Family Sit-Coms, Then and Now

     With the bizarre exit of Charlie Sheen from its cast, the television show, Two and a Half Men, has been in the news a lot lately. The show revolves around the antics of a wealthy bachelor whose life is filled with precarious relationships that rarely last more than two nights. His glaringly staid brother, who is going through a divorce, comes to live with him. The brother's obnoxious son visits on week-ends as stipulated by his overbearing and demanding ex-wife. Meanwhile, at the house now shared by the brothers, scantily clad and extremely dumb young girls romp. The staid soon to be divorced brother can only simultaneously gaze in horror at the lifestyle his brother lives and wistfully covet it.

      It got me thinking about sit-coms, in particular family oriented sit-coms and how they've changed. Back when I was a kid a television family was always a husband and wife, two or more children and a dog who wandered in and out of the house. Dad went off to a never quite specified job wearing a suit and tie, returned later, removed his suit jacket and donned a cardigan. He would then sit in his chair and read the paper. The camera would then cut to Mom who is in the kitchen (a very clean and unused kitchen I might add) cutting a cucumber. She is wearing a dress, pearls and high heels. The kids are in their tidy rooms. The fun begins. Leaving her kitchen to join Dad in the living room Mom sits on the arm of Dad's chair and relays, much to the delight of the audience if the laugh track is any gauge, what Kathy, or the Beaver, or Dennis, or any of the other sit-com kids has done. Using modest amounts of female trickery she gets Dad to understand the kids weren't really trying to be bad, they just made an error in judgement. Dad sets aside the paper, makes sure his tie is straight and calls the kids downstairs. Sitting them down he solemnly, and in a wonderfully worded non-lecture, lets them know the error of their ways. When finished he tousles their heads one by one.

      One child, speaking for them all, apologizes. “Gee willikers, Dad. Golly, we sure didn't mean to upset Mr. Wilson. Gosh, I see now how wrong it was. Thanks, Dad.” Lesson learned, they all smile and wander into the dining room to eat the elaborate dinner that was prepared from one cucumber.

      A far cry from the kid on Two and a Half Men drinking under age, vomiting into a toilet while Uncle Charlie sits on the side of the tub, drink in hand, smoking a cigar. There is no carefully worded caution, there is no subdued apology from the kid with promises to never do it again. It ends with Uncle Charlie, the kid's Dad and the kid sitting on Charlie's deck, observing the Pacific Ocean. No lesson learned.

      Is this perhaps a little more realistic than the sit-coms of old? Or are they both far-fetched and over the top caricatures depicting the times? Did any of us actually know a family like the Andersons, the Cleavers or the Stone family of The Donna Reed Show.

Who of us danced down the stairs in our ballet slippers and full skirts to announce to the living room in general we had a date. Did any one have a smart alecky friend like Eddie Haskell? “Good evening Mrs. Cleaver. That's a fine dress you're wearing today.” 
      I for one not only wanted to meet the Andersons, I wanted to be an Anderson. I wanted to be their youngest child, Kathy, who was affectionately called "Kitten" by her adoring Dad who never really ever raised his voice no matter what she may have done. Of course, Kitten never did anything serious, she never drank under age or threw tantrums or

didn't come home in time for dinner. Kitten's indiscretions tended more to be along the line of borrowing her sister's sweater without permission or breaking an ornament while throwing a pillow in the house and hiding the pieces from her parents. The only resemblance between Kitten and me was we both wore our hair in ponytails and wore dresses with Peter Pan Collars. But for me, a young girl growing up in Montreal without an older sister whose sweaters I could borrow without permission, that was enough.

      Based very loosely on current trends and morals, sit-coms take what we see around us and exaggerate them for laughs and ratings. Families like the Cleavers evolved into families like the ones on My Three Sons and The Brady Bunch, one parent or blended families. One parent families being held together by a hard working father, widowed of course, and a gruff but loving uncle who cooked and cleaned and ironed. This morphed into the blended family like The Brady Bunch, widow and widower get together and their kids learn to live under one roof with very little bickering or dissention other than minor squabbles that are quickly remedied by Mom and/or Dad.  Again,  acknowledging that not all families are the same. All In The Family was a new kind of family and perhaps a more realistic depiction of how people

lived when it first aired. Dad worked in a factory, didn't wear a cardigan, hung out at a bar and Mom didn't wear a string of pearls as she chopped her cucumber. There was only one child, not a precocious child but a grown woman who worked to support her student husband. Now that's a family that we can probably all relate to!

      So, does Two and a Half Men depict our society today? What about Modern Family? In todays society there are same-sex couples who live in harmony and with the acceptance of their families. Modern Family portrays Mitchell and Cameron as a couple who encounter the same problems that all couples have and doesn't get bogged down with serious problems they may encounter because they are gay. 

In some ways I'm supposing both Two and a Half Men and Modern Family have a grain of reality of how family life is today. I'm also supposing that as long as they get laughs and ratings the networks will evolve family based sit-coms in whatever manner they choose. Who knows, we may once again see Moms chopping cucumbers while wearing dresses and high heels but I somehow doubt it.

BRIDAL SHOWERS, THEN AND NOW

        It had been many years since I'd been invited to a bridal shower so when I received invitations to attend two within the space of a couple of weeks I was actually excited. I remember well how showers were constructed back in the late 60s and early 70s when it felt like they were pretty much the social scene every summer as all of our friends of a certain age were getting married.
      Once upon a time bridal showers were made up of some fairly standard yet unspoken rules. The shower was organized by the maid-of-honour and/or other friends but never by family members. The mother of the bride and the soon to be mother-in-law were in attendance at each shower, the food was much the same at each one, there were no children and never alcohol. The bride would be invited to someone's home under some false pretext such as the birth of a litter of kittens or the maid-of-honour

experiencing  some sort of crisis that needed the attention of the bride. In anticipation of the arrival of the guest of honour, and in fits of giggles, each guest relayed how she nearly spilled the beans about the shower when she met the bride by accident at Zellers or at the hairdresser or when they double dated two weeks ago. Time is spent admiring the cake, each others outfits and there is an audible feeling of excitement as we all awaited the imminent arrival of the soon to be bride.  When she shows up at the home where the shower is to take place, hopefully wearing something awful like paint splattered shorts or rollers in her hair, her friends jump out from their hiding places behind couches and chairs screaming, SURPRISE, much to the delight of the bride. It's her chance to be the centre of attention, to sit in the decorated chair and tell everyone how terribly surprised she is, that she had no idea at all. Well look at her, wearing cutoffs and hardly any make-up and the rollers in her hair...no she had no idea.

