1955 Grade three Parent teacher meetings

Last week in April 1955 ,it was the grade Three's turn to entertain the parents at the Parent Teacher meeting.
    The girls had told me, incorrectly, that it was at the May meeting. They came home on monday and said they had to be ready for Thursday. mary Jane had the part in the play as the girl so she was ok for a costume , but Suzanne was a fairy!
    In desperation I called her former dancing teacher Trixie and borrowed a turquoise ballet tutu from her younger daughter. I made a wreath of roses on a base of pipe cleaners, wound it with ribbon for the fairy crown, covered a window rod with silver foil, laced it with pink ribbon and managed the required star for the wand. I put pom poms on her old ballet shoes and Suzanne was a fairy. 
    I had to work all day Thursday so I could be off in the evening for the affair. I began to feel odd during the afternoon. I  threw away the aging daffodils on the desk thinking their rather high odor was affecting me. Then all of a sudden i had to run for the basement washroom and be violently sick. I struggled back upstairs and left Mary Forrester holding the desk and called Wilf to come and bring me home. I crawled into bed and didn't care if I  lived or died. 
    About six thirty I was sick again . I made it to the bathroom. Mother was passing the door, trailing the brood, and she held my throbbing head while I did my best to deposit my insides, whole and entire into the toilet!
    I had an audience too. I couldn't see them through the haze of illness,but I could hear their excited remarks. 
Mary jane: Suzanne Suzanne come and see mother. Is she ever sick. 
Suzanne: Gosh!Jimmee Jimmee, come quick!
Jimmy: Yippee!
Michael: Momma! Momm!
It wasn't any fun at all when I crawled back exhausted, into bed. That show was OVER!!   
    Then it started. "Aren't you coming to the show? Won't you come? You havta come! 
Although Mary had been phoned to take my place, I didn't have the strength to resist their pleas. And Mary would be there for emergencies,so I crawled out of bed and gor mary jane into her flowery best dress. Suzanne became a fairy, wistful and sweet!( no one would ever suspect the iron that runs through her system!)
    Mother took over Jimmy and made a little gentleman out of him, complete with grey flannels and blazer. michael the two year old, stayed home with his Granny. i was dragging myself into my suit when there was a feeble knock at the bedroom door. There stood Mary Jane , a key character of the P.T.A. play. 
" I don't feel very good!"
    Oh no, I thought. Miss Galloway will never forgive us. All those rehersals!
    There was a mad dash into the bathroom and unmistakable sounds. 
    "Oh Mary Jane! Mary Jane! Did you get any on your dress?" (a concerned Mother?)
    

1981 The Leprechan Trail

The Leprechaun Trail                                          

September 11, 1981.

Suzanne and I are off on the leprechaun trail. There is the Sarcee trail around Calgary and the lighthouse Trail around Nova Scotia, so we’ve named our Ireland tour the Leprechaun Trail.

We left Toronto at 8:55 PM Eastern standard time and will arrive in London at 2 AM our time, but 8 AM London time, and since we proposed to take a whirlwind tour of London, (we have six hours) that means we won’t get any sleep since we will have missed our night. It is 2 AM in the morning and we are nearing England flying towards piled up clouds that are streaked with pink. It is beautiful to watch. First a dot of pink and pale gold. Now the whole horizon is washed with colours. We are flying into the day.

1:20 PM London time Saturday, September 12, 1981.

I am sitting in Heathrow airport listening to messages over the PA system and watching streams of humanity going in all directions, waiting for our AerLingus flight to Shannon to be announced.

We arrived here ok in Ireland, but Suzanne’s luggage went on to Frankfurt they think, or maybe it never left Toronto, or perhaps it is in Stuttgart. But not to worry they say it will catch up with us. Not very reassuring because “they” will not commit themselves as to “when”.

A funny thing happened on the flight to London. We were plied with food and drink. Suzanne mistook the brown Styrofoam dish holding the desert for a chocolate shell and ate part of it before she realized she was eating the dishes. The stewardess had no idea what was so riotously funny about the food because we just couldn’t stop laughing.

An unpleasant incident happened coming through the British customs. Suzanne was ahead of me. The officer asked her how long she was remaining in London and she said, “six hours” “Where are you going?” said he. “Ireland” said Suzanne. His tone changed and he looked her straight in the eye and said “why”. Suzanne surprised; said “I beg your pardon?” The officer cold as a fish, repeated “I said why?”

Suzanne looked him straight in the eye and said “why not! It seems like a nice place to go on a Sunday morning in September “He snapped her passport shut and shrugged. I said we are travelling together, and he looked at my passport but did not dignify me with even a grunt.

