Travelling Road Show - 1974 to 1976

... except ... it was a No Pets Allowed building.  I got evicted.

So I did the only logical thing - hopped on the next plane back to Beloeil and left the two cats with Mum and Dad.  Spotty, as he came to be known, was the scourge of the neighbourhood, chasing away all other domesticated animals from my parents' yard, much to the delight of my father.  Dooley, on the other hand, was content to sit on her throne in front of the living room window, getting fatter and fatter every day.  They both lived long and, we think, happy lives.

From West 11th, I moved to Harwood Street in Vancouver's West End, just a couple of blocks from the beach at English Bay.  It was a great location.  My apartment was, again, a one-room bachelor, but when a vacancy arose in the same building, I moved to a one-bedroom apartment.  I remember packing up everything I owned, stacking it by the doorway, and going away for the weekend while some friends moved my stuff from the 6th floor to the 3rd floor.  Sadly, I don't remember who those friends were.  (If you're reading this, many thanks again, and profound apologies for forgetting you.)

I was still working at Northwood, but had moved from inventory control to the accounting department.  In the beginning I spent almost all day, every day, doing bank reconciliations.  I got very fast using a calculator.  One of my bosses encouraged me to become an accountant, so I started the RIA program (later CMA, and now CPA).

Harwood Street

Travelling Road Show - 1973

Charlotte and I left Gloucester Street and moved to the top two floors of a funky old house on Sherbourne.  (The landlord was purportedly the model for the pirate on the Captain Morgan's rum bottle.)  We shared the space with a couple of roommates.  Life got complicated.

In May of 1973, I left Toronto for Calgary where I was to meet up with a friend.  There were no insurance companies in Calgary, so I worked for RusselSteel in their pump and water well department, doing inventory control.  Widgets ... we're talking LOTS of widgets ...  (This short employment interlude in Calgary actually set me up, career-wise, for the rest of my life.) 

I moved into an apartment in an old house at the end of a cul-de-sac. 

Plans with my friend fell through, so I moved again, in November, to Vancouver.  Vancouver was green, wet, and full of hippies, just as I imagined it would be.  It was the 70's after all!

I moved into a rooming house on Alder Street while I looked for a job and a more permanent place to live.  The rooming house was an eye-opening experience - I had obviously led a very sheltered life before moving to Vancouver. 

Because of my experience with RusselSteel in Calgary, I got a job with Northwood Building Materials in their inventory control department.  I moved into a real apartment on West 11th.  It was a penthouse bachelor apartment, go figure - a single room, small kitchen and bathroom, on the top floor of a four-story apartment building.  A nice fit for me and my two cats ... except ...

Only the Sherbourne Street house remains.

Travelling Road Show - 1972

On a Friday in the late fall of 1971, my friend, Charlotte, and I called in sick to our respective jobs and hopped the train to Toronto.  Resumes in hand, we went to Canada Life on University Avenue.  A couple of hours later we came out with jobs.

I was leaving home.

We found a two bedroom apartment on the 11th floor of a high-rise on Gloucester Street, just off Yonge.  (If I remember correctly, the rent was $170 a month, and my new salary was $72.50 a week.)  For the first time I had a bedroom to myself, and shared a bathroom with only one other person.  What luxury! 

We scoured the newspaper for good deals on furniture, and even rescued a couch from someone's garbage pile.  We hung bed sheets for curtains.  Charlotte macraméd a screen between the kitchen and the dining room.  We let the dishes soak in the sink for days.

I remember getting a bad cold that winter, and desperately wanting my mother there to tell me I was going to be okay.

Toronto water made my skin itch.

Alexander Street - Beloeil QC

 

Gloucester Street - Toronto ON

Travelling road show

I am not a pack rat.  In fact, I have quite a reputation in the family for throwing things out.  I tend not to sentimentalize objects.  Except ...  Well, I must confess that I have all my income tax returns back to 1973.  (I can't believe I threw out 1969 - 1972!  Must have got lost in one of the moves ...)

Before you ROTFL, I should point out that these documents have significant historical value.  They record every place I've worked (except, sadly, for those four missing years), every place I've lived, and how my income increased over time.