The shower has officially begun and a format is followed to ensure everyone has a good time. Games like Wedding Movie Charades or Raid the Purse are played.  The winners are delighted with their prize; usually something along the lines of a gift of colourful measuring cups or wooden salad spoons. After the games have been played, the bride, sitting in an arm chair decorated with paper wedding bells, opens her gifts one by one. Holding up tea towel after tea towel, pot holder after pot holder, tea cup after tea cup, smiling broadly from ear to ear, she tells each guest that you can never have too many tea towels, pot holders, tea cups, etc. One of the guests, the one with more spunk than the rest, has the important job of writing down everything the bride says while opening her gifts.  These scribbles are then read out to signify what the bride will say on her honeymoon night. “Ooooh, it's perfect.” “Can you believe it? It's beautiful.” “I've never seen one like that before.” Blushing, the bride laughs while glancing at her mother and future mother-in-law to see how they are reacting to this particular game. 

      After the gifts have been opened and suitably fawned over and the honeymoon conversation has been read, lunch is served. You are offered little egg salad or tuna salad or cucumber sandwiches that are strategically placed on colourful paper doilies. Of course, the crusts have been cut from the bread to make them dainty and bite-sized. At a swift glance you realize there are three per person. There is a pot of tea steeping and some lemonade to drink and an assortment of petite cookies. The beautiful cake is proudly produced with Congratulations written in icing, colour coordinated to match the paper doilies holding the sandwiches. The bride and her friends pose together, the bride poses with her gifts, the bride poses with the cake as each guest with a camera takes her turn. This can take up to 30 minutes but no one cares, everyone wants her picture taken with the bride. 

      I have been, in the past, to many showers that resemble what I have just described. In fact, I have been guilty of hosting a few too. It all sounds kind of silly but back then it wasn't. It was exciting and fun and we loved it. We were proud of our crustless sandwiches and our attempts to surprise the bride. We kind of hoped to catch her not looking her best to prove that she was well and truly surprised. We enjoyed watching the shocked faces of older relatives as we read the imaginary honeymoon conversation and hoped the comments would be lurid if taken the 'wrong' way.

      The showers I attended this summer were equally fun and oh so modern. The first shower was held outside and the hostess grilled sausages, hamburgers and chicken burgers that were served with an array of fresh salads. A little chocolate cake surrounded by tasty brownies, Nanaimo bars and other such goodies was laid out as dessert. No one went hungry. There were a few games but for the most part it was a group of friends and family getting together to honour the bride to be. The bride was dressed appropriately because she knew about the shower. The gift assortment, if you compared it with the gifts of the 60s/70s was nothing short of mind boggling. A few tea towels, to be sure, along with beautiful sets of glasses, a vase, an electric fan, two Adirondack chairs, champagne in a silver bucket, and on and on. Beautiful, well thought out gifts; even some clothing to take on her honeymoon.

      The best gift, in my humble opinion, was a beautiful and very sexy white nightie, a gift from the bride's 85 year old Grandmother. No one blushed. How times have changed.

      The second shower I attended was in honour of the bride-to-be's second marriage. The hostess gave us a theme; "Tacky Wedding Shower". We guests dressed up in the most tacky outfits possible and tacky we were. From ladies wearing their pyjamas and rollers to hooker-type get-ups, and one t-shirt that said Property of Pistol Pete's Porn Palace, we certainly got into the spirit.  Instead of the traditional umbrella, a Vegas-style fake palm tree with glittery lights decorated the bride's chair. . The assortment of food was restaurant worthy and the wine flowed . The bride sat under the fake palm tree with its twinkling fairy lights and opened her tacky gifts. Among
her gifts was a baseball cap that read Porn Star, a vintage LP entitled “Music to Keep Your Man Happy” and various other trinkets, some battery operated. Her main gift, a Keurig coffee maker complete with a selection of coffee, was presented to her from the group.

       Yes, it's true. The format of showers has changed over the years. The overall good feeling of friends getting together to honour the bride, share some food and laughs hasn't changed. Another thing that hasn't changed: The Hat. That's right, The hat made from a pie plate with the ribbons and bows from her gifts taped to it so that pictures of the bride wearing it can be taken. At both showers I attended this summer the bride was obligated to continue this tradition. And I believe that's how it should be. We have all worn that pie plate hat and it's only fair. Some traditions are just too grotesque and heart-warming to give up.

Give Me a Head With Hair

          All Baby-boomers remember the shocking play from the late sixties entitled 'Hair'. It was risque, boisterous and spawned quite a few top ten hits, including the title song, 'Hair'. Hair, and lots of it, was the subject of this song. 

          This got me to wondering. What do we women think about our hair? Don't most of us see our hair as the very essence of being female. We cut it, grow it, colour it, curl it, straighten it, style it, condition it, hot oil it, touch it, twirl it, swish it, flirt with it, hide behind it, and attract the opposite sex with it. It makes us feminine and, like pedicures and days at the spa, sets us apart from the males. It makes us girls.

          Being one of the above described women who is on a first name basis with her hairdresser, imagine, if you will, how I felt when shampooing my hair one day a huge handful came out. Staring at the many, many strands of hair coiled around my hand, in disbelief, I quickly ran my hands through my wet hair again. Even more strands in my hand. I was horrified, shocked and devastated. I started researching the internet. Female baldness. Alopecia. Scary stuff. There were many causes of female baldness but the one that I zeroed in on was not baldness at all. The technical term, Telogen Effluvium, is caused by trauma, having a baby, or major illness. Bingo. A quick trip to the doctor confirmed my findings. No, I haven't had a baby, at least not in the last 37 years and I had suffered no mental trauma. I had been ill. As a matter of fact, just before Christmas of 2010 I had been hospitalized, dramatically ill. So ill, in fact, that I spent seven days in the ICU being pumped full of antibiotics, fluids, and needing oxygen.

Not a happy woman.