We did do a great flash tour of London. 45 minutes from Heathrow airport to Piccadilly Circus, after two hours of trying to find baggage information and custom lineups so we had two hours to tour. Then we had one hour to get back to the next flight.

We walked swiftly with Suzanne several feet in the lead, through mobs of people, down Regent Street, saw Saint Martin’s in the fields, the opera house, the Haymarket. Then we spent some time in Trafalgar Square with thousands of pigeons, old people dozing on the benches, a group of east Indians in beautiful rainbow hued saris. A man was amusing his young son by stretching out his arms so that the pigeons would land on them. The Lions, the stone ones, were majestic, but the square was dirty the buildings were dark, and the traffic was noisy and frightening.

We hailed a cab a “Royals Royce” at that because Suzanne was determined to get to Buckingham Palace . The cabbie was cool when he found out we were heading for Ireland, a definite noticeable chill in his manner, but he got us to Buckingham Palace, and by great good luck there was a band playing and crowds all over the place .It was the changing of the guard. Suzanne disappeared into the crowd at one point with her camera and I was just about to hoot her name at the top of my voice palace guards or  no palace guards, when she reappeared.I have no idea how to get back to the airport I was just following her and I didn’t let her out of my sight again. I stepped out of the crowd onto the road to take a picture and was advanced upon frontally by a walking Bobby and from the rear by a mounted Bobby. I guess you just do not step out of line at Buckingham palace. The Bobby’s were so dignified!

We walked through St. James Park, which was surprisingly unkempt. Clumps of dandelions, patches of uncut grass, not what I expected of a London park. Saint James Palace was very imposing with people queueing up for miles, waiting patiently to get a glimpse of prince Charles and his young bride Diana’s presents. They were apparently all on public view in St. James Palace. The wrought iron gates of the palace were magnificent black and gold with huge coats of arms.

It is now 3 PM as I am writing this as we are flying over England The fields are not the rectangles or squares as they are in Canada. They are a crazy quilt design; all shapes and sizes and the cities seem to be laid in curves.

In London travelling from Heathrow on the underground we spent some of the trip over ground, and were amazed at the lush flower gardens, small as they were behind extremely poor looking houses. Gardens everywhere, even though some of the houses looked totally dilapidated. Two red buckets were standing at every station marked “fire “obviously elementary fire prevention, maybe sand in them, I guess.

My feet are killing me, they are swollen from the long flight so that I could hardly get my shoes on, and then, we ran through London high heels and all.

The stewardesses on AerLingus have lovely soft Irish voices, and the lady beside Suzanne is keeping up a constant stream of chatter in a delightful Brogue .I cannot believe that I am still awake! We have not stopped. Even on the plane something is happening all the time as the pilot just told us that we are over Wales. We can see clouds and a faraway outline of land.

September 12, 1981 Saturday.

It is now late in the evening at Saint Jude’s bed and breakfast. We have come so far in a short time and we are now in another world.

When you land at Shannon airport and have to pick up your rent a car for a tour of Ireland the first adventure is shifting gears with your left hand as you are sitting on the right-side of the car  behind the wheel.

 You are figuring out the next adventure which lasts for the full extent of your trip, that is driving on the left-hand side of the road. “Think left, think left” was our chant from Shannon to Bunratty and for many miles after that. The adventure is compounded into wide eyed terror at times because many people in Ireland drive their cars in the centre of the road leaving only spare room for a bicycle on either side.          

We got lost several times on the way from Shannon airport to St Jude’s. Suzanne talking to herself, keep left keep left and trying to get used to shifting gears with her left hand. Thank God I am not driving. Finally, we turned off into a little side road to try to figure out where we were on the map and a car turned onto the road behind us. He drew up behind us and stopped.

 A curly haired man leaned towards us. “Are you troublin”. he asked, and then proceeded to give us directions as to how to get to this place. I cannot believe the softness in the voices. 

Bunratty is a must stop as an introduction to the people of Ireland. The bed-and-breakfast places that dot the road behind Bunratty castle are run by Irish women who are proud of the service they offer, and in love with the land in which they live. We stayed longer in Bunratty than we originally intended because Suzanne’s luggage went on to Switzerland and Germany for a little tour of the continent all by itself.

          Una McNemary of Saint Jude‘s bed and breakfast provided travel advice and walking shoes to us, her own because high heels ours, did not suit the terrain. Her daughters boots fit Suzanne. 

