What follows are excerpts of my life, pulled together under the backdrop of the modern technological marvel that is Google Maps’ Street View.
Always I have known of the application, but never did I realize the full extent to which it could allow me to travel deep into the history of my life, practically right into the various living rooms in which I grew up.
So for you, friends of Confessions of a Blogophobe, I took a journey through time and chronicled the details.
The result?
A collection of posts about the old haunts of my youth, and the moments that came to mind in vivid detail when I returned, if only in the metaphorical sense, to the cities, the towns and even the houses that I have called home over the years.
Enjoy.
***************
When last we tuned in to the Life and Times of Chubbs, I was lamenting the loss of my earliest rememberable roots, those I established early on in life on the only Canadian Forces Base I remember ever calling home.
After staring for hours at the pictures of what remains of those parts, I moved next to where I moved next, when The Moustache’s posting pushed us from the creature comforts of our little military community into the unknown obscurity of what seemed, then, like a completely foreign world.
So from the Base, I clicked my way on to where I lived for a time in the mid-80’s—new city, new province, new language—back then just a wee lad starting out in life, a unilingual Anglophone enrolled by then in a unilingual Francophone school.
What a thrill to navigate the roads I remember walking as a child, miraculously transported back through time at the tap of a keyboard and the click of a mouse.
In that Montreal suburb, first I landed here:
Near as I can remember, we lived in that house from about 1985 to 1987.
If you look closely on the left, you might still see the imprint of my face on that tree’s trunk. So caught up I once was in a game of tag, that as I looked behind me to evade my pursuer I failed to notice the tree in front of me until I met it head-on with a thud.
I survived, though for a time I lay on the ground dazed and confused. Granted, the tree was much smaller then, but then again so was I, so that tree was as strong and sturdy as ever when I barrelled into it like Wile E. Coyote crashing into a mountain’s rocky face.
Oddly enough, that memory was the first to come to mind when I finally landed on our old house; many more came to me as I examined every one of this picture’s finest details.
It was in that driveway that I first began winning Stanley Cups, in my mind always The Great One, in my reality recreating the minute details of a sweet Gretzky-Kurri passing play that led to the winning goal. I probably bounced a million tennis balls of the side of that house, and still today I remember the awful crack that came when I shattered my vintage Gretzky Titan TPM 2020 hockey stick right where that car is parked. What a sad day that was, at least for eight year-old me.
At the risk of offending the home’s present proprietors, and perhaps breaking the odd privacy law or two, let me take you on a tour.
Beyond the front bay window (which I don’t think was a bay window when we were there), is the dining room, where I recall writing lines on a few occasions, as punishment for whatever mischief I had gotten myself into.
I will listen in school.
I will listen in school.
I will listen in school.
The basement window below the bay window... I could look out that window from my top bunk, when for a time I shared the room with a stepbrother. Beside the bed was a desk, and from that desk I recall writing lines on a few occasions, as punishment for more mischief that I had gotten myself into.
I will not let myself be influenced by my friends.
I will not let myself be influenced by my friends.
I will not let myself be influenced by my friends.
So prolific I became at this form of punishment that I developed a system to make it easier on me on the odd occasion where I would relapse into questionable behaviour.
After I would show my father, The Moustache, my 50-odd lines of a repeated sentence, rarely would he ever confiscate my sheet.
Instead, I would simply put it back in my top drawer.
If I re-offended along the same lines—not listen in school, or be influenced by my friends—the punishment would often go from 50 lines to 100. So I would just go to my room, pull out my sheet with 50 lines already done, and carry on from there.
Wily I was at even a young age!
It was also from the top bunk in that basement bedroom that I remember spending winter nights peaking through the blinds, waiting for the forecasted storm to move in, hopeful that by the time I would wake up in the morning our street would be impassable and my school closed for the day.
Upstairs, the two windows on the left are bedrooms (the far one the master bedroom, the other my bedroom before our step-siblings moved in). I remember once making a deal with The Moustache in that very room... something along the lines of “If I do all my homework without a fuss, then you have to let me wear sweat pants to school tomorrow instead of jeans.”
From the ages of five until at least nine, I wore nothing but sweat pants to school.
It was also in that house, in that kitchen, that I once made my dinner disappear, or so The Moustache thought.
I was a fussy eater as a child, and much to my chagrin one night’s meal was a bowl of vegetable soup, far from ideal for a kid who much preferred chowing down on peanut butter toast. When The Moustache disappeared to the basement while I ate, I seized the opportunity to hide my bowl in the pantry, behind a wall of canned preserves that I mounted four or five high.