Taken the day the hair stopped shedding

           After the initial 'shedding' my hair fell out in huge handfuls every day for two months. Then one day the shedding stopped. Just like that <snapping of fingers> there was no more shedding. Although I had been assured and reassured by the doctor that my hair loss was temporary so much of it had been lost that it seemed to me total baldness was my destiny. I would hazard a guess that over one-half of my hair fell out in those two months. When the shedding did stop the remaining hair was so incredibly damaged and dry it resembled the hair you see on a coconut; brittle, lifeless, sticky-uppy. I was not a happy woman but I was feeling better that my hair had actually stopped falling out.

Chin length bob I had been wearing for years.

    The hair I started out with was thick and curly and viewing my scalp wasn't something I had ever experienced.

This is where a fine hairdresser can be a life-saver. Someone so wonderful you consider inserting her name into your Will, bequeathing her most of your worldly goods. Well, not quite. But certainly good tips and sending referrals her way is nice.

          After the hair stopped falling, hair cut number one saw me sporting a kind of spiky little number that required a lot less product than before. Where I once used a golf ball sized squeeze of styling mousse a dime sized squirt now did the job. It dried much quicker too. Six weeks later, hair cut number two was just a small snip here and there. I began to feel new thickness in my hair; also a crazy itchiness of my scalp as new growth started to come through. Every now and then I would find abstract wisps of hair around my hair line that wouldn't sit up or sit down, just twist in a weird kind of unstructured curl. But do I

mind? Absolutely not. Perfect hair has never been my goal. Too thick, too curly-headed and too lazy to manage the stretching and blow drying necessary to keep up a perfect coif. Too much humidity to worry about my straightened hair frizzing up on me. I have always kept my curly hair in a natural state and the new hair is as tightly coiled as a spring.

Crazy curls. Phase 2.

          
           I  actually had some compliments on my new 'summer cut'. Cute, easy, great for summer were some of the reactions I received. Wow. Going to my hairdresser over the course of a year was an adventure unto itself. I enjoyed waiting for the colour to take, seeing what style she was going to produce as she snip, snip, snipped away. I liked hearing her promise that by Christmas I'd have all my hair back. 
          And she was right. My  hair did come back. The tightly coiled curls relaxed and I was back to my softer curled bob. Then another change. I am now left with hair unlike any hair I have never known or understood. It's not straight, exactly, but the curls have relaxed to the point where I can now have a totally different look should I choose. With my awesome hairstylist's advice and know-how I am now sporting a spiffy up-to-date look. The chin length curly bob I had been wearing for 10 or so years was on the chopping block, so to speak.

Not so curly now

Do I mind that my hair has changed drastically since the start of this metamorphosis that started in 2010? Well, no. Quite frankly, I just am so happy to once again have hair on my head that is not falling out by the  handful. Yes, it's vanity for sure. But it's hair after all. The essence of being female and I actually like being female. And like the song says, Give Me a Head With Hair.

Where's Bobby's Girl? Music of the 60s.

I have been thinking lately about the songs of the 60s, when lyrics seemed to fall into two categories: boy lyrics and girl lyrics. Not the fast tunes, I'm talking about the heart breaking, sad, slow dance songs that I believe had a theme. Boy lyrics revolved around unrequited love in the style of Roy Orbison and Bobby Vinton or death and sadness songs such as Tell Laura I Love Her. The boy loses the love of his life because she dies, he dies or he simply loses her to someone else. If it's the latter, he always sees her again and that's when we hear his plaintive song, 'Yes, now you're gone, And from this moment on, I'll be crying, Crying, crying, yeah crying'

Girl lyrics leaned toward desperation. Desperation to find true and lasting love. Songs of such neediness the singer throws herself at the feet of the object of her undying love. Songs like I Will Follow Him “I will follow him, Follow him wherever he may go.....” Or the hit, Johnny Get Angry, the lyrics begging the boyfriend to be more manly and get angry and....”I want a brave man, I want a cave man. Johnny show me that you care, really care for me.” The song implies that an angry boyfriend who yells at you and punches other people to show his love for you is desirable. In Bobby's Girl – the singer implores the heavens...”If I was Bobby's girl, If I was Bobby's girl, What a faithful thankful girl I'd be.” The word 'thankful' is just a little disturbing.

Now, don't get me wrong. I loved those songs back then, I still do today. But I wonder what impact those kinds of words had on impressionable young girls. The words seemed to be telling us, the females of the species, we needed a man to look after us no matter what. We needed a man to validate our existence and make our lives full and meaningful and we should have been thankful when it happened. Were we so desperate for love we would throw away any other ambitions and simply wait to be married to Johnny or Bobby or Bill thinking that was the end? Marriage was the end and there was nothing else beyond that? Kind of like fairy tales that end with the line, “And they lived happily ever after.”, taking for granted that the story ends right there with the marriage. Mission accomplished, nothing left to attain.

What happened to we girls from the 60s who listened to 'desperation songs'? Did we start out staring dreamily at a boy with a big head of Fabian type hair willing him to notice us? When he noticed us, did we forsake all others, even our closest girlfriends, and live only for his calls and our Friday night dates? Did the inevitable happen and we too got a fairy tale ending that read, 'And they lived happily ever after'? 

Personally, I've never believed that the words of a song could mold someone's life. I think those of us who danced to Johnny Angel in the arms of our high school sweethearts knew it was a song. When you're young, swaying to a slow song with your boyfriend is about as romantic as it gets. Once the music stopped or the song dropped out of the top 20 we moved on to the next hit. They were only words, after all, simple words meant to rhyme and fit the music for which they were written.

And what of us girls who swayed to those songs with the dreamy look in our eyes? What became of us? Many of us believed the dream and married our high school sweethearts at a young age; some successfully and some not so successfully. Some who were not successful moved right along through life and changed and grew. Some were college and university graduates who paved the way for women behind them in traditionally male professions. Many fought, marched for and brought about change. Those same girls became legal minds and doctors and executives while raising families. Women with a purpose.

Of course we swayed to the sentimental words, clutched to the boyfriend of the moment. That's what being young was, but, that didn't, in any way, mold or define our lives. At least, I don't believe it did. We were smart enough to know they were just words. Goofy, sentimental, simple, yet compelling words set to lyrical music so we could dance. Now, when we hear those same songs on some oldie station, memories transport us back in time. Once again, wearing our culottes, madras shirts and penny loafers, we feel the arms of our high school sweetheart around us and, once more, dance to our favourite slow song.

