda, the willow tree rustling in the breeze, the waves lapping on the beach, contentedly sewing away on what were essentially duplicates of every other outfit I’d made.
“Want some lemonade?” Mom would come out and ask.
“Yes, please.”
I never recall any comment about what I was doing or how it looked. But compliments were not the style in our house, and my sense of worth in this — or any other endeavour — came from my own satisfaction doing it.
Where did all those grown-up outfits go? I fear that the constant strain of putting on and taking off was too much even for those double threaded seams. And the time was coming when Diane and I would be separated for two years and that would mark the end of our first venture into couture design.
Spring is in full flower this May, and I walk along Queen Street East, envying those lolling around at outdoor patios, drinking coffee amid the brilliant display of red and white geraniums flowing from hanging baskets. At Glen Manor Drive I pass Glen Stewart Park, a manicured array of gravelled walking paths, a stream whose course has been deftly altered to fit the city landscapers’ notion of a proper city park. There are warning signs all over the place — “Don’t pick the flowers,” “Wading in the stream prohibited,” “Motorized vehicles may not use these pathways.” No signs are needed warning parents not to allow children to go on their own into the upper ravine area. No parent today would allow that in this era of rapes, abductions, and murders. I reach my daughter’s townhouse and my part-time office, built on the site of where my parents’ friends, the Gunthers, used to live and about two hundred yards from where I was born. I catch the 10:00 a.m. news before I get working on my computer on the third floor. “Several students dead, many injured as two gunmen open fire in a school in the Midwest United States.”
I loved grade school, because there I learned much about the mysteries of human nature. Our stern school building matched perfectly the stance of our parish church, St. John’s. The Gospel text surely applied to our buildings. “The gates of hell will not prevail against us!” was the message. At the entrance to each room was an opening off to one side, referred to as the cloakroom — although none of us wore cloaks. Girls hung their coats on pegs on one side, boys on the other. In winter the cloakroom had that burned smell of wet mitts and galoshes. There were no school busses to save school children from slogging through rain or snow at this time. The rest of the year the distinctive odour from the purple jelly in the hectograph copying machine overpowered anything else.
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