When The Moustache returned, I happily exclaimed that I had finished my soup, and had even done my dishes. He looked sceptical, but fell for the ruse anyway, until a few weeks later when he pulled a can from the pantry and found a bowl of moulding soup hiding behind it.
It was also in that kitchen that The Moustache would dress me in my hockey gear long before dawn, getting me ready for that great Canadian hockey tradition—the 6 a.m. practice.
At the rink in our home-town, I remember taking my first real strides on the ice, as a wee little lad on a wee little hockey team, discovering for the first time—that I can remember at least—the beautiful game of hockey and the many maddening intricacies of team-play. It was also there that I decided that I could never cut it as a goalie, and all it took was a 12-0 shellacking to bring home the point.
Yes, friends of C-o-a-B, I led a hard-knock life back in the early years.
But that’s not to say there was no turmoil when we lived here, because there was.
It was while we lived in that house that my folks separated and later divorced.
The only screaming match I ever remember between The Moustache and The Matriarch came there. In a way I am lucky; too young I was when they split to have been severely scarred by the experience.
Instead, I grew up spending every second weekend with The Matriarch, and later on, when circumstances conspired to have the Mother-of-Many and I move in with her, every second weekend or so with The Moustache.
And while living with a single father could have been difficult, life under The Moustache’s roof was for the most part good, and in fact even had its perks.
There were many nights when we would move the dining table to the side of the room and play soccer in the kitchen with the oven as my net. On Saturday nights, it would be hockey, with me in goal—complete with pads and glove, though my pads were pillows that I would tape to my legs—as The Moustache would wing tennis balls at me trying to score.
Doubtful that we would have gotten away with such shenanigans had a motherly presence been around to watch over the proceedings, perhaps the only point of good fortune—then at least—that came in the wake of The Moustache's and Matriarch's split.
Looking back on it now, life in that house was pleasant, if not perfect, minus the fact that most of it came with the Mother of Many and I shuttling between two homes in two cities, learning to live life as children of divorce.
After staring for hours at the pictures of what remains of those parts, I moved next to where I moved next, when The Moustache’s posting pushed us from the creature comforts of our little military community into the unknown obscurity of what seemed, then, like a completely foreign world.
So from the Base, I clicked my way on to where I lived for a time in the mid-80’s—new city, new province, new language—back then just a wee lad starting out in life, a unilingual Anglophone enrolled by then in a unilingual Francophone school.
What a thrill to navigate the roads I remember walking as a child, miraculously transported back through time at the tap of a keyboard and the click of a mouse.
In that Montreal suburb, first I landed here:
Near as I can remember, we lived in that house from about 1985 to 1987.
If you look closely on the left, you might still see the imprint of my face on that tree’s trunk. So caught up I once was in a game of tag, that as I looked behind me to evade my pursuer I failed to notice the tree in front of me until I met it head-on with a thud.
I survived, though for a time I lay on the ground dazed and confused. Granted, the tree was much smaller then, but then again so was I, so that tree was as strong and sturdy as ever when I barrelled into it like Wile E. Coyote crashing into a mountain’s rocky face.
Oddly enough, that memory was the first to come to mind when I finally landed on our old house; many more came to me as I examined every one of this picture’s finest details.
It was in that driveway that I first began winning Stanley Cups, in my mind always The Great One, in my reality recreating the minute details of a sweet Gretzky-Kurri passing play that led to the winning goal. I probably bounced a million tennis balls of the side of that house, and still today I remember the awful crack that came when I shattered my vintage Gretzky Titan TPM 2020 hockey stick right where that car is parked. What a sad day that was, at least for eight year-old me.
At the risk of offending the home’s present proprietors, and perhaps breaking the odd privacy law or two, let me take you on a tour.
Beyond the front bay window (which I don’t think was a bay window when we were there), is the dining room, where I recall writing lines on a few occasions, as punishment for whatever mischief I had gotten myself into.
I will listen in school.
I will listen in school.
I will listen in school.
The basement window below the bay window... I could look out that window from my top bunk, when for a time I shared the room with a stepbrother. Beside the bed was a desk, and from that desk I recall writing lines on a few occasions, as punishment for more mischief that I had gotten myself into.
I will not let myself be influenced by my friends.
I will not let myself be influenced by my friends.
I will not let myself be influenced by my friends.
So prolific I became at this form of punishment that I developed a system to make it easier on me on the odd occasion where I would relapse into questionable behaviour.
After I would show my father, The Moustache, my 50-odd lines of a repeated sentence, rarely would he ever confiscate my sheet.
Instead, I would simply put it back in my top drawer.