A Mother's Day Tribute

       

     She was a slender, elegantly dressed woman of English birth living in a small village of twenty or so families in an outpost of Newfoundland. She had wonderful posture and she crossed her legs when she sat, was always stylishly dressed and she drank vodka and orange. She played the piano and the accordion, she smoked with a certain elegance reminiscent of a 1940s movie star, she had a sarcastic and fast wit and she was a nurse. She was also my mother.

      My earliest recollections of her involve skirts that were worn mid-calf, below which were always high heeled shoes. I was small and the skirts seemed to me voluminous and were, at the age of three, the essence of her, my mother. When she wasn't wearing dresses and high heels she was in her white nursing shoes and a crisp white, cotton nursing uniform. People came to her so that she could dress their wounds, vaccinate their children, remove fish hooks and deliver babies. The district doctor visited our village and all the other little villages only periodically and when he made his rounds she went with him.

      Wearing a rain slicker and hat and her white nursing shoes she hopped into a dory in the dead of night to help the doctor as he ministered to the sick and dying. Gone was the well dressed young woman from London. Gone was my mother of the skirts and high heels. In her place was a nurse, all business and professionalism. Gliding across the ocean in the dory or perhaps rocking violently in a raging sea, off she went to be the nurse. It was her calling and no one could have done it better.

      When she wasn't rowing off to other out ports she conducted office hours in the surgery that had been set up in our home. She had an x-ray machine back there, scales, lots and lots of gauze and bandages, splints for setting broken bones, medicines, the makings of casts and lots and lots of thermometers. She removed thousands of fishing hooks from various parts of fishermens' bodies. She delivered babies, performed appendectomies, tonsillectomies, helped nurse the children through measles, mumps, chicken pox and consoled the families when someone did not survive. She made house calls in the manner of a rural doctor taking with her potions and lotions and medicines. Her surgery was large and well stocked and always locked. I was allowed in only when some child was frightened of the needle and I was to set a good example by being vaccinated first.

      She was a good nurse and she loved her profession. She loved everything about it. She loved her sturdy, stiff nursing hat that indicated by its shape and the colour of its band from which hospital she graduated. She loved her clean white and starched uniforms with her graduation brooch pinned safely to her bosom, just above her stop watch. She loved her white nursing shoes with their thick crepe soles and her white stockings. All of these things were to her proud symbols of the hard work and dedication she had put in during war time London. They were her reward for sleeping in a nurses dorm next to a hole in the wall made by an enemy bomb. They were her reward for never going underground to the shelters during the heaviest bombing of London, but staying above ground to help. They were her reward for the sacrifices she had made and the sacrifices she had yet to make.

      Training to be a nurse during WWII was no picnic. It was gruelling, frightening and alarming coupled with a certain excitement, momentary thrills and a live for the moment attitude. You were never sure you would live to see the end of this day and tomorrow – well tomorrow you might never see. There were rules to live by that students of today wouldn't tolerate. There were curfews, dress codes and personal conduct was called into question all in the name of upholding the reputation of the nursing profession. Nursing students were required to live in dormitories in the hospital and they weren't particularly comfortable or accommodating. You were to respect your elders and did as you were told.

      Upon graduation she nursed at Basingstoke Hospital, a renowned and well-known hospital that treated burn victims, of which there were many during WWII. While nursing there she met a young man, a Canadian sailor from Newfoundland. He had been very badly injured in a bombed building and she was assigned to be his nurse. Over the weeks months and years that he slowly mended and endured hundreds of operations she nursed him. In addition to her nursing duties, she wrote letters home for him, she read to him and they talked. On February 16^th, 1946, my mother married her patient and my father married his nurse.

      My mother continued to nurse right up until she became ill in 1984. She saw changes that she liked and changes that she didn't like. Advancements in medicine and modern convenience that extended life, she liked. She hated that white cotton uniforms were being phased out in favour of polyester pastels. She felt there was a lack of discipline in the young nurses when compared with her training. Mostly though she lamented the decline of the nurses hat. Starched, stiff, sitting proudly on her head, the band indicating from which hospital she graduated, that's what she really missed. She loved nursing and was proud to wear her cap

THE JERSEY BOYS

I have seen the stage production of Jersey Boys twice now. Once in Vegas with my husband, Erik, while celebrating our birthdays and again in Toronto with friends from Brockville. It’s a wonderful production that idealizes one of the more famous pop groups of our youth, The Four Seasons. It immortalizes their edgy lifestyle, their failed romances, the flawed dynamics of their foursome and their wonderful music.

The audience in both places was on its collective feet clapping, swaying, singing, mouthing the words and loving every second of this production. Balding heads bobbed to the music, women who imagined themselves once again thirteen swayed their older and somewhat bulkier bodies to the fantastic sounds emitting from the stage. With each new song that was played there was the recognition, the nudging of your partner to recollect and the sweet anticipation of the next song to come.

Nostalgia. It’s all about nostalgia. I said in a former article that the lives of Baby Boomers has become the fodder for nostalgia and by gosh it’s true. On stage we watch as four kids from Jersey evolve from street corner punks to lounge singers to the fringes of small time crime until finally they are The Four Seasons. They sing their way into our hearts and our collective memories until finally, at last, here it is, we all clap our hands to the strains of their first hit, from 1962, Sherry. “Sherry, Sherry baby, Sherrrrrry, Sherrrrry Baby, Sherry can you come out tonight, Come come come out tonight”. We all know the words, we mouth them, we look at the stranger sitting in the next seat and we give those knowing smiles. We all remember the words, “Why don’t you come out. To my twist party. Come out, Where the bright moon shines” we grin, we move in our seats and we are taken by the music back to 1962 with our shift dresses, madras shirts, nondescript hair styles, our fears and joys about being teenagers. All our teen-aged angst washes away as we look around at the audience; an audience of rounding, balding, shrinking people, just like us and we exult in our togetherness and our complete sense of joy and fun at what we are experiencing

We are reminiscing.

When I was younger I remember my mother reminiscing. She reminisced about the war years. She was British, born in London, and during the war she was training as a nurse. She lived through blackouts during which she walked many, many miles from her hospital in Dartford to her home in Greenwich (a huge distance!!) in order to spend her days off with her family. She went to pubs with her sisters and her brother and waited and anticipated the air raid sirens. She had American and Australian boyfriends until she met a Canadian in the Royal Navy who ultimately won her heart and brought her to Canada to live. But I digress.

