Family At Childhood

My father was a Toronto Firefighter, working mainly at the Main Street firehall, just south of Gerrard St. and the Main Street subway station.  The hours of a typical firefighter at that time was 12 hours on, 12 hours off, in groups of three and four days and nights.  I still remember the little calendar he used to carry with him in his wallet, with days marked as red numbers, and blue for the nights.  It would have six months laid out on each side, all on a plastic card the same size as your average credit card.  Damn, haven't thought about that until just now when I started writing about his shifts.  I seem to remember him leaving home around 5 or 6 in the morning, in order to get to the day shift, and I certainly remember him coming home one Christmas morning even before any of the presents had been opened.  I was thrilled that Christmas, because I was under the impression that he wouldn't be home that morning.  Sometimes he worked a double, which kept him away for a full 24 hours, and I can't remember whether that was a regular occurrence when he changed from days to nights or vice versa, or whether he was filling in for someone who wanted to be home for a specific day.  Regardless, there were quite a few Christmases when my father wasn't there.

That meant being with my mother.  She was for the most part a stay-at-home mom, but I remember her having secretarial jobs, or job, when I was really young.  Most of my early years, however, she was always at home.  I don't know whether it was because she was the parent present at most times, or whether it was just a part of her nature her entire life, but she was the main disciplinarian.  Either way, I very early had a general dislike of my mother and a wish to see more of my father.  I don't know that I ever actually loved either of them, early on or as I grew up, beyond the obligatory "You have to love your parents" crap that people are fed every day.  I do know that very early on I was aware that the two of them did not love each other, way before it became apparent to the rest of the world and family.  I also know that my reactions to their deaths was like night and day:  When I heard from my father through his lawyer that my mother had died, we threw an impromptu party; I'm still mourning the passing of my father, and nightmares keep reminding me of the fact.

My earliest memories are quite disjointed.  I have three that I can't decide the order of.  My very earliest memory, to my current knowledge, is of being awakened in my crib by a siren from either a police car, fire truck or ambulance, and both my mother and father coming into the room to respond to my crying.  My next memory is that of having to take a nap when my grandmother on my mother's side, Marjory Noble, was babysitting me.  I actually remember watching a clock near the crib (I think it was a crib I was in, since it was the same room, and when I got older and had my actual bedroom it wasn't the one I was in when I was a baby) and thinking that if I just stay quiet she'll think I'm asleep; I reasoned out that if she thought I slept long enough, she would come get me and we'd go back to playing.  I didn't know that she had probably put me down for a nap so she could rest.  I wasn't old enough to know that subtlety.

My third memory, probably not as old as the first two but still when I was quite young, took place in Niagara Falls.  I remember driving along what turned out to be Lundy's Lane and seeing a plaster dinosaur.  It ended up being at a miniature golf course which has long since been replaced by something else, but my early fascination with dinosaurs (which to my knowledge every male child has at one point or another) was fuelled by that image.  Not fossil fuelled, that would be bad for the environment.  My mother always said that when I was younger and we played, and I learned a word, like cow for instance, she'd pack us up, head north, find a cow and show it to me for real.  That's cool, if it is true...I honestly don't remember, but for decades I've taken her word for it.  I do know that we did a lot of travelling my entire childhood, and my Niagara Falls memory underlines that it happened even when I was at a very young age.

Beyond my immediate family and my grandmother on my mother's side, there was only one other group of family I ever remembered from that time.  That would be the other half of my grandmother's children, comprising my uncle Bill Noble, his wife Ardith, and their daughter Jennifer.  It was always a treat to visit Uncle Bill and Aunt Ardith because I could hopefully play with Jennifer, who even then was a couple of years older than I, and to this day somehow still seems to be.  The best visit I ever had was one that involved going there, to their house south of Kingston Road in east Scarborough, and having Jennifer ask me to play with her without having her parents push her to do so.  Looking back on it from now, I figure they probably made her do so, but arranged it before we arrived.  Jennifer didn't much like me at that age, and that was mainly due to my mother constantly acting as though I was the second coming of Christ or some such ridiculousness.  I was probably picking up on her attitudes, and that most likely made me a snob, or as much as one can be at that age.  I don't personally remember any behaviour that would label me as such, but I'm sure that with my mother's influence I would have exhibited that type of behaviour.

My sphere of close family only included the people listed above.  I have only vague memories of my grandfather on my mother's side, as he was slowly dying of cancer during those early years of my life, and I've either shut out the memories or was too young and restless to pay much attention.  I have thoughts from then, but this entry is too long already, so I'll move that to another post.  I have virtually no memories of my father's parents, but there is good reason for that and I will also cover that in the future.  For now, however, these were the people in my childhood, and who I began exploring the world with.