The only thing I remember about the road trip from Winnipeg to Calgary is an image of sitting in the back seat of the car as we pulled out of the city, and the expectation of something exciting to come. I had just turned 10 when Dad accepted a teaching position in Calgary.

The move must have been heart-wrenching for Mom, pregnant at the time and leaving her own mother behind. Nan would be alone in Winnipeg – my grandfather had died when I was 5 and my two uncles had moved to Vancouver and the US before I was born. As a child I never gave this much thought, never imagining I’d be in the same situation when Larry and I moved our own family back east to Ontario.

Little brother Paul joined us that year. Now we were four!

I finished elementary school along the same happy trajectory that had begun in Winnipeg. I immediately loved my class and made friends quickly. Spare time was full of dodge ball, marbles, double Dutch skipping, hide-and-seek, biking, and hanging out with my best friend. I smile when I think of my time as a “school patrol”: we got to leave a few minutes early each day to stand with our bright orange criss-cross straps and our STOP signs as we guided younger students across the intersection. Our student leader blew a whistle to manage traffic – you’d never see youngsters like us in that position today!

PIANO LESSONS

Uh oh… I remember adoring piano lessons in Winnipeg, with a delightful instructor who taught from his wheelchair alongside. I was less fortunate in Calgary – my perfectionist teacher there reassigned the same classical piece over and over, week after week after week (I was… uh…10). She told me I’d always have problems stretching to reach full octave chords and suggested that I work on wearing down the webbing between my fingers… simply by rubbing another finger back and forth between each in every free moment. I guess she believed it would work like water eroding a stream bed….

Dad took to waking me up early for practice sessions each morning while he’d doze on the sofa nearby, but I became more intent at staring at the music in front of me to learn its intricacies, or to work on my duck webbing than to actually practice that gawd-forsaken piece of music. Lessons ended not long afterwards. I still like the piano and I still play it from time to time but other interests have filled my life.

The school year ended with class excitement about moving on to Junior High School, but unfortunately our house was positioned on the dividing line between the two potential schools and I was terribly disappointed to learn that I would not be attending the same one as my friends. As it happened, I was invited to attend an Honours program at a school in a different district and we agreed to the move. It coincided with Dad’s promotion in a new school nearby so we moved that summer to a brand new neighbourhood.