She talked a lot about the war, especially during her later years. Like others of her era she thought they had the best music. What was the noise I was listening to? What was that dress I was wearing? In her day they had style. She did recognize that Elvis would be a star before I did when we watched him together on the Ed Sullivan Show way back when. She had a sense that he was something different and special. The other music she had a difficult time grasping.

And here I am, reminiscing. Watching both productions of Jersey Boys brought it all back. Oh my, yes, I remember hearing Sherry for the first time. “Sherry, can you come out tonight?” What a voice! Is that his real voice? He’s not as cute as Bobby Rydell. But I love the song. Walking along the street with my girlfriend, a pack of smokes carefully concealed in my dress pocket, singing at the top of our lungs, “You better ask your Mama, Sherry Baby, Tell her everything is alright. Come come come out tonight.” I didn’t care that I was incapable of carrying a tune, the song was riveting and I sang it as if I was Frankie Valli. In the same year they released Big Girls Don’t Cry and we heard the same high pitched falsetto, the incredible harmony, and saw them on television in their tailored, tight fitting suits doing their perfectly synchronized dance steps. The words resonated something to our silly teen-aged minds. Eat your hearts out Miley Cyrus and Brittany Spears ‘cause those boys could sing. They didn’t need gimmicks, million dollar productions behind them and slinky tight fitting outfits. They just stood there before us, wearing those peg-legged suits, that Brylcreemed hair shining like patent leather shoes, and boom, with a snap of Frankie’s fingers they were off. Harmonizing perfectly, swaying gently to the music in perfect time with each other, never for a second trying to conceal their tough accents. They were the real deal up there flaws and all and we loved it and ate it up. We wanted gangster type boyfriends who could sing and look cool in a suit.

Is it any wonder we go in droves to see their incarnations on the stage night after night to watch with fascination their semi-criminal lives, their ascent into the magic of stardom and their serious and quick decline. But not into obscurity. Never will it be into obscurity. Obscurity is for the less talented who managed for a brief amount of time to snatch the airwaves until it was acknowledged they were less talented. Then plummeted, ever so quietly into obscurity. The Four Seasons will not ever go that route. Not as long as today’s young singers want to emulate them and be them and tell their stories on the stage. And certainly not as long as there are the hordes of us Baby Boomers to fill the auditoriums waiting for the first few bars of their glorious first song, Sherry. “Why don’t you come out. With your red dress on. Come out. Mmm you look so fine. Come out. Move it nice and easy. Girl, you make me lose my mind.”

BREED SPECIFIC LEGISLATION

     Lennox is a 5 year old American Bulldog/Lab cross who lived with his family in Belfast, Northern Ireland. His family consists of his two owners and their eleven year old daughter who is handicapped. There is another pet, a Boxer dog. When the daughter is unable, due to her illness, to go outside and play with other children, Lennox is by her side.

     Lennox is up-to-date on all his shots, is neutered, micro-chipped, DNA tested and every year his owners get him licensed as is required in Belfast. He is insured and PetSafed and the family have DNA tests. Belfast does not insure or license banned dogs.

     In May of 2010, Lennox's family were visited by three Belfast City Counsil Dog Wardens and some local police (PSNI). They arrived unannounced. The dog wardens told the local police they were not required and they then sat down with the family and had tea. They chatted with the family, smoked cigarettes and played with the family dogs then one of the wardens measured Lennox. They measured his muzzle and his rear legs and based on those measurements decided that Lennox was a pit-bull 'type' dog. They didn't seek any professional assistance in this assessment; they simply ruled then and there that Lennox was a pit-bull 'type' and therefore they led him away from his family so that he could be put to death. Let's not forget that Belfast does not license or insure banned breeds and Lennox has been insured and licensed since he was eight weeks old.

     Two hours after Lennox was seized the family received a phone call from one of the wardens. The phone call was a thinly veiled attempt at intimidation. The family were told it was in their best interests to sign Lennox over to them or the owner would most certainly lose his job as they would be prosecuted in court. Since that time the family has tried, in vain, to get Lennox back. Their many phone calls to the Dog Control Manager have not been returned. They have been denied access to him.

Recently, photographs have emerged of Lennox in a very small concrete cell, with sawdust on the floor, surrounded by his own feces. There are no toys for stimulation and no sign of available water. Lennox has been sitting in this cell for ten months now. On the day of this writing, March 29^th,2011, the case of Lennox was heard in court and a Judge, by the name of Nixon, has decided that Lennox should die.

     Lennox's brother, Diesel, also lived in Belfast and his family was also visited by the wardens. In fact, the very same warden who decided Lennox was a pitbull 'type' and should die, decided that Diesel was a Lab cross and got to live.

     The arguements against BSL, or Breed Specific Legislation, are, in my opinion, overwhelming. Firstly, it would mean that all dogs would have to be breeds. That just isn't the case. There are many cross breeds and mutts out there. Who can tell what is in their genetic makeup? I guess getting a DNA test might help, but, let's not forget, Lennox's family did have a DNA test and it was ignored. The dog looked like a pitbull type. So that means that ferreting out the banned or dangerous dogs is subjective and probably arbitrary. It's up to the person doing the assessing if the dog looks like the 'type' they are after.

     Secondly, if it is decided that all pitbull type dogs are to be controlled or done away with, standing in second place would be a kind of dangerous dog that would soon be elevated to first position. Where would that end? Isn't there always going to be a larger scarier dog until perhaps the Cocker Spaniel is looked at with suspicion.

Thirdly, there actually is no evidence that BSL works. Let's face it. People who breed pitbulls specifically to fight, to be weapons or to guard their drug stash are breaking the law anyway. Owning a pitbull is the least of their sins and, quite frankly, I don't think they give a flying fig about the law. They don't even give a flying fig about the dogs. They shoot them when they are no longer necessary. If there are no pitbulls to be had they could just as easily use any other large breed of dog and train it.

Fourthly, don't you think it is just plain scary that someone can knock on your door, take a look at your family pet and cart it away to be killed based on the way it looks. Do we really want that? Knocks on the door by officials who can actually do that to us? I'm not talking about a pack of dogs running loose and biting people and terrorizing neighbourhoods. I'm not talking about a dog that attacks other dogs. I'm not talking about a dog who has bitten a person. I'm talking about your dog, your family pet, your Labrador Retreiver, your Goldendoodle, your beloved mutt being whisked away because it looks as though it might, at some undefined time in the future, perhaps do something dangerous. And then sit in a filthy, cold cell with no companionship, no water, no toys, no family for ten months while you, its owner, try to get him out to no avail. Do we want anyone to have that authority? For heaven's sake, even police need just cause when going to the houses of known criminals.