This is a pretty bungalow type house, with a high hedge, on a side road leading past Bunratty castle on one side, and “Durty Nellies” on the other. The castle is huge, and the tavern is picturesque, with palm trees clustered by the wall that protects it from the road. One wall disappears into the river and one wall is made up of dovecotes. It was established as the Village Inn in 1620.

We ate there this evening on the advice of the owner of Saint Jude’s. Una told us to eat in the pub “just order over the bar. You’ll get the same as in the restaurant at half the price.” So, we did. We got our sandwich and Guinness (Suzanne drank mine) and sat on a narrow wooden bench in front of the bar. 

The place was divided into small rooms and swarming with people. Families at some of the tables, with small children. A nun came drifting by, no one took note, leaned on the bar, and received some kind of message, and went on. In one small alcove there was a group of people and a big black-haired man playing a piano while everyone sang. He got up from the piano steading himself on it, he had obviously been there a long time and had downed many a Guinness and sang “when Irish eyes are smiling” directly at Suzanne.

          I felt as if I was in a scene in a movie it was unreal. Low ceilings, stonewalls, the heavy old black oak benches and tables, the moldy old prints on the stone walls. The narrow one-person wide steep stairs sawdust sprinkled leading to rooms upstairs. We went up and in the deep deep old windows there were caged birds.

In another room downstairs there was a band that took up half the room with a weird drum with double edge drumsticks, some playing the spoons, and everybody’s laughing and singing until at the end of a wild song one lone voice begin to sing “In Belfast Town”, and except for the voice there was silence and all the laughing faces changed and were closed. But as soon as the song ended there was noise and laughter and other songs. I am reminded that my father used to say that the Irish could laugh with one eye and cry with the other!

I could not help but wish with all the shenanigans going on that Suzanne had been here with all the young ones. How Jimmy Michael and John and Mary Jane would have enjoyed all of this.

We came back to Saint Jude’s early enough to check by phone for Suzanne’s luggage. Apparently, there is a tracer on it, and hopefully it will follow tomorrow. There is no Air Canada office at Shannon Airport, so all the calls must go through to London. It is most disappointing because the empty suitcase came with her and the one with the clothes film etc. etc. went touring Europe all by itself.

We have a pretty room with the flowered pink bedspreads, but the place is as cold as a tomb. The welcome however is warm. Una is going to lend Suzanne a pair of shoes so we can go touring tomorrow we had intended to set out for Galway but because of waiting for her luggage we have changed our plans. Una suggests Killaloe a village in county Clare so that is where we will go after mass.

8 AM Sunday, September 13, 1981.

We were up yesterday we figured, about 32 hours. We walked about six hours of it in our high heels. I lay in bed this morning, (slept from 7:30 PM last evening to 7:30 AM) listening to the birds and having scenes from yesterday flashing through my mind. The rainbow in the field, the perfect arch of a rainbow, and when we came out onto the road we drove right through the other end of the arch. I couldn’t dig for the pot of gold because there was too much traffic. The rainbow was a good omen for our first day in Ireland. The big wide faced girl in a skirt and heavy rubber boots walking the narrow road behind a herd of cows. The little bit of an Irish lady who sat beside Suzanne on AerLingus, endowed so with the gift of the gab that she never shut up from London to Shannon, but it was pure entertainment from one story to another. She had opinions on everything. She asked Suzanne if she was married. Suzanne said no I’m divorced. There was a long pause then she looked at Suzanne out of the corner of her eye and said softly “ah there’s no divorce in Ireland, two people live their wretched  miserable lives together fighting and snarling but there’s no divorce in Ireland.” Then leaning close to Suzanne‘s shoulders she said, “And how is my darling Trudeau?”  

Suzanne mumbled “OK I guess.” Well she continued “if you ever meet him tell him all of Ireland loves him. He had the guts to get rid of the terrorists once and for all.”

          She had been visiting Germany and did not like the Germans. “Sure, they speak that foreign language all the time all the time.” Of course, in between comments she was ordering a bit of Irish for her coffee every time the stewardesses chanced by which was quite often.

We have had a most enjoyable breakfast. Orange juice, rashers of bacon, sausage, and eggs with delicious homemade brown soda bread. Linens on the table which is “mahogany” and served on Royal Tara fine bone China. Una’s 11-year-old does the serving. She has three children. Her husband works at the airport, and they have a pass on an airline and are going to visit America in October. They are a lovely family. 