Just the other day I dug them out of the storage locker and built a spreadsheet of my life.

In 1972 I left my family home in Beloeil QC.   Forty years (forty years!) later, I'm living in Victoria BC.  And the Canada Revenue Agency can tell me exactly how I got here.

Touchdown!

Fall brings out the kid in me. All those chestnuts, acorns and pine cones littering the sidewalk, just waiting to be kicked!

100% paper - Part 2

Lisbon got short shrift from us, sad to say.  The ship didn't dock until afternoon, leaving us with less time than we would have liked to explore.  And even though the ship was docked in Lisbon overnight, there was all that prep around disembarking that interfered with our enjoyment of the city.  However, we did find the greatest shop, full of hand painted pottery, all made locally.  Bought a small souvenir to go with our 'blue collection'. 

Oceania Cruises takes the prize for the best cruise ship disembarkation ever.  We left the ship in small groups and were directed to our luggage on the pier, where there were porters waiting to help.  After getting all the bags into the bus, we drove to the airport where we were met by Oceania reps who walked us to the check in counters for TAP Portugal.  What a zoo!  However, after checking in, boarding passes issued all the way to Victoria, that same rep walked us to Security.  It was such a relief not to have to find our own way around the airport. 

Things got a little more complicated after that.  Our flight left two plus hours late, arriving in Heathrow a half hour after our connection to Vancouver had left.  (I had read on TripAdvisor before we left that TAP Portugal had a poor on-time record, but I took the complaints with a grain of salt.  Right ... )  Once in Heathrow (that is one BIG airport) we were directed to the Flight Connections desk for TAP Portugal for re-booking.  Before that, though, there was Passport Control and Security (though I'm not quite sure why ...).  By the time we made it to the Flight Connections desk, to learn that we needed to pick up our bags, then proceed to the ticketing desk to pick up our tickets for the NEXT DAY, we were feeling a bit battered and bruised.  Poor Tom, managing his cane and lugging around the CPAP machine that was gaining pounds by the minute ...  So I went over the the Assistance desk, and got Tom into a wheelchair.

Things improved significantly after that.  The wheelchair assistant knew all the places we had to go, and the shortest distances to get there.  He took us to the baggage carousel, thought things were moving too slowly, so checked with the guy on duty.  He told us not to bother picking up the bags, just to get them re-tagged when we checked in in the morning.  He took us to Zone K where we picked up hotel, meal and bus vouchers from another TAP Portugal desk, then on to the right bus stop for the shuttle to the Novotel.  It was so nice just to follow him.

At the hotel we were reunited with two other Victoria couples and a family from Vancouver, all in the same situation.  Adversity really brings people together.  We had a few drinks, dinner, and got to know each other.  It was almost like a party.  We compared clothing and toiletry restrictions (you don't want to know).  We bought toothpaste and toothbrushes from the front desk (£1.50 each) and, thankfully, a UK to CA plug adapter so Tom could use his CPAP (£4.99).  And, there was free WIFI in the hotel, so I could post martini pix on Facebook, and get in touch with my brother who was arriving in Victoria to visit and was expecting to find us at home later in the day.

This morning, rested, showered and in the same clothes as the day before, we caught the bus to the airport, checked in - with Air Canada this time - renegotiated our seat selections, and were almost on our way, when the Air Canada rep noticed Tom's cane and directed us immediately to the Assistance desk again.  It was a 25 minute walk from check-in to our gate!  But we travelled in style, CPAP in the wheelchair luggage rack (really), past the line-ups to the front, through Security and via hidden passageways on to the golf cart which delivered us right to the gate.

Now, as for the paper hat - it was the subject of much discussion, whether to abandon it on the ship, or risk crushing it useless on the way back.  After just missing a cloud burst in Lisbon, we decided that it was charmed.  Happy to say that it further survived countless security checks and under seat storage on the planes.   Kind of like us!

Epicurious

So we're in this fancy Italian restaurant - reservations required - aboard ship.  Tom orders lasagna.  Tom LOVES lasagna.  After he's had a few bites, I ask, "How is it?" "Not as good as Rick's ..." Sigh ... Disappointed again.