If I re-offended along the same lines—not listen in school, or be influenced by my friends—the punishment would often go from 50 lines to 100. So I would just go to my room, pull out my sheet with 50 lines already done, and carry on from there.
Wily I was at even a young age!
It was also from the top bunk in that basement bedroom that I remember spending winter nights peaking through the blinds, waiting for the forecasted storm to move in, hopeful that by the time I would wake up in the morning our street would be impassable and my school closed for the day.
Upstairs, the two windows on the left are bedrooms (the far one the master bedroom, the other my bedroom before our step-siblings moved in). I remember once making a deal with The Moustache in that very room... something along the lines of “If I do all my homework without a fuss, then you have to let me wear sweat pants to school tomorrow instead of jeans.”
From the ages of five until at least nine, I wore nothing but sweat pants to school.
It was also in that house, in that kitchen, that I once made my dinner disappear, or so The Moustache thought.
I was a fussy eater as a child, and much to my chagrin one night’s meal was a bowl of vegetable soup, far from ideal for a kid who much preferred chowing down on peanut butter toast. When The Moustache disappeared to the basement while I ate, I seized the opportunity to hide my bowl in the pantry, behind a wall of canned preserves that I mounted four or five high.
When The Moustache returned, I happily exclaimed that I had finished my soup, and had even done my dishes. He looked sceptical, but fell for the ruse anyway, until a few weeks later when he pulled a can from the pantry and found a bowl of moulding soup hiding behind it.
It was also in that kitchen that The Moustache would dress me in my hockey gear long before dawn, getting me ready for that great Canadian hockey tradition—the 6 a.m. practice.
At the rink in our home-town, I remember taking my first real strides on the ice, as a wee little lad on a wee little hockey team, discovering for the first time—that I can remember at least—the beautiful game of hockey and the many maddening intricacies of team-play. It was also there that I decided that I could never cut it as a goalie, and all it took was a 12-0 shellacking to bring home the point.
Yes, friends of C-o-a-B, I led a hard-knock life back in the early years.
But that’s not to say there was no turmoil when we lived here, because there was.
It was while we lived in that house that my folks separated and later divorced.
The only screaming match I ever remember between The Moustache and The Matriarch came there. In a way I am lucky; too young I was when they split to have been severely scarred by the experience.
Instead, I grew up spending every second weekend with The Matriarch, and later on, when circumstances conspired to have the Mother-of-Many and I move in with her, every second weekend or so with The Moustache.
And while living with a single father could have been difficult, life under The Moustache’s roof was for the most part good, and in fact even had its perks.
There were many nights when we would move the dining table to the side of the room and play soccer in the kitchen with the oven as my net. On Saturday nights, it would be hockey, with me in goal—complete with pads and glove, though my pads were pillows that I would tape to my legs—as The Moustache would wing tennis balls at me trying to score.
Doubtful that we would have gotten away with such shenanigans had a motherly presence been around to watch over the proceedings, perhaps the only point of good fortune—then at least—that came in the wake of The Moustache's and Matriarch's split.
Looking back on it now, life in that house was pleasant, if not perfect, minus the fact that most of it came with the Mother of Many and I shuttling between two homes in two cities, learning to live life as children of divorce.
We were challenged in that house, to learn a new way of life. To count on each other in difficult times and to grow not as a single family unit but as a family of single parents.
Perhaps not ideal then. But looking back on it now, probably the ideal way for the Life and Times of Chubbs to continue.
I learned something new today. Didn't know you had stepsibs.
ReplyDeleteGreat post Chubbs, I could envision each step you took us on, especially you and your dad playing soccer and football in the kitchen.....xxoo Aunt Wendy
ReplyDeleteFunny what we remember as kids. For me, that house brings back memories of pistachio pudding, watching the show 227 on Friday nights upstairs while you and dad would watch hockey downstairs. It's also the house that makes me think of Mme McGee and chocolate chip ice cream. Good times for the most part. I love taking these trips with you. You always had my back, even when we were kids. Love ya bro.
ReplyDeletePistachio pudding? WTF?
ReplyDelete227, o.k.
I even remember watching something like Dear Aunt Agnes, some show about a an old chick with a bunch of magic hats in a trunk.
But I don't remember pistachio pudding though.
LOL...I was just talking about Dear Aunt Agnes to the hubby the other day - not much on TV when you don't have cable.
ReplyDeleteI think I said this last time, but I wish I could have half a memory like you - I get bits and pieces here and there, but not as clear as you.
Always interesting to read these posts as I get to learn more about your life and times before we met so many years ago.