Many of our car rides included a sing-along. In a good strong voice Dad would belt out a robust beginning to a song and we’d all join in, but before long the song would falter for lack of words. Just before it gave its last gasp, Dad would loop it back to the beginning, drawing us with him, and round we’d go again, with great gusto. In that way, one song lasted the duration of a trip. “I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen” was a favourite. Dad sang it to alleviate Mom’s yearning for England. At first that pleased her, but after years of the loop treatment, he needed only to sing the first line to elicit groans of despair from her.
I thought Dad was not only the smartest man alive, but also the most patient, kind, and all-round wonderful. He never lost his temper, never raised his voice except in laughter or song. He was not critical; he focused on the good. He was observant. If he noticed that you weren’t happy he’d comment on it out loud, so everyone knew what everybody else was feeling. I remember one spring when Mom spent day after day pacing irritably back and forth in front of the living room window, concentrating deeply on thoughts she wasn’t sharing, acting very much like a caged, angry animal. Bobby and I cringed. Finally Dad declared, “It’s spring. Your mother has had enough of this home life. She’s restless to get on the road again.”
Of course he was right. Mom was a performer, an entertainer, a star. Domestic chores were always a struggle. Her Sunday roasts were magnificent, but weekday meals confounded her. Fried Spam or hamburger patties with boiled potatoes made frequent appearances at our table. She tried to be more adventurous, but those attempts yielded little success. Once she slaved away all afternoon over some “mock duck” concoction gleaned from a magazine: in reality it was hammered flank steak, tough as shoe leather, rolled around bread stuffing. Too polite to criticize, we feigned delight and struggled to saw our way through it.
Vegetables in my home were mashed potatoes, canned peas, canned corn, or canned lima beans. I learned to detest them all, save the potatoes. Dessert was always pudding or canned fruit. No cakes or cookies ever came out from Mom’s oven. She never learned to bake.
But then, what would you expect from a dancer-cum-motorcyclist? Surely it was not a future of domestic bliss that attracted my mother to my father.
Anyway, my mother had lots of talents in other aspects of domestic life. She certainly was good at sewing. After she fought her way through her first project, living room drapes, there was no stopping her. She made all kinds of clothing, from cowboy shirts to tailored suits. And nothing looked homemade.
She played piano surprisingly well. She taught herself to read music, and eventually between hard work and her exceptional ear for music she was able play even complicated arrangements of popular or classical pieces. Rachmaninoff’s Prelude, Rustle of Spring, Deep Purple, and the boogie-woogie version of Flight of the Bumble-Bee come to mind.
She read voraciously, mostly fiction, especially science fiction. And she was a great storyteller. I remember once leaving the house just as my friend Shirley arrived. I explained I was on my way out and Shirley said, “Oh, that’s okay. I really came to visit your mother anyway. I was hoping she’d tell me one of her stories.”
Mom was good at handling money. When they travelled with the globe she always managed to surreptitiously sneak some money aside. At the end of the year she would have quite a little nest egg. But it was not for herself. Sooner or later Dad would find himself in a financial bind, and, to his relief, out would pop the secret stash. In Hamilton, she ran the household on rents from the apartments upstairs, and she could always manage to accumulate a little private cache of money. Come some unforeseen expense, we would be rescued again.
Dad was quick to give Mom credit for her ability to come to our rescue. But he must have thought the money came by magic, for after they stopped using the globe and we no longer had rental apartments, Dad still came to her, hat in hand, for unexpected expenses like income tax, and he seemed mystified when she had nothing to give. Surely only my father would find income tax to be an unexpected expense year after year.
Mom was around seventeen when she met Dad; he was eight years older, handsome, and a world traveller. Mom was always his biggest fan. She could disagree vociferously with Dad, but if anyone else tried, she would spring to his defence. And you could see, day in and day out, how happy she was in her life with him. They constantly showed each other affection, laughed together a lot, and obviously preferred being in each other’s company.
They talked everything over; Dad valued Mom’s opinion. And always, throughout their lives, they arranged to do some things together. In Hamilton they had their own small street motorcycles, and on many evenings they would go for a spin together at dusk, purring down the quiet side streets of Hamilton. They cherished their time alone.
However, they were not always lovebirds. They had fierce arguments, but the fierceness was all on Mom’s part. She had a fiery temper. When something displeased her, she’d rant and rave, while Dad, always the peace-maker, murmured in the background, “There, there Mildred.” Suddenly she would announce that she was leaving, cram some clothes into a suitcase, and storm out of the house and down the street. Dad would follow, imploring her to return. Bobby and I would tremble. Eventually, they would return, silently unpack the suitcase, and spend some private time together. After that, peace and happiness would reign once more.
When I was an adult Mom once confided in me about these episodes. “I got sick and tired of packing. I knew I’d soon be unpacking again. Eventually I stopped packing altogether. I just left. Once I stormed out of the house, marched along Main Street, and got on a streetcar. The door closed and then Bob rushed up to the glass door and started rapping on it,” she told me. “I urged the conductor, ‘Don’t let him on! Don’t let him on!’ Bob kept rapping. The poor conductor didn’t know what to do. He said, ‘Lady, I can’t just ignore a customer. I’ve got to let him on.’ Eventually I gave in, he let Bob on, then we got off the streetcar together and walked home, holding hands. I guess the people on the streetcar thought we were crazy.”
Mom once told me another suitcase story. She and Dad were in a small Ontario town with the carnival one evening when one of their spats erupted. In a fury, Mom packed up, raged out of their hotel room, and marched resolutely down the street, suitcase in hand. A car driving down the street in her direction slowed beside her, and a man wound down his window and quietly called to her, “Five dollars for five minutes?” Stunned for a moment, she recovered and retorted, “Bugger off!” then sharply turned and marched back to the hotel and the safety of married life. That may have been the moment when she gave up packing.
With all that activity going on around our house — a married couple riding out on dual motorcycles, carnival rides being constructed in the backyard, the house assuming constantly changing dimensions — it’s not surprising that our neighbours looked on us with a mixture of bewilderment and envy.
Occasionally I had friends whose parents wouldn’t allow them to come to my house. It was the show business connection. When I told my mother, she exploded. “These people are nothing! We are infinitely superior to these small-minded bigots who have never even been out of their own country. We are cultured, knowledgeable, well-travelled, and well-read.” Somewhat chastened, I tried to keep all of that in mind.
For the most part, we were impervious to what other people thought. They knew nothing. We never had visitors, other than show people, and then only once or twice a year. We never had company for dinner. Only once do I remember my parents attending a parent-teacher night for Bobby and me. We were completely insular.
One winter, Dad decided not to return to Stelco. He ran his own plumbing and heating business for about two years. Quickly it became clear that he was pretty good at getting work, very good at doing the work, and abysmal at collecting the money. And when he ran his own business, his evenings and weekends were totally absorbed by that. No time for inventions or for building carnival rides. He hated that. He felt more a prisoner of his own business than he ever had at Stelco. Around that time my parents also quit travelling with the carnival. They played only the Exhibition and fall fairs. Then they stopped even that.