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Brian's
School Photo in Ottawa
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Robyn and Tamara
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Brian and Robyn 1987 |
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Brian's
School Photo in Ottawa
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Ottawa offered
lots of things to do as a family. In February was Winterlude which
was a big celebration on the canal. The canal also offered winter
skating for the family which was quite the experience. In the Spring
they had an event to raise money for charity on the canal. They sold
rubber ducks for $2.00 that were released into the river and if your
duck made it passed the finish line you won a cash prize. Your
grandmother thought it would be a good contest to enter so she
bought four ducks, one for each member of the family. To
everyone's surprise Robyn's duck won a $100.00 prize.
Robyn was so
excited that her duck won - that is until her mother told her that
it was a family win and that the prize money had to be shared with
everyone. Well she just didn't accept that she wasn't entitled to
100% of the winnings even though it was her duck that won. To this
day she doesn't accept the concept that we coined; "the Duck
Rule" where the family shares the winnings.
A few doors down the street from us was a family who's mother
emigrated from Malawi in Africa. They had a daughter, Tamara,
who was about the same age as Robyn. They really got along
well and became very close friends - a friendship that still exists
today. One day Tamara's mother made both of them
identical dresses. The were so proud of these identical
dresses and claimed that they looked like twin sisters when wearing
these dresses as you can see in the photo at the right.
We had lots to do
in Ottawa - some planned and some things not so planned. On the
planned side we built a huge garden in the backyard with a winding
concrete-slab walkway through it so you could harvest the vegetables
without ever having to step in the dirt. We planted lots of
corn and harvested record breaking large tomatoes in the Fall.
On the unplanned
side we had a crazy, very paranoid neighbour. One Spring day we
noticed water coming in the basement window. We discovered
that the
cause was a buildup of ice on our sidewalk from runoff from the
neighbour's roof. So Brian and I went out to fix the problem. I was
breaking up the ice with an axe and Brian was throwing it off to the
side. We were making good progress until the Police arrived
and interrupted us. The neighbour had called the police because some
of the ice chunks that Brian was moving off the side walk had
landed on the neighbour's property - which was understandable since
the houses were only about 5 feet apart. The Police just shook their
heads and politely asked if we could please move the offending
pieces of ice.
We always knew
that Brian had a BIG heart. We found out how unlimited his
compassion was for others when we signed him up for a summer program
at the Boys and Girls Club. The kids were only charged one dollar a
day for their lunch consisting of a hot dog and drink. So Brian was
given $5 every month that was put on his account to pay for his
lunches Monday to Friday. This worked fine for the first
week but on Wednesday of the following week he came home to tell us
that his lunch account was empty. When we asked why, he said that
Sally didn't have any money so he bought her a hotdog. Billy was
thirsty so he bought him a drink and when they were eating outside a
dog ate Cameron's hotdog. After all he couldn't let them
go hungry.
One Saturday a
very special event happened just down the street. Brian had always
watched our friends son Tom hit golf balls in the empty field.
One day Tom surprised Brian with his very own golf
club that Tom has sized down for him. It was Brian's very
first club which was the beginning of Brian's life-long passion for
the game of Golf.
;)
;)
;)
;)