We went to mass at “The Wells” an old old small church in farmland down a narrow road. It was built on a series of Holy Wells hence the name. The cars were parked  helter skelter all over the road , and many people were coming to mass on bicycles. The men were gathered together leaning on a fence outside, and all the women and children went into the church. The men entered in a solid body when the bell rang! From my limited observations so far, I would say that Irish society is segregated!

Every pew in the small dark church was marked with a wooden standard bearing a saint’s name. We chose Saint Anne’s seat.

The air was dank smelly and damp. I know why they use incense so much. The priest said mass with his back to the congregation. We knelt for communion and tucked  the pleated linen altar cloth under our collective chins. What a step back in time this was.

 The children’s choir was beautifully sweet, the sermon was a touching one considering the times in Ireland about peace and love and the sin of harbouring hatred and resentment against your neighbor. They recited the Litany  of the Blessed Virgin after mass and had Benediction The swinging sensors “Tantum Ergo” the whole bit. We missed the collection, I guess it was at the entrance, so I lit a candle and put my pound note in there when we left the church.

We set off on Una’s advice to search out castles on the road to Killaloe. We drove to the countryside. We came to Dromoland castle which was surrounded by a golf course. It turned out to be a hotel, American owned and very Americanized.

Knappogue Castle next on our itinerary was authentic.It was a real castle with stone walls, and stone outbuildings, and an archway built on the rise of land commanding the whole lovely countryside. Knappogue means “The Hill of the Kiss” and was built at Quin in 1467 by an Irish chieftain.It also was owned by an American couple who have restored it and live in apartments on the top floor. Medieval banquets are held here, and the servants were laying the tables in the dining hall. We saw a skeleton in the dungeon, and climbed the tower to look out over the beautiful green green countryside.

 Then we sat out for Killaloe. It was not far on the map, but we got lost a couple of times, but no matter, it is beautiful no matter where you drive, though the roads are destructively dangerous, very narrow and the turns unexpected to say the least.

Killaloe was picturesque, built up a hillside with the stores and houses right to the edge of the narrow sidewalks. The Catholic Church on the hilltop is supposed to have been built on the site of Bryan Boru’s establishment “Kincora”, when he was High King of Ireland. The remains of St Moa Lua’s Oratory have been resurrected beside the church. At the foot of the hill is The Cathedral of St Flannan, built in 1182 on the site of an even earlier church, probably the one beside it, a small steep roofed chapel. The door of the church was once the entrance(so the legend goes) to the tomb of the Munster King Murtagh  O’Brien who died in 1120. The dates throw me. Everything is so old, and so taken for granted.

The drive up the estuary of the Shannon to Lough Derg was beautiful. Sailboats on the lake, beautiful rolling landscape. We had corn beef and hot mustard sandwiches in a little tearoom in Killaloe. The people at the other tables were speaking Gaelic, and a little old man was very drunk and banging his teapot and cups around on the table in front of him. The waitress gave us a wink. “Tommy was drunk again” she said “you’ll have to excuse him every Sunday only”. It came out of her throat as a soft Soonday.

On the drive there were many handsome curly heads along the way. We tried to get to Tipperary and ended up close to Thurles, but never arrived at Thurles trying to do the following. We tried to follow our map! We also tried to get to holy Cross and ended up in Tipperary after some difficulty. We kept going in directions that did not jive with the map and the road signs.  

We stopped at a sign pointing to Tipperary, and asked a group of young teenage girls if that was the right way  . They laughed “ Ah No”and pointed in the opposite direction with the explanation that the  “kids” had changed the roadsigns around.

In Tipperary we tried to find Wilfred’s  grandfathers grave. Family history has it that he was buried in the military cemetery in Tipperary. We inquired and were told that there was no military cemetery in Tipperary, but there was Saint Johns, Saint Mary’s, and Saint Michael’s.

We roamed St. John’s (a forest of tall Celtic crosses blackened by time). St. Mary’s was locked, and we never did find St Michael’s. The directions given by Irishman vary greatly, and no matter how far it is “it is within walking distance”. Just to prove the fallacy of signs, I took a picture in Killaloe of a sign pointing the way to Saint Flannans in two directly opposite directions.

Some of the old roads are like driving down a green tunnel.. So narrow they are, andthe hedge rows meeting the trees, and the trees meeting over the road. Birds in the hedges. Magpies and a burnished fawn bird as large as a crow. The tiny bird darting in the thorn hedges is the Irish Robin. It is much smaller and more graceful than our fat robins and has a thrilling song.

The roads are unreal. The hedges are solid banks of earth surrounded by the hedge. The aerial on the car now has a 90° angle to it where we tried to take shelter in a hedge to avoid having a collision with an oncoming car. I do not know whether the drivers are Irish or tourists but they sure are inclined to hog the centre of the road.