     What will happen to Lennox now is anyone's guess. The Belfast council seem to have dug their heels in and Lennox is now on death row. The Belfast City Council is deleting all emails that refer to Lennox. Clearly they do not wish to continue hearing that they made a tragic mistake. The public has been muzzled.

His family are appealing but what will be the damage to them all. What of the eleven year old girl who misses her pet, her friend. Does she know that he is going to die because of the way he looks? What of the owners? How do you fight something like that? How do you get beyond the frustration, anger and feelings of helplessness? How do you explain it to your daughter? What of Lennox? If he gets out at all, which he probably won't, what will the months of confinement have done to him? Will he be the same loving, carefree, well behaved pet? What an awful no win situation for everyone.

FINDING LOVE AFTER A 'CERTAIN' AGE

When people of a ‘certain’ age find themselves suddenly single, where do they turn to find love? Let’s forget for a moment singles bars and dating sites. Most singles bars have closed down due to lack of interest and smaller centers just wouldn’t have one anyway. Dating sites, while productive to some, don’t always work. People in their fifties and sixties may find it too personal, they don’t trust their information being sent off into a cyberspace. Anyway, lots of us just aren’t computer savvy.

Setups by friends can work, assuming you have friends who have single friends they want you to meet. Lots of people, though, don’t want to be in that position of being a matchmaker. Too much trouble and it can come back to bite you. So where do people of a particular age find love? Take the story of two of my favourite people in the world. Both I have known for many years, and seperately have played a part in my life.

They find themselves with spouses who are terminally ill and spend hours of each day visiting the hospital, each devoted to the care and needs of their ill partner. Mary, not her real name, has the kind of personality that is nurturing and all giving. Mary loves to take care of people and to feed them and look out for them and iron their clothes. Mary loves being a wife. Her children are grown with kids of their own. Her husband, who she visits daily, is her second husband; her first having succumbed at a young age to heart failure. Mary now finds herself, once again, contemplating the world alone without the love of a good man to whom she can cater.

Enter Joe. Not his real name, but nevertheless it fits with Mary and it’s an honest name. Joe is visiting his wife of many years who is also ill with no hope of recovery. Joe and his wife have been married for more than forty years, have grown children and several grandchildren and they are all at a loss about what will become of Joe.

Joe and Mary meet up one day in the hallway of the hospital. They have several mutual bonds. First and foremost, Joe and Mary knew each other many years ago; in fact they had many shared acquaintances. Time, as it often does, and circumstances had separated them as life took them down different paths. Secondly, they have their ailing spouses.

Of course, Joe and Mary, stayed in touch after the passing of their spouses. They had that in common. Their shared grief. And as their grief lessened they saw attributes in one another that would ultimately lead to love and marriage. There were no awkward introductions as they became reacquainted with each other’s family. It was familiar and easy.

At the time of their marriage, Joe and Mary were only in their early sixties. Not old. Young enough to grab at and hold onto another shot at love and life.

Joe and Mary have recently celebrated their twenty-first anniversary with a continued sharing of love and respect and an enormous sense of fun. They are busy with their extended and combined families, their many, many friends and their outside interests.

What is this phenomenon that draws us ultimately to someone from our past? Is it the safeness of the encounters? The shared background that makes our conversations, as we start the courtship, so much easier? Not having to ask the usual questions because we already know the answers?

Think of it. Dating is awful. When you are thirty and your skin is taut and your muscles are toned and you have energy to spare, it’s daunting. When you are well into your fifties and sixties, dating is downright intimidating. What will you talk about? What will you do on the first date? The second? If there’s a third, what then? You will discuss the banalities of life. Where are you from? Where did you go to school? Have you had any lasting relationships? The questions are never ending and the answers can be disappointing. Compare this with the accidental or intentional meeting with someone from your past. In the case of Mary and Joe, an old neighbour from many years gone by. No need for the mundane questions. You probably know if they have kids, what they do or did for a living, their religious views. It would be more a case of catching up with their life rather than getting to know about their life. You have a sense of how they treated their former partners because chances are good you were around them and saw first hand. Doesn’t this allow you to skip all the preliminary stuff and jump right into the important stuff, such as, Where is this wonderful road taking us? Are we falling in love?

I think it’s more than the safeness of the encounters. As we live longer and fuller lives, at the ripe old age of sixty we are more than ready for marriage again. We are ready for the romance when it comes along, the intrigue and the all-important love and what better person to experience it with than someone with whom you have some shared past. That’s what Joe and Mary have and now, at eighty-seven and eighty-four, their romance, intrigue and love are still strong with no visible signs of diminishing.

Clearly, Mary and Joe aren’t of the Baby Boomer generation, and, clearly, I did state that my articles would be Baby Boomer related. Yet their story is still valid and important for three very good reasons. First, Mary and Joe were our age when they had the fateful encounter in the corridors of a hospital that led to their romance and ultimate happy marriage. Second, they are the age of our parents so their children are Baby Boomers, and, third, I just really like their story.

ON BEING A SNOW BIRD

Snow birds have always interested me – you know the people who live in cold northern climates and escape to warmer southern climates in the dead of winter. I lived in Florida for six years in the 1960s . My mother was a permanent resident and I visited often, some times twice a year right up until 1984 when she died. Living there and having a home to go to while I visited made me feel more like a native than a snow bird. The snow birds were those very pale people who swam in the very cold ocean on days that Floridians wouldn't even venture to the beach.

This year I officially became a snow bird, travelling by car with my husband to Sarasota to visit a friend who had rented a condo for the winter. All of this was pretty new to me because I had never, in all my visits, been to Sarasota. When I lived there and during the time that I visited my mother she lived in southern Florida.

The drive down was fun as we watched the outside temperature begin to increase by a degree an hour and the snow gave way to bits of greenery, glorious sun and our first palm tree sighting. Boots and coats were relegated to the trunk as we donned shorts and sandals. Bliss.

