I came home to an empty house every day after school when I was in grade five. Mom was working in the office of Dad’s new fuel oil business. George and Agnes were babysat by the next-door neighbour, Mrs. Ottenbreit. That was considered safe enough in 1958. I was a reliable child, who could be trusted to come home and wash the breakfast dishes, do some housework and peel potatoes for dinner. What made that okay with me was that I got to have the one radio in the house all to myself. I could turn the dial to my favourite teen station– C-FUN to listen to the top 40 and the popular songs of the time. The rest of the time Mom and Dad listened to classical or Broadway musicals. But from 3:30 – 5, the radio was all mine. That’s how I got a taste for Elvis, Buddy Holly, Gene Vincent, The Platters and all that great music.
Mom, who it should be noted was not a paid employee of the business, only worked there until Sandy was born. Dad’s next family employee was his older cousin, Robert Laird Borden Macaulay, who went by “Bob” except to the family, who called him Borden. “Uncle Borden” who had some employment and alcohol issues, lived in the basement of our small subdivision home and was given the job of filling coal sacks and driving the little flat bed coal truck. This ended when Dad found out that Borden had been taking the truck to a Chinatown ally at night and pocketing the proceeds from selling sacks of coal off the back of the truck.
George finishes this part of the story:” From what I can remember, Grandad had decided the best thing for Borden was for him to re-enlist in the Army (even though he was 46 years old). That would solve his problems and get him out of our house. Borden seemed to go along with it, but a lot of things seem like a good idea when you are drinking. Grandad, who had been a major or colonel, was old friends with a senior officer at the Jericho Army base. On the trip to re-enlist, Borden opened the car door and got out when they were stopped at a traffic light in the Downtown Eastside. And that was the end of that. We continued to see Uncle Borden over the years, but he never worked for Dad again.
The next family employee to arrive was Uncle Alex, Dad’s uncle, our grandfather’s youngest brother. To me he was an old man -stocky and bald although I think he was only sixty. He was fairly quiet and I got the impression from adults that he was a bit odd. Someone mentioned that he had been “shell-shocked” in World War I trench warfare, at which time he would have been quite young. I remember sitting in the backseat of the car beside him on a drive to see the grandparents in West Vancouver. Uncle Alex sat with his arm around me, which made me feel a little uncomfortable, but I remember thinking that he was lonely, so I’d be kind to him.
Uncle Alex didn’t live in the basement. He lived in a small auto court (motel). Maybe he walked down to Dad’s business to do the bookkeeping that he helped with. One morning, he didn’t show up for work, so Dad went to the auto court to check on him. Agnes, a pre-schooler, was in the car with him and she remembers Dad coming out and telling her to stay in the car. Dad had found Uncle Alex dead in the shower. Adults later mentioned that he’d had a heart condition.
The open casket funeral was the first I ever attended, but of course, only the first for that generation. I remember being in a cemetery on the north shore at the burial.
A few weeks after the funeral, a small French-Canadian man called Floyd turned up at our house and stayed for a few weeks. He was introduced to us as Uncle Alex’s friend. I thought it strange that he came only after the funeral and I also found it strange that an adult had a friend. Dad had his Airforce comrades, AA pals, and business associates, but in that suburban/small town world I was used to, adults socialized with family or other married couples. Floyd was a chef, most recently employed in a lumber camp. I gathered that he and Uncle Alex had worked together when Uncle Alex did bookkeeping for the camp. Floyd cooked some dinners for us and taught me how to make baking powder biscuits.
I came home after school several times, entering through the kitchen door as we did, to hear Floyd playing the piano in the dining room. The song that sticks in my mind because he played it most was “Smoke Gets in Yours Eyes”
They asked me how I knew my true love was true
Oh, something here inside, cannot be denied
Smoke gets in your eyes
It was only in the early 1980’s after Gay Liberation had burst open the doors of silence and made it acceptable to talk about “odd” bachelor uncles that I learned from Dad that Floyd was Uncle Alex’s partner. I also found in my Grandmother’s diary that they had lived together: “Got a beautiful gift from Floyd and Alex this morning and have written to thank them.” Dec. 14, 1956.
Smoke gets in your eyes. Indeed.
That’s a beautiful story.
You hear stories like this years later. The story about Alex and Floyd makes me think of our great uncle who never married. We never knew why. He had had polio as a young child, and his arm was twisted. He was my favourite uncle because he was quiet and gentle, not loud and scary like his brother.
My father used to work at odd jobs as a young man, and in fact my Grandpa Herb had a printing machine in his basement that my dad used to help run. I think many people did whatever they could to survive.
The other thing that interested me was how you came home to an empty house in grade five. I did the same thing, but I was much older — in grade 10. I was responsible for picking up my two youngest siblings from a neighbour and bringing them home. Then I would start dinner, and my mother finished it when she came home. We had a profile of us published in the Toronto Star, focusing on a single mother and how her older children helped her.
The role of music in bringing solace to those who face difficulties and pain is seen in this posting.
The songs of Judy Garland were important to gay people, Smile Though Your Heart is Aching, Somewhere Over the Rainbow, etc.
It has been suggested that the very recent death of Judy Garland contributed to the Stonewall Riots of June 28th – July 3rd, 1969.
I am interested in the idea of Chinatown as a place where one would go to seek the illegal and the illicit. Such a pervasive idea that the 1974 movie about murder and deceit was simply called Chinatown.
And i’m intrigued with how your father found out that his cousin was selling coal in Chinatown. Did someone recognize the truck and the driver in Chinatown and tell your father? Or did your father notice that the truck was not where he expected it to be at night and surreptitiously follow it one evening?
Good questions. I don’t know if anyone will ever know now unless Mom does. Someone must have reported it to Dad – maybe a rival coal dealer thinking they were being undercut! I guess Uncle Borden just said he was taking the truck to go visit some friends in Vancouver because surely Dad would have heard the truck leaving our place at night. Uncle Borden drank in downtown east bars and lived in hotels down there after he lived with his mother. Maybe he had connections in Chinatown.
Your scrutinizing questions remind me a bit of students I used to have, for example very intelligent Chinese engineers or scientists, who would examine short stories we were reading and come up with logical flaws in the story. Not that I think you are doubting me!