Suzanne is a good driver and is becoming at ease with the steering wheel on the right side of the car, and the car on the left side of the road. We met cows on the roads and sheep, and cats and dogs and children. Men waved their black thorn sticks at us. We had to ask our way several times and was treated with the utmost of patience and unfailing courtesy.

The lads have an eye for Suzanne. She is receiving many waves and winks. The young men are handsome and full of blarney, the old men are drab.

The streets in the towns were full of people today, Sunday afternoon. The men were leaning up against the store fronts, and gathered by front fenced corners, and in all the church yards. The women had children with them and many baby carriages.

We drove “The Devils Bit” and the Arra mountains on whirling twirling roads. The car only left the earth once all four wheels when we went over a sudden unmarked rise in the road.    

We went through Limerick in a traffic jam, and back to Bunratty to check by phone about Suzanne‘s luggage, because it has not been delivered to Saint Judes as promised. It had been traced to Zürich that morning, with the assurance that it would be in Bunratty by afternoon. We ripped over to Shannon Airport, but everything was closed, no luggage, and then we had to hurry to get ready for the mediaeval banquet we were to attend at Bunratty castle which turned into an absolutely delightful experience well worth the twenty nine pounds for the two of us.

We were lucky to get tickets. Una called for reservations and there had been 2 tickets turned in otherwise it was all sold out.

Coming up the road to the Castle in the gathering darkness set the mood. Torches set in the walls of the Castle lighted the way . The entrance was up a narrow stone stairway. At the top was a lovely young woman, dressed in a flowing velvet dress of medieval times, who offered us a plate holding “the bread of friendship”. Brown soda bread and salt. We gathered in a Great Hall. There were people from all over the world, and were welcomed by a man in medieval dress who described the furnishings in the Hall and some of the traditions of the time, while we were served “honey and Mead” by the velvet clad ladies of the Castle. This Castles Great Hall was very impressive, hung with French and Flemish 15 century tapestries, and furnished with heavy oak of the period. An intricately carved dower chest had the first carving made when a girl child was born, and the last carving on it would be the coat of arms of her intended husband, shortly before her marriage.

We then went into the banquet Hall, tied on our red and blue bibs, and sat at long tables to be served by the ladies of the Castle who were very pretty Irish Colleens, who also doubled as musicians, playing harp violin and harpsichord, and we're also choristers. During the meal we were sung such songs as “The meeting of the waters”, Irish lullabies, and songs in Gaelic. The voices were high and pure, and the melodies were haunting.

An honorary Earl of the Castle was chosen from among the visitors, and he and his party sat at the head table on a raised dias. The “Master of Ceremonies” or whatever his medieval title was, had to taste all food in case of poisoning, and it had to be offered to the Earl,  for his approval before it was served to us.

No wonder we had bibs, we had to eat our delicious medieval meal with our fingers. Soup first, vegetable soup made with cream and unsalted butter. We drank it from pottery bowls. Spareribs boiled with herbs, capon carrots, green beans with mushroom sauce, round loaves of soft coarse brown bread, and a green salad. Ever try to eat shredded greens with your fingers? A pointed short knife like the modern potato knife was the only utensil you were given. The wine was served from earthenware jugs into earthenware mugs. It was red and dry but exceptionally light.

During the dinner a guest at our table was apprehended for some misdeed and dragged from the Hall, then put in a barred cell where we couldn't see him, but we could hear his pleading calls for help. He was left there for some time, and then was brought back into the Hall, told he would be freed if he paid a fine. His fine was to sing for the gathering. He started faltering “America” and since at least 95% of the company was American he soon had a chorus going.

After the dessert, a delicious trifle served with a small wooden spoon (thank goodness). Then we went to another Hall and were served coffee with brown sugar and smooth rich cream. Oh, the calories.

The people at our table were mostly Bostonians, 1 Canadian couple at the table behind us and many many Americans that were in Ireland on an ancestor hunt.

Monday September 14, 1981

My mind is so full of yesterday's scenes. Boys riding bareback on ponies on the narrow road, the priest’s graves in the front or beside the church marked by stone chalices and tall Celtic crosses. One whose bones had been returned from Perth Australia, to his home place. Tommy drunk again because it was “Soonday”. The streets filled with people and strolling children. Children children everywhere. We are heading around the coast road in Clare. We got lost in  Innis. It is 11:30 AM and we are on the way to Kilrush and Kilkee it is a glowering day!