Crossing into Florida from Georgia was, for me, a major shock. Suddenly there was traffic and lots of it. There were visitor information centres and lots of them. People at the visitor information centres wanted to help us get into Disney for practically nothing in exchange for a mere 2 hour tour of their Timeshare facility. They would even give us a reduced rate in their luxurious and well appointed resort. Ha! We thought, why not? We have no intention of buying anyway and if it saves us millions of dollars it can't hurt. We nearly did it....

Fortunately, we came to our senses. Disney, in my opinion, needs and deserves more time and attention than we could give it. I love Disney and to show it to my husband properly wouldn't be possible on our tight schedule. Better we leave it to our next Florida visit.

Instead we drove to St. Augustine, the oldest continuously settled city in the United States. It was during the drive from the border to St. Augustine that I started to wonder....what has happened to Florida. When did it become this awful urban sprawl? The traffic going along the freeway was bumper to bumper and moving at lightning speed. Going south on I95 through Jacksonville mid-morning on a Sunday seemed busier than rush hour traffic in Toronto. And it didn't let up until we pulled off the freeway to St. Augustine.

If you have been to Florida but not St. Augustine I would highly recommend that you do go there. It's a charming little city with preserved buildings, Victorian and older, that have been maintained in their original state. Owners of downtown houses and businesses can change the inside in any way they wish but must keep the outside historical. There are many ways to see St. Augustine; walking is a great option since it's a compact town or you can hop onto one of the tour 'trains', open air motorized vehicles that stop at about 20 or more locations allowing you to get on and off at will. The buildings and the colour of the downtown are lovely to look at and the pace is slow and easy. After a restful two day stop over in St. Augustine we continued our way through the unbelievable traffic to the Gulf Coast of Florida and Sarasota.

Sarasota, unlike St. Augustine, is an urban sprawl with four lane highways going through it and over it and under it. Sarasota beaches are wonderful, very fine white sand that is almost like talcum powder to the touch. For some reason it doesn't get too hot to walk on barefoot even at the height of the day's heat. There's an abundance of great restaurants, golfing, tennis, fishing, shopping pretty much anything that a snow bird, or a resident, could want. The problem for me, once again, was the weaving in and out through traffic that had to be done in order to get to the beach, the restaurant or the shopping. For this small town Brockvillian, while enjoying immensely the sunshine and the break from our every day lives, it didn't feel restful. St. Augustine, on the other hand, with its old world charm and quieter atmosphere will definitely be my destination of choice, should we decide to go back some winter.

Since coming back home the weather has been a mixed bag of snow, rain, sleet, spring-like temperatures followed by more snow and wind and rain and sleet and cold weather. I have found myself surfing the net for rental deals in the St. Augustine area of Florida, particularly for the month of March and more particularly for accommodation that is pet friendly so we can all go, us and the dogs. The pictures of palm trees, blue skies, bluer ocean, and the memory of walking shoeless on the beach is becoming more and more enticing. Winter is fine. Cross country skiing is fun, we love it and the dogs run along with us but March is something else. March with its sporadic weather patterns has, quite frankly, been getting on my nerves. I think next year, come the first of March, we will be packing up the car, doggies in back, and heading for Florida.

No matter your preference, busy city or quiet seaside town, there's nothing like sitting in a beach hut restaurant, sun on your face, eating shrimp and conch fritters, a glass of cold Pinot Grigio in your hand while looking at the ocean on a very warm and breezy afternoon. It makes it all the better knowing people back home are battling snow, icy winds and shovelling driveways. I'm going to like being a snow bird.

I ALWAYS KNEW I WOULD RETURN - IT WAS MY PLAN

Kim Little always knew that she would raise her children right here in Brockville; even before she had any children to consider, it was just "the plan".

Except for a short stint between grades one and five, when she lived in Kitchener and Pickering with her family, Kim’s school years were spent right here in Brockville. It was upon graduation from TISS that she left home to attend McMaster University and then Bishops University in Quebec. "Even then I knew I would come back to Brockville." And come back she did. Armed with her Bachelor of Arts degree Kim returned to Brockville where she quickly realized her education wasn’t going to help her. This was in 1991, a recession was raging and jobs were scarce. Not without determination, Kim secured a part-time job at a local gift shop and another part-time job as an instructor at St. Lawrence College.

"I was able to put together enough work so that I was doing full-time hours. I did that for a little over a year then moved to Edmonton with my then husband. He attended law school while I worked part-time at the University of Alberta where I also studied for my MBA." During the time Kim spent in Edmonton she recalls really missing Brockville. "I missed the rolling, rocky, lake-riddled terrain of Ontario and the geography of the St. Lawrence River. I once asked someone if there were any lakes around Edmonton for swimming and was told the lakes were either glacier-fed (too cold to swim) or ‘sloughs’." And what exactly is a slough? I had no idea and was given the explanation that it is "a kind of boggy marsh where you certainly didn’t go to swim".

Once her husband had finished law school, the young couple moved to the Toronto area where he was obligated to do his articling while Kim continued her studies at the Rotman School, University of Toronto. It was during this period that daughter, Jessica, was born. "We were like most young couples, not a lot of money, small apartment, but thrilled with this new addition to our family."

"On one of our visits to Brockville we bought a small house downtown. The studying was almost finished and the house would be waiting when the time came to return. With the help of family we would come down pretty much every week-end and work on fixing up the house so that it could be a home and office. It was a comfort knowing that we would have a home to come back to when my studies and his articling were completed."

"When Jessica was just over a year old we drove into Brockville for the last time as visitors. I was so happy to be back. We moved into our house just in time for Christmas with lots of family around. I remember the feeling of driving back knowing I was going home. It felt settled and right."

The only hindrance was they were both temporarily unemployed. "It didn’t matter though. It was so good to be back home in Brockville. This is where my roots were, my parents were here and it didn’t matter. There was a whole future out there. If there were no jobs to be had in Brockville, it wasn’t too far to Kingston and Ottawa." For the first four years back, Kim was self-employed on a contract basis. “I worked for local organizations, for companies in other provinces and even on different continents. With technology today, you can work just about anywhere at just about anything from a home-base of Brockville -- it's fantastic!"

Kim has been living back in Brockville for fourteen years now and there have been changes. The addition of son Zach, born in 1999, and the dissolution of her marriage a few years later. Today, Kim is a supervisor with the Human Services Division of the United Counties of Leeds and Grenville. She is frequently asked how an MBA landed her a job in the social services field, but insists that she applies her education routinely to the business of people serving people. "It is rewarding, challenging, and requires integrative thinking, something the MBA program fostered," says Kim who has been with the Counties for over 10 years in a variety of roles and programs.

