Author: Morgan McGuigan

The next part of our adventure was starting, but it looks like I was not too impressed (or maybe not happy?). On a postcard to my Aunt Jackie I wrote: Bonjour! We were at Versailles but weren’t too impressed… We have a real weird lady in our room who keeps on making statements such as…

In Ontario in 1970/71 they still had Grade 13. I had an additional year in high school compared to BC students. It was the year I only took four classes  — French, History, Enhanced English and one other class (maybe math?). I had dropped out of music where I played the clarinet because I was…

Following up on Anne’s theory that many of our “normal relatives” have their own strange stories, I offer some about my family. Our Grandpa Herb could swallow kitchen knives. It was a real performance, where he carefully showed us how there was nothing up his sleeve. Then he would lift it high above his head…

In 1982 the Nicaraguan government sent a message out to the world asking people to send supporters to their country to help with the harvest. It was to help the people of Nicaragua see the support that people around the world were giving to the new government that had overthrown the old corrupt government. They…

As far as I know, our family was not that affected by World War 2. We lived in Toronto, Ontario. Our Mother and Father were born in the 1930s and were children during World War 2. Neither of our grandparents were in the military at that point. I became curious at one point, and I…

Our paternal grandfather (John Victor McGuigan) came to Canada from Northern Ireland in 1914, six months after his father (John Campbell) had arrived to set up a home and business for them in Lindsay, Ontario. My paternal grandmother told us the story of how Grandpa McGuigan, usually called Jack, at 14 was the eldest son,…

This first appeared as a comment. Anne’s story reminds me of my travels in Europe, which must have been in the Fall of. 1971. I had just graduated from grade 13, and travelled through parts of Europe with a friend for 3 months. It was a “gap year”. We took a ferry from Denmark to…

This was a difficult question for me as I don’t usually love cities. So I thought I would talk about Vancouver, the city I moved to on January 8, 1976. I had quit University in November, and decided I need to move to a different city to be “independent”. I remember my aunt drove me…