Her personal life is equally gratifying. Kim now shares her life with her "co-pilot" Kyle who also left Brockville at one time, only to return to his roots. Kim, Kyle and the kids live in an older bungalow in the east end of Brockville. Though building new was appealing, Kyle and Kim like the convenience of being in town, the safety and maturity of their neighbourhood, and the proximity to schools. And so, they have been renovating for the past year to update the home. While mostly a DIY project, Kim had good things to say about the access to, and quality of work of the local trades people engaged over the course of the project. "Contractor, plumber, electrician, HVAC–they all showed when they said they would, finished when they said they would, and did a quality job."

Of course, I asked if she had any regrets, there are usually some regrets but all I got from Kim was a resounding, "No."

Is there anything she misses that Brockville doesn’t have that she became used to when living in larger cities? "Well I miss the selection of restaurants. And if I were still living in a larger centre, I'd probably take in the theatre more often. Sometimes I miss having those options."

Her quality of family life is so much more than she could have had living in a larger town. "The time that I don’t spend commuting for work means more time with my kids and Kyle. I believe my children are getting a good education here. It is so easy and rewarding to be involved in their education, and their activities." What about their activities? Do they have the same availability to them as larger towns offer? Kim’s reply, "The kids may have the same amount or even have fewer activities to choose from, but the accessibility is greater. It easy to get them to and from their activities. And when I’m there I know the kids, I know the parents of the kids; there isn’t a bunch of strangers all the time."

"Actually, the reasons why I am here could very well be the same reasons some people don’t want to be here. It’s small, you recognize people, people in service industries get to recognize you. My banker says hello to me on the street. I like the feeling that people here in Brockville really look out for each other."

"BROCKVILLE IS A FINE TOWN"

Melinda Hodgins grew up on Butterfield Place in the house her father had built for his family in 1957. A 1967 graduate of BCIVS, Melinda attended Queen’s University in Kingston, where she majored in English Literature and History of Art. In her third year, she attended Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland.

“Living in Ireland was wonderful, and after graduating from Queen`s, I returned to Dublin and studied for a further two years at Trinity. I spent as much of my leisure time as possible in the countryside, riding the incredible Irish horses. I loved living in Ireland and being at Trinity, but ultimately, the pull of Canada proved stronger.”

Ready to enter the working world, Melinda, found that Ottawa offered her exactly what she wanted and needed. It had the amenities of a city while retaining a small town aura. “I could take advantage of all that the city offered and still be in the country within thirty minutes. I found it easy to make friends because I had a horse, and when you have a hobby, any hobby, you will meet people through that hobby.”

Melinda secured a position with The International Development Research Centre (IDRC), an agency that works with researchers from developing countries in their search for the means to build better societies. She was surrounded by experts from all over the world and loved working in the company of highly trained and dedicated individuals. She agreed with the philosophy of capacity-building but was never really comfortable in the role of a bureaucrat. In the mid-90s, she was able to take advantage of a buy-out after eighteen years with the IDRC.

Melinda moved to the Canadian Psychiatric Association, where she served as the Senior Copy Editor of several medical journals. “Although I had a background in the humanities rather than in science, my skills in grammar, proof reading and editing served me well. I had also learned some invaluable managerial and administrative skills over time. After working with the Psychiatric Association for almost ten years, I was offered a position with the Canadian Medical Association as Managing Editor of The Journal of Psychiatry and Neuroscience and The Canadian Journal of Surgery.”

“I had certainly planned to work until retirement age. However, one day in June, I woke up to a beautiful morning and decided, just like that, to retire. It struck me that I was, fortunately, in a position to retire, and therefore ought to make the most of what might be the best years of my life.”

“In the meantime, my mother, back in Brockville, was widowed. I was again single after some twenty years, and we had been discussing combining our households. It made sense for me to move to the more spacious family home in Brockville.”

In August of 2008, with her house sold, Melinda moved back to Brockville, although it feels to her sometimes as if she never really left. “We have always been a close-knit family, and I was always coming home for week-ends, birthdays, that sort of thing. That’s not to say it wasn’t a change to actually leave the Ottawa area and re-settle in Brockville.”

Because of the close proximity to Ottawa, Melinda had watched Brockville change and grow since the 60s. “The core has not lost its charm, although I still regret the loss of the lovely old Revere Hotel, which once graced the site now occupied by the Bank of Nova Scotia.” As Melinda sees it, “After a decline, there has been a rejuvenation in the downtown area. Brockville will only improve. Over the years, I have seen communities go through amazing tranisitons. To give two examples, in the 80s I lived on a hobby farm just outside Carleton Place and watched that town revive from a depressed community with boarded up shop fronts to its present vibrant state. More recently, I`ve been watching Kemptville go through the same process.“

Melinda continues to maintain her friendships in the Ottawa area, where she still boards her Arabian gelding. However, on returning to Brockville, she made a point of joining The Newcomers Club of Brockville through which she was able to find and take advantage of groups of interest much more quickly than she could have done alone.

Asked what she does with her spare time now that she is retired, Melinda is adamant that she absolutely loves leisurely mornings. “When I worked, I was up at the crack of dawn to commute into Ottawa. It was always a rush, since I`ve never been a morning person. Now, I read the paper, drink coffee, and stay in my jammies all morning if I want to.”

“I do see my horse almost daily, but it’s not a long drive and there isn’t that urgency to be there at a certain time.”

In addition to her long mornings and visits to her horse, Melinda loves to cook and garden and has joined two book clubs offered by The Newcomers Club. She has recently taken up Irish set dancing. “A family friend had also lived in Ireland. She is an accomplished set dancer and has introduced me to it. As we get older, we need to work harder to maintain a healthy life style and keep moving. Stretch, limber up, but move! Set dancing does that. ” To that end, Melinda has also taken out a membership in the local Curves.

Asked if she would stay in Brockville, Melinda says that she has never been good at planning too far into the future, finding it easier to live for the moment and enjoy each day. “I've never had a rigid game plan. I’ve always built on past experiences. In the meantime, I enjoy living in Brockville. I'm watching the transition of our downtown with great interest. There are positive developments and we are moving forward well. The waterfront is beautiful now compared to when I lived here years ago. Brockville is